Chapter 4
Honestly, I thought it would be worse. I thought Kat and Prim would never get used to live anywhere else than their home with their parents, or that they would never get used to have the entire DSPD upon their heads, looking after them when I was not around to do it. I thought Katniss would never be okay with having Johanna around given their little yet intense quarrel when this whole thing started… But two months into it, we were working just fine. The girls had gotten back to school –both of them had refused at first-, I myself had gotten used to having them in my home and things in Seven had gone back to normality: nothing interesting happening on the streets.
It was pretty boring, actually; maybe I hadn't realized it yet because I had never been this involved in the most exciting case of the month, but now I came to understand what Chaff had told me the first time I met him: I needed to find a hobby. ASAP.
Apparently, he had said the same thing to Haymitch, because he seemed to find very enjoyable to say the exact opposite thing to every single word I dared to come up with in his presence, no matter how important was the topic we were discussing; or throw little paper balls at my head when I finally got to find a mildly interesting article on the internet to focus my eyes and mind on; or answering my questions in the thickest version of a Capitol accent he could fake.
Your opinions are diametrically opposed to mine; I have to point it out, he'd say when I looked at him, silently begging for a bit of peace. Or: I just find it necessary to remind you the wonderful things about the place you come from. So far, my favorite one was: I don't like the crease on your forehead when you over-concentrate. Absolutely annoying.
"Trinket!" I heard Plutarch calling one day, all of a sudden, when I was playing solitaire on my computer.
By the sound of my last name on his voice, I knew things were about to get tough, so I went to his office and closed the door behind me.
"Would you mind to explain me this?" He said, throwing an envelope with the presidential symbol on his desk.
"It's a presidential letter…" I replied, my mind running as fast as it could through the possible answers to what it had to do with me.
"I can see that… Can you read the name of the person it is addressed to, please?"
I took the envelope and read it.
Ms. Euphemia Snow.
"Shit…" I whispered and automatically chided myself for that.
"I hope you have a very good and convincing explanation for this, Miss Trinket…"
I looked at him in genuine confusion. What could I say? That my original last name was, indeed, Snow? That I was the President's granddaughter but that I changed my name so people wouldn't relate me to him or his -my- family and that I did it for the most childish reason one could ever change their names? That would only lead to a long, long list of explanations I wasn't ready to give yet.
"I'm waiting, Trinket. Or should I call you Snow?" he said, and I realized I had been silent for too long.
"My name is Euphemia Trinket", I started. "It's legal, if that's what you're wondering. I changed it before I came to Seven."
"You changed it? So you are a Snow…"
"By blood, yes. My mother is Coriolanus Snow's eldest daughter, so…"
"But your father's last name is Trinket, I'm guessing? And you wanted to use it…"
I sighed. That, for instance, was one of the things I wasn't willing to discuss in that precise moment.
"No, I chose that one when I decided to change my name."
He looked at me like he was reading my face.
"Why would you do that, change your name?" He said in a laugh, as if what I had done was the stupidest, most ridiculous thing in the world. "You're the President's granddaughter! That's an absolute honor, don't you think?"
"For most people, I suppose…"
"Why not for you?"
Again: what could I say? That being a Snow didn't mean anything to me but being segregated by my own family? That being a single mother's daughter had brought me nothing but cruel jokes from my cousins and hostility from the rest of my relatives?
"Too much social pressure, I think…" I chose to reply.
"Finnick Odair seems to deal with it perfectly well…"
Of course, Finnick Odair. That drunk in fame, cynical bastard, my mind supplied.
"That's completely different. He needs the publicity, I don't. Yet, I really think that if he didn't have a dead father's last name to carry, he'd change it to Snow at once… See? Changing a name or not it's not that silly. We all have our motives. What would you change yours to?"
"Don't use Everdeen's distracting techniques on me, Trinket…" Plutarch half-smiled.
"Still, I'd like to know who you would be if not Plutarch Heavensbee…" I retorted him the half smile.
