Chapter 7

“And my balls are always bouncing,

and my ballroom always full.

And everybody comes and comes again.

If your name is on the guest list,

no one can take you higher.

Everybody says I’ve got great balls of fire.”

-AC/DC, “Big Balls”

Helena reached the dance floor and looked toward the table where Troy, Julie, and Maria sat. Before she could walk over to them, she was surrounded by young men in expensive tuxedos, all wanting to share the first dance with La Contessa. Soon, Troy lost sight of her through the men descending upon her. A look over at the two ladies who sat with him revealed smaller predator packs who’d realized they had no shot at La Contessa flocking around his wife and La Contessa’s maid, asking to have the first dance with them.

Maria enjoyed the attention and chose one of the boys to escort her to the dance floor. Julie stole her seat closer to Troy and replied with a complicated hand gesture that involved pointing to Troy, flashing her wedding ring, and then picking up her drink to show she already had one. The pack quickly moved on to try other prey.

The crowd of men around the landing parted and Helena appeared at their table, taking the seat Julie had just vacated.

“Hello, you two. Glad you could make it. Sorry about your entrance, figured you wouldn’t want your pictures in every scandal rag in Europe.”

Troy took a sip of his drink. “Helen, we got to enter a CASTLE through a SECRET PASSAGE! You have nothing to apologize about.”

Helen smiled; a real one. It got bigger as she turned to Julie. “Love this ensemble, Julie.”

Julie smiled back, sensing the sincerity. “Thanks. Yours is amazing too. I expected no less, Helena.”

“Well, on the subject of things you expected, I gave the...” She jerked her thumb toward the men that were dispersing from where she’d been, turning it into a wanking gesture at the end. “Billionaire Boys’ Club over there the brushoff in order to exercise my privilege as hostess and Contessa to choose my partner for the first dance.” Julie gave a nod, Helen turned back to Troy as she stood. “Been keeping up on your waltz, Mr. Equals?”

“No,” Troy said, standing. “But give me a minuet and I’m sure it’ll all come Bach to me.”

“Feel free to keep him after that one,” Julie said, taking a drink.

“Careful, hon, you know I just might. Oh, your gift bags each have an extra iPad for your two friends and there’s another bag for you to take back to your friend from the party who didn’t come along. Tell those girls if we ever meet again, I expect them to be EARNED,” and with a wink, Helena led Troy to the dance floor.

Once they were gone, another well-dressed man approached Julie. She smiled, gulped down the last of her drink, said “Fuck it, yeah,” and took his hand.

“People are looking at us to start dancing, Helen,” Troy whispered into her ear.

She inhaled deeply and replied as a sigh. “Emay e Komissa, Troy. Thah perimenateh.”

“You ARE the Countess, and they WILL wait, it’s just getting a little weird.”

“Dammit, Troilus, just fuckin’ hold me a second here.”

“Ok.”

She took two more deep breaths before leaning back, taking one hand from around him, and holding his with it. A nod, and the dance began.

“So, what you did with the crowd at the end of your speech? We both caught that.”

“That was for you. Julie can take care of herself in a room like this. You’re a decent person, Troy; and these people are sharks.”

“I know you’ll save me.”

“Hey, I’m not locked in here with them, they’re locked in here with me.”

“Just like Maria?”

Helen lost half a step, then recovered.

“It’s not like that at all. Maria is happy and I’m happy to have her.”

“So she says. In fact, she’s the first to defend you. You’ve taken everything from her and she still defended you when Julie ... well, it was the kind of joke she’d tell to your face anyway; it wouldn’t really work now.”

“Hostility has never become you, Troy. What else is wrong?”

It was Troy’s turn to lose a step. He swallowed before continuing.

“Susan, the other woman at the bachelor party; the one who didn’t come here with us.”

Helena leaned back and looked in Troy’s eyes.

“She’s important to you.”

“And to Julie.”

“Yeah, but she’s more important to you. Ok, I’m sorry; she’s off limits.”

“Thanks. That was easier than I expected.”

“For one of us, anyway. You used to get that look in your eye when you talked about me. It’s not the Julie look, but it’s still nice. I wasn’t able to accept settling for it; maybe she can.”

“Helen, she’s had the kind of life you might have if not for an old Greek man with strange fashion sense who loved you just as much as he loved his great grandson; and two friends who taught her how to do this thing they learned.” Helen stopped dancing and stepped away from him at that.

“You’re going to teach her, aren’t you?” Troy nodded. “You love her.”

“Not as much as Julie, but yes. They’re both ok with that.”

Helen put her arms around him again with a small laugh.

“Troilus, any woman who loves you understands what I figured out years ago: If there was a fire and you could only save me or Julie, I’m dead.”

“I’d go back for you.”

“No you wouldn’t. Because Julie wouldn’t let you go back in without her and then you’d both die. Whatever you two think of me, I couldn’t have that.”

“We love you, Helen. We wish you’d come back to us.”

“I can’t now. I’m in too deep here. They made me a statue, there are oil paintings of me in galleries; tourists buy pictures and postcards of them. I don’t have the luxury of just handing it all to Maria and walking away and becoming a ‘Hey, Whatever Became Of’ joke on VH-1 in 10 years.”

“So, you do plan to give Maria her due?”

“If anything ever happens to me, yes. Hopefully, I’ve taught her something about how to be a decent ruler and take care of the people.”

The song ended and the dancing stopped. Troy hugged Helen again.

“Helen, I know that by your own twisted definition of the word, you love Maria. You’re HER Proyiayia now. Propappou would be proud of what you’ve made of yourself, but not how you’ve gone about it.”

“You could help; with Maria AND San Finzione. We could definitely use a top-notch economist to be our Minister of Finance. And Julie would be a great Minister of Art and Culture.”

“We like our quiet life below radar, you know that.”

“And I’m allergic to white picket fences, so I don’t see either of us coming away with what we want here.”

Troy hugged her again. “I got to have a dance with someone I dearly love and have missed. I’ll be satisfied with that.”