The Villa

why you're having a snit-fit because Dad's hanging with Pilar. He's hung with women before."
    "You're so stupid." Every dreg of disgust gathered in her voice. "He's not hanging out with her, putz-face. He's in love with her."
    "Get out. What do you know?" But his stomach did a funny little jump as he dragged a bag of chips off his dresser. "Man."
    "It's going to change everything. That's the way it works." There was a terrible pressure in her chest, but she got to her feet. "Nothing's ever going to be the same again, and that sucks out loud."
    "Nothing's been the same. Not since Mom took off."
    "It got better." The tears wanted to escape, but rather than let them fall in front of him, she stormed out of the room.
    "Yeah," Theo muttered. "But it didn't stay the same."
     
    Sophia hoped air, cold and clear, would blow some of the clouds from her mind. She had to think, and think precisely. She was spinning as quickly as she could, but the newscast had caused some damage. Too often the first impression was all people ever remembered.
    Now her job was to shift that impression. To show the public that while Giambelli had been violated, the company had done nothing to violate the public. That took more than words, she knew, more even than placement and delivery. It took tangible action.
    If her grandparents weren't even now packed for Italy, she would have urged them to do so. To be visible at the source of the problem. Not to fall back on the safety of "no comment" but to comment often and to comment specifically. Use the company name again and again, she thought, making mental notes. Make it personal, make the company breathe.
    But… they had to tread carefully around Margaret Bowers. Sympathy, of course, but not so much it implied responsibility.
    To do that, to help them do that, Sophia had to stop thinking of Margaret as a person.
    If that was cold, she would be cold. And deal with her conscience later.
    She stood at the edge of the vineyard. It was guarded, she thought, against pests, disease, the vagaries of weather. Whatever threatened to invade or damage it was fought against. This was no different. She'd fight the war, and on her terms. She wouldn't regret any act that won it.
    She caught a shadow of movement. "Who's there?" Her mind leaped toward trespasser, saboteur. Murderer. Without hesitation she charged, and found her arms full of struggling young girl.
    "Let go! I can be here. I'm allowed."
    "Sorry. I'm sorry." Sophia stepped back. "You scared me."
    She hadn't looked scared, Maddy thought. But she had looked scary. "I'm not doing anything wrong."
    "I didn't say you were. I said you scared me. I guess we're all a little jumpy right now. Look…"
    She caught the glimmer of tears on the girl's cheeks. As she didn't like having her own crying jags brought into issue, she gave Maddy the same consideration.
    "I just came out to clear my head. Too much going on in there right now." Sophia glanced back at the house.
    "My father's working."
    There was just enough defense in the statement to have Sophia speculating. "There's a lot of pressure on him right now. On everybody. My grandparents are leaving for Italy first thing in the morning. I worry about them. They're not young anymore."
    After her father's rebuff, Sophia's casual confidence soothed. Still cautious, Maddy fell into step beside her. "They don't act old. Not, like, decrepit or anything."
    "No, they don't, do they? But still. I wish I could go instead, but they need me here right now."
    Maddy's lips trembled as she looked toward the lights of the guest house. Nobody, it seemed, needed her. Anywhere. "At least you've got something to do."
    "Yeah. Now if I could just figure out what to do next. So much going on."
    She slanted Maddy a look. The kid was wound up and sulking about something. Sophia remembered very well what it was like to be fourteen, wound up and sulking.
    Life was full of immediacy and intense moments at fourteen, she thought, that made professional crises seem like paper cuts.
    "I guess, on some level, we're in the same boat. My mother," she said when Maddy remained silent. "Your father. It's a little weird."
    Maddy shrugged, then hunched her shoulders. "I gotta go"
    "All right, but I'd like to tell you something. Woman to woman, daughter to daughter, whatever. My mother's gone a long time without someone, without a good man, to care about her. I don't know what it's been like for you, or your brother or your father. But for me, after the