“Um,” I stammered. “He has children?”
“A girl, five years old, named Madeline. It was in the news, but you don’t remember, I suppose.” Julie’s voice turned impatient, despite the fact that she hired me precisely because I wouldn’t care about such things, much less remember them. “Madeline’s mother was a pop star in France; she cut a solo album on a U.S. record label a few years back. That was the high point of her career. Maybe you’ve heard of her? Celine?”
The name was familiar. “What happened to her? The mother, I mean. Does she have shared custody?”
“The details shouldn’t concern you.” Julie was back to the brusque, professional version of herself. “Not that they wouldn’t be hard to find if you went looking for them. But I’d advise you not to buy into every overblown story you read in the tabloids. That business with his wife, with Celine, the drug use.… He’s been sober for a while now. That’s all you really need to know.”
“Oh,” I said. “I’m glad to hear it.” My voice didn’t have much conviction in it.
“Listen, Jane.” She looked pointedly in my eyes. “Nico Rathburn is a devoted father. That bad-boy stuff is old news. Besides” — she paused for emphasis — “the pay is excellent. You’ll be living in a mansion in Connecticut. And you’ll get… you’ll get proximity to one of the gods of rock-and-roll music. You do know how many nannies would kill for this position, right?” She rifled through a folder and drew out a document on legal-size paper. “You’re a lucky, lucky girl.”
CHAPTER 2
Despite Julie’s advice, I spent my last evening on campus in the library computer lab, reading everything I could find about Nico Rathburn. It wasn’t so much that I cared about the story of his love life, criminal record, and meteoric rise to stardom; if anything, the details made my stomach twist in knots. But I believe in being prepared.
The lab was air-conditioned to an Antarctic chill, and I thought longingly of the lone sweater still hanging in my closet. Classes were over, and apart from me the lab was empty. Every now and then I’d hear laughter and shouts as groups of students passed the window on their way to some celebration of the semester’s end.
It didn’t take me long to find an astonishing amount of information about my new employer, little of it reassuring. Rathburn’s early press was mostly positive, fawningly so. The Rathburn Band had weathered middling success for a while, playing clubs up and down the East Coast until their third album bowled the critics over and became a breakaway hit. I could remember that album blaring from behind the locked door of Mark’s room every afternoon for months. One song in particular, “Wrong Way Down a One-Way Street,” played irritatingly in my brain as I read record reviews and Wikipedia articles, my eyes glazing over. Nicholas Rathburn’s Wichita boyhood had been unremarkable. An indifferent student, he disappointed his parents by running off to Brooklyn and starting up a band instead of going to Kansas State. Rathburn and his bandmates had shot abruptly from obscurity to fame — a Rolling Stone cover, multiple platinum records, international tours.
At a fan site I discovered photos of Nico Rathburn at the peak of his celebrity, in leather pants and mirrored sunglasses, dragging a blonde, miniskirted model past the paparazzi. There were many variations on that theme; the sunglasses remained the same, but the blonde girlfriends were interchangeable. At his official website, I found tons of in-concert photos, Rathburn grimacing in concentration as he played guitar or throttling the mike as he sang, head thrown back. Then there were the stagey professional shots — his dark hair fluffed up, his smoke-gray eyes fixed on the camera as though he were looking past it to the person who would be viewing the photo years later.
In his twenties, he cultivated a quieter look, exchanging the skin-tight leather pants and muscle shirts for black denim and plaid flannel. Despite his new low-key persona, he dated debutantes and actresses, and owned a penthouse apartment in Lower Manhattan, a villa on the Ligurian coast, and a mansion in the Hollywood hills. Many of the stories were about his wedding to Bibi Oliviera, a model who had just made her first appearance in Vogue. Unlike his other girlfriends, she was dark haired with sun-kissed skin, a big, engaging smile, and leaf-green eyes. They’d met in her native Brazil when she starred as the love interest in one of his music videos. On their first weekend together they’d gone out and gotten matching tattoos — a coiled green serpent with a heart clenched in its bared fangs on his left forearm, and its twin on her right one. A few days later, they flew to New York City and got married at city hall.