"He taught you well, huh?"
"I learnt from the best."
"Why 'Trinket'?"
"It's a long story I don't think you have the time to listen to… Plus, I have an official letter to read, don't I? I should get to it so the President won't be disappointed at my lack of punctuality, whatever he needs it to…"
Plutarch laughed.
"We're not done here, Trinket. Get out." He waved me to emphasize his point and I ran out the door.
Once in my desk, I opened the glorious envelope. It was a formal invitation to Snow's 90th Birthday Party.
"What's this?" Jo said, suddenly taking the sheet from my hands. "A boyfriend's letter?"
"Jo!" I chided her and took the sheet back. "Seriously, what on Panem is wrong with your manners?"
"Whose birthday party you're invited to?"
"No one you should know about…"
"Oh, come on!"
Johanna took the sheet again and read it. Then she looked at me, frowning.
"That's what I call being a very important person…" She said, putting the sheet on my desk and then crossed her arms over her chest. "President Snow, really?"
In the corner of my eye, I saw Haymitch lift his head and look at me.
"I'm not going…" I declared.
"But is the most exciting event of the year!" Johanna exclaimed, in a perfectly fake Capitol accent. "And you've got an official invite! That's gotta be important…"
I narrowed my eyes at her and sat down on my chair.
"Seriously, though", she went on. "Since when do you know the guy in person? 'Cause you never talk about your life back in the Capitol…"
"And this is not the exception to that rule, Jo. I would really appreciate it if you let it go", I said, more firmly than kindly.
"I will find out, you know…" she smirked and walked away. "We're not done here."
How many times would I have to hear that phrase? Apparently, and fortunately, that was the last time that day.
I got home that night to find Katniss and Prim sleeping in the couch. The TV was on, so I assumed they were watching something. I put it off and went to the guest's room –my room now. I had already taken off my shoes by the door when I heard the soft steps behind me.
"Hey… How was your day?" Katniss asked.
I looked at her over my shoulder and smiled.
"Boring as usual", I said, turning around to hug her. "You never ask me that question. What's wrong?"
She hugged me tighter. Okay, there was something wrong.
"I was thinking about them today…" She started, burying her face in my shoulder. "It's been two whole months, you know? This Friday…"
I ran my fingers through her hair.
"Yes, sweetie, I know…" I whispered before dropping a kiss to the top of her head.
"I didn't want to ask you this before… But I want to go to the cemetery on Friday. Prim too. After school. Put some flowers on their graves…"
"Of course, darling… I'll take you there" I kissed her again.
"It's gonna be so sad…" Her voice cracked.
I couldn't reply to that. It was going to be really sad.
"You want a cheer up?" I said, without really thinking on my next line.
She nodded.
"I've been recently invited to a birthday party in the Capitol. According to Jo, it's going to be the most exciting event of the year…"
"What, you got an invite to the President's birthday party or something?" She said, chuckling.
"Perhaps…" I answered.
She pulled away and looked at me with narrow eyes.
"You did?" She asked.
I just laughed.
"How? When?" She inquired, her eyes widening.
"This morning, via my grandfather." There was no point on lying to Katniss. I didn't tell her who was my grandfather, though, but if she was the tiniest bit like her dad, she'd find out sooner or later.
"You know the Snow family?"
"I do, yes… You want to go?" Of course she wanted. She had asked if I knew the Snow family, and given that Katniss was 16, the family part could only mean Peeta or Finnick. She might be a little too mature for her age, but there was no girl in Panem who wasn't drooling about the President's two youngest grandsons.
"I don't own any fancy dresses…" she mused.
"That's easy: you go to the store with Prim and you buy some. I don't want Finnick or Peeta disappointing on your looks…"
Kat blushed crimson.
"I don't… know what you're talking about", she said, faking a pout of indifference that soon turned into a wide smile. "Thank you…"
I hugged her again and sent her to wake her sister up and go to bed. I stood by the guest's room door watching her tell Prim about the party and then both of them laughing in excitement, and I prayed for that smile to stay forever in their faces.
