Wildest Dreams (The Contemporary Collection) Read Free Page B

some little kid.” The frustration she felt was strong in her voice.
    Mimi looked at her and smiled. “So ancient, then, yes? But there are still things that you do not know, nor should you until you are of an age to understand.”
    Joletta had looked at her with her lips pressed together. “When will that be?”
    Mimi sighed. “Who can say? For some it never comes, this understanding. But put the book away for me now, then come back and let me tell you something.”
    Joletta had obeyed, though without grace. At her grandmother’s gesture, she had climbed up to perch on the side of the high bed. Mimi reached out to touch her face, cupping her pointed chin in a smooth, timeworn hand.
    “You were named for your grandmother Violet, did you know? Joletta is a Latin form of Violet. You are also very like her. Your eyes are not so brown and have little flecks of rust; your hair is a shade or two lighter, I expect from the sun — Violet probably never went into the sun in her life without her hat and parasol. Still, you have the same bone structure, the same brows and nose — especially the nose. Le nez, the nose of the perfumer.”
    “Do I? Do I, really?” Joletta was breathless with pleasure at the idea.
    Mimi gave a slow nod. “I have noticed it. One day you will look almost exactly like her.”
    “But she’s so pretty.”
    “So are you, chère; haven’t I always told you so?” Mimi’s tone was faintly scolding.
    “Yes, but you would say it anyway.” It was not Mimi’s love Joletta doubted, but herself.
    Mimi reached out then to smooth her hair. “Don’t worry, one day you will see it. And you will have Violet’s spirit, too, I think. You are such a quiet little thing most of the time, but you have wild dreams inside that will someday burst free. You can be led, easily persuaded with reason, but not pushed. You will give and give until it’s that last tiny bit too much, and then you will turn and fight, fight without counting the cost, perhaps even without mercy. I fear for you sometimes, little one. You need so much to have happiness and a heart at ease, and you can be hurt so badly if you are not careful.”
    Looking at the miniature now, Joletta could not quite remember everything her grandmother had said, but she recalled enough to make her stare hard at the features of Violet Fossier.
    Thinking back, she wondered, too, if there had not been more to Mimi’s refusal to let her read the journal than she suspected at the time. She wondered if there wasn’t something a bit shameful in the pages, some dark family secret that Mimi thought she was too innocent to see. Mimi had been like that. Because she had been convent school taught and gone chaste to her marriage bed, she assumed her daughters and granddaughters were just as pure. It was sweet of her, but an impossible image to live up to.
    Was she really like Violet Fossier? Joletta tilted her head as she considered it. She was near the same age now as Violet had been when the miniature was done. There might be some resemblance, but the difference in the hairstyle, the clothes, and the expression made it difficult to be sure. If the resemblance was there, it was only superficial. Joletta knew with wry acceptance that she had never been so fascinating as the woman in the miniature. She was an independent female with a job she enjoyed, her own apartment, and no steady man anywhere in sight. The only thing definitely the same was the nose.
    She stood still, breathing gently in and out, testing the accumulated scents of the room. Yes, she had the nose.
    There was never a time when she had not been aware of the infinite variety of smells in the space around her. She had thought everyone must inhale them as easily as she did, must note them, catalog them, sometimes turn their heads to follow them. She knew differently now. Some people recognized the majority of the scents about them but not all, some caught no more than half, while still others seemed to