From the wedding onward, the news stories piled up, too many for me to read. I skimmed several. There were drug busts, minor car crashes, violent public fights and recriminations. In one strange episode, a male neighbor discovered Bibi shivering in her underwear, mascara dripping down her face, apparently disoriented, cowering on his front porch. “Nico locked me out,” she had told the policeman called to the scene. “It wasn’t really him — the devil was looking out at me from his eyes. I would have slit his throat if I’d had a knife.” Blurry photos documented this story; I lingered over them awhile. But for the snake tattoo, this version of Bibi looked nothing like her earlier, glamorous self. Skinny as a famine victim, black hair matted, she slouched between a pair of cops, her wide green eyes broadcasting panic. Someone had thought to throw a blanket over her shoulders at least; just looking at her made me feel cold and anxious. Still, I forced myself to read on. Bibi’s breakdown had led to a stint in celebrity rehab. Released after a few months, she seemed to be on track to recovery. She’d gone back to work and was even featured on the cover of Femme, but there didn’t seem to be much news about her after that.
A loud bang just outside the computer lab window startled me back into the present. It was only fireworks; more of them crackled and fizzed out on the lawn to laughter and cheering. Still, the noise had set my heart pounding, and a strong surge of foreboding seized me. In what kind of universe did people wander through their neighborhoods in lacy black panties, too stoned to care what other people thought of them, squandering their tremendous good fortune on cocaine and heroin? No universe I cared to live in. Still, I needed to understand what I was getting myself into. I took a few deep breaths, steadied my hands, and kept clicking.
Not long after Bibi’s release, the couple had separated. Nico Rathburn’s next album, a downbeat collection of songs about disillusionment and romantic dysfunction, was reviewed favorably — “Grown-up songs for sophisticated listeners,” the New York Times had called it — but didn’t get much airplay. Maybe the songs were too somber, or people were simply ready for the next big thing. He fired his band, telling the press he was ready to shift gears. I couldn’t find many articles from the months right after that, but then Rathburn began dating a French pop star so famous in her native country that she was known simply as Celine. The sheer volume of magazine articles gushing about the happy couple made my eyes start to glaze over. Fortunately, there wasn’t much more of the Nico Rathburn saga to get through. After their very public breakup, he sued her for custody of their daughter, Madeline. He won, bought an estate in Connecticut, and went into seclusion.
A recent People profile brought the story up to date. Rathburn had reunited the band to record another album — his “big comeback,” the article called it. His story was a bit sad, really, or so it seemed to me. All that success hadn’t kept him from having to woo the public all over again.
The computer lab closed at midnight. I made my way across campus, sticking to the well-lit paths, and slipped into the dorm and past the downstairs lounge, where I could hear laughter and music. I felt exhausted and sorry I had stayed up so late poring over celebrity gossip like an obsessed fan. I had to catch an early train in the morning. But after I brushed my teeth, pulled on my nightgown, and climbed into bed, my eyes refused to shut. I stared at the thin bands of street light playing around the edges of my window shade and tried to silence the voices in my head.
Of all the jobs I could have been chosen for, thi
s one seemed a peculiarly bad fit. Unlike most people, I wasn’t drawn to glamour and excitement; quite the opposite. I just wanted regular work and a steady paycheck. I’d seen what striving after fame and admiration could do to a person. My older sister, Jenna, had acted as a child. She was featured in a few local commercials and had some roles in community theater. After college she went off to New York City to pursue what she loftily referred to as “my career,” but after some disappointments — a lot of rejection and then a sizable role in a TV pilot that didn’t get picked up — she had gotten engaged to an investment banker and moved into his condo in Tribeca. Jenna and I hadn’t spoken since our parents’ funeral, but at the lunch afterward, she kept leaving the restaurant to smoke, winced almost imperceptibly whenever her fiancé spoke, and mentioned — twice — that she was just biding her time until the right opportunity came along. Jenna would have jumped at the chance I was being given to live in a mansion among the rich and famous. She’d be making plans to seduce and marry one of the rock star’s wealthy friends, if not the man himself. If she could see me now, panicking in the dark, she’d roll her eyes and call me anal-retentive and prissy.