On Friday, however, the smile didn't show up at all. The girls were silent all the way from the school to the cemetery and stayed so for a while when we got to their parents' graves.
When Katniss started to talk as if she was talking to them, I walked away slowly. I didn't like it when people heard my soliloquies with my mother or with Deen, so I thought they'd appreciate a little space.
"Thought you didn't like these places…" Haymitch's voice behind me took me out of my thoughts.
"What are you doing here?" I asked without looking at him.
"I come here every Friday."
"Never pegged you as the romantic guy…"
"Who says I am?"
"You're the one who puts a lily on her grave, aren't you?" I turned around to face him.
He frowned, confused and a bit surprised.
"I come every week too…" I confessed, bowing my head a little.
"Never pegged you as the moping friend…" He said, smirking.
"I don't mope, thank you very much." I turned to the girls again.
"'Course you don't…"
We stayed silent for like two minutes before Haymitch spoke again.
"It's their first time?" He asked, pointing to the girls with his chin.
"It is…" I said quietly.
"Who wanted to come?"
"Both, I think. Katniss asked me to bring her and Prim here today. It's been two months."
"How they doing?"
"Better than I expected. They don't cry as often as they did at first… They're tough girls, you know…"
"So was Meg…"
I could have easily disagreed with that. I prided myself on being a tough girl, and to me that mere concept meant to be strong enough to deal with whatever problem, pain or sorrow is haunting you. Kill yourself because you can't move on with your life after a tragedy of these proportions? That's outright coward, let alone selfish. If suicide was an option for tough girls, I could have done that; after all, I had no one to hang on for in this fucked up world, no one who'd have missed me, no one to fight for. But Meg had Katniss and Prim; she was their mother and they needed her. You don't do that when you have someone to live for. You don't just stop existing and leave them to their fates. You just don't.
"You have to be too coward and equally brave to take your own life, you know…" Haymitch said, suddenly. "It's like throwing a big 'back off' in God's face. Your life is yours; you do what you want with it. You choose to live it with all its ups and downs or you just don't. She chose the last one, and I respect that decision."
I looked at him and studied his face. His expression was serious and sad but calmed at the same time, and my mind took two different lines of thoughts: I wondered if he was aware of our kind of mental connection, or if he could tell when he was sort of reading my mind and answering out loud to my tacit questions or when I was actually asking or saying something. On the other hand, I wondered if he had finally accepted the fact that Meg would never come back and if he had made his peace with it. Wholeheartedly, I hoped so.
"I'm taking Kat and Prim to the President's party tonight", I blurted out, without really thinking of it, after a long moment while neither of us said anything.
"You said you weren't going", he replied, frowning. "Johanna will flip out when she finds out you didn't take her too…"
I laughed at that.
"Oh, yes, she was so excited to come… How inconsiderate of me!" I said, smiling. "Still, I'm doing it for them. They could use some distraction now and then…"
"Yeah, right… Like you can actually wait to wear that pink dress you've been saving for the occasion", he mocked.
"What's wrong with pink?" I asked, unconsciously.
His smirk grew wider.
"So it is pink, huh?" He said, raising his eyebrows in amusement. "Wow, I should quit the cop job and start my own fortune-telling business…"
"If that keeps you and your constant poking away from me, I might even invest on it…" I replied.
He just chuckled.
"Put this on her grave for me, would you?" he said, handing me a lily and starting to walk away.
I stared at it for two seconds.
"It's her favorite flower, isn't it?" I asked, trying not to be loud. He was too far already.
Haymitch just winked at me and kept going.
A/N: Hey guys! Thank you so much for reading! I hope you liked this one :) We're getting to the Capitol, people... Watch out for next chapter and please leave a review!
As always, free thank-you hugs for everybody and a big, fat lot of love,
Liv :)