For half a second, I’m told, he remembered my warning from that morning.
And then he dismissed it, because the woman who’d said it was the woman who asked him for grocery money, and a mind like his could not hold both of those facts at the same time.
When Seraphina called him sobbing that I’d somehow gotten myself treated like royalty at a spa, he decided I must have flattered my way into someone’s good graces, and he reached for his phone in a fury.
“Be in front of the Grand Pinnacle at eight,” he told me when I answered.
“You’re going to get on your knees in front of Seraphina and beg her forgiveness.
If you don’t, I’ll make sure no decent school in this city ever takes Poppy.”
There was a long silence on my end of the line.
He mistook it, I think, for fear.
“We’ll be there,” I said, and hung up.
Chapter 8 — The Gala