The pay is good, I consoled myself. In fact, the amount Julie Draper had quoted me was much better than I’d hoped for. I’d be able to live very cheaply and save almost all of my earnings. If I could just last a year, I might even be able to go back to school, although probably not to Sarah Lawrence. Still, I would be able to earn my degree. My time in the alternate universe of coke-snorting rock stars and their strung-out wives and girlfriends would be brief.
In the meantime, I’d get by, doing exactly what I’d solemnly promised Julie Draper I would do before I signed a pile of legal documents relinquishing the right to sue her agency or Nico Rathburn if anything should go wrong: I would behave with absolute professionalism no matter what debauchery went on around me. I would stay as anonymous as possible, do my job, and blend in with the furniture. That should be easy. I’d never been the kind of person people notice.
The ride to Penn Station was packed with commuters; I got more than a few glares from men and women stuck behind me as I struggled to hoist my suitcases into the overhead rack. The outbound train to Connecticut was emptier; I chose a window seat so I could get a good look at the countryside where I would be living. Unlike my classmates, many of whom had spent semesters abroad and backpacked across Europe in the summer, I had never traveled much. My sister’s many auditions and occasional acting jobs had kept us close to our home just outside Philadelphia most summers, and my parents had never cared for traveling anyway. “We have everything we need right here,” my father would say. “We’re two hours from New York, two hours from Baltimore, two hours from the mountains, two hours from the shore. We’re right in the middle of everything.” We never went to any of those places, though.
Of course, there were school field trips to the zoo and to the natural history museum and out to Amish country. And my sister’s auditions often brought us into Center City Philadelphia after school. My mother would drive us in her Volvo, her hands tightly gripping the steering wheel. Once at our destination she would herd us nervously through the parking lot, so quickly that I never got a chance to look around. In the elevator, Jenna would fret about the wrinkles in her dress from sitting so long in the car, while Mom would check Jenna’s makeup and smooth down any flyaways in her curly auburn hair.
After Jenna and Mom were called into the office, I would read in the waiting room, losing myself in that day’s book. Jenna’s appointments usually took a few minutes or half an hour, but whenever she came out was too soon. Sometimes she would be snippy, dissatisfied with her dress or hair. “I’ll never get jobs if I don’t have the right clothes,” she’d complain. Other times, she’d be happy. “I nailed it, Mom, didn’t I? Don’t you think they liked me?” she’d say, and our mother would spend the whole ride home reassuring Jenna of her beauty, poise, and talent.
“Jenna got the looks and the personality,” I once heard Mom whisper to Dad over a six o’clock cocktail; she must have thought I was in the back room watching cartoons instead of behind the couch, playing spy. “Nature doesn’t play fair.”
“Jane’s good-looking enough,” Dad had responded in a voice meant to be consoling. “She’s shy, but she’ll come out of her shell. She’ll learn to compensate.”
“You think so?” The ice clinked and sizzled in Mom’s glass. “She’s so intense and serious. Not a very appealing personality. You really think she’ll grow out of it?”
I can’t remember my father’s reply or whether or not they caught me eavesdropping, but I do remember looking up compensate in the dictionary and being disappointed by the definition. I had hoped it would mean something like “blossom” or “grow up to surprise us with her poise and beauty.” I remember wishing on first stars and stray eyelashes for my wispy brown hair to grow thick and shiny so that Mom might decide I was pretty after all.
While the train halted in the tunnel for a signal, I checked my reflection in the dark glass. In high school, I had taught myself to do my hair so that it was at least neat — straight, parted down the middle, held in place by a French braid. Like Jenna, I was thin; how often had my suitemates marveled at my ability to eat heartily without gaining weight? Unlike Jenna, I’d never grown much in the way of breasts. She got the long legs too and stood a whole head above me. My nose was straight, my teeth okay, my mouth decently shaped but a bit thin in the lips. I’d inherited my father’s green eyes, not the long-lashed, ice-blue ones nature had given my mother and sister. In my white oxford blouse, I looked perfectly average, the opposite of flashy.
At the sight of my reflection in the train window, I felt a familiar deflation. I didn’t expend a lot of effort on my looks; I liked to think I had better things to do with my time than shop for lip gloss and clothes. In fact, I didn’t think about my appearance much, usually. Still, what girl doesn’t want to be pretty? At the movies, I’d identify with the inevitably gorgeous heroine and walk out believing myself a member of her species — willowy, glossy haired, graceful. Then, hurrying home, I’d catch my reflection in a shopwindow and be brought abruptly back to reality.
The train chugged to a start, daylight mercifully erasing my image. The morning had turned out crisp and nearly cloudless, a good day for a fresh start. I tried to settle back in my seat, to relax and collect myself. Calm, cool, capable, I silently repeated to myself. That’s what I’m going to be. Calm, cool, capable.
The ride passed too quickly. Before I felt remotely ready, the train was pulling into Old Saybrook station. I hurried to lug my bags out before the doors shut. As the agency had told me, a driver stood waiting, holding up a small cardboard sign with my name on it. Tall and leather-skinned with a full head of white hair, he nodded briskly when I walked up.
“I’m Jane Moore,” I said unnecessarily, holding out my hand, but he had already bent to gather up my bags.
“Nice to meet you, Miss Moore.” Had anyone ever called me that before?
“Oh, please, call me Jane.” He gestured for me to walk ahead of him, though of course I had no idea where we were going.
At the curb stood a black Range Rover; he opened the back door and motioned me in. “I’m Benjamin.”
Though I would have preferred to sit in front with him, I complied. He started up the car, and we made small talk about the landscape and the weather for a while. There were so many questions I wanted to ask: Was my new employer temperamental? Had he really sobered up? And what about Madeline, his daughter? Was she spoiled to death or overlooked by her career-driven father? Or both? Or neither? Was the house furnished in leopard skin? Would there be wild parties? But all of my inquiries would have sounded rude. Besides, I would have my answers soon enough. We rode most of the way in silence.
I suppose I shouldn’t have been surprised when we reached a tall green-painted iron fence next to a guardhouse; the gate swung open as we drove slowly up, and a man in uniform leaned out, waving
us in. The mansion loomed at the top of a hill, ornate and Tudor-style, with a massive turret and an imposing arch leading to the front entryway. Around it spread the widest, greenest lawn I had ever seen, and down the hill, a pair of swans bobbed on a small sparkling pond. Benjamin led me to the front door.
“I’ll see to it your bags are put in your room,” he said, and disappeared before I could thank him.
I inhaled as deeply as I could and rang the doorbell. A woman answered it — trim, high cheekboned, fortyish, in a simple royal blue dress. A pair of gold-rimmed glasses hung around her neck. “You must be Jane.” She shook my hand. “Welcome to Thornfield Park. I’m Lucia Porth; I manage the estate. You must be tired.” I detected a slight German accent.
“Not really.” I stepped into the foyer and glanced around quickly — marble floors, cathedral ceilings, a wrought-iron chandelier like something out of Masterpiece Theatre. “But thank you. For your concern, I mean.”
Lucia chuckled. “Of course. Let’s get you set up in your room, and then I’ll give you a tour. How does that sound?” I followed her past a living room that had an enormous fireplace and polished wood floors, then around a bend. The rooms we walked by were furnished in a surprisingly sedate style — leather sofas, heavy wooden tables, Oriental rugs, walls in varying shades of cream and tobacco — all very dark and masculine, with none of the funky zebra stripes and electric reds and purples I had been expecting. As we hurried along, I caught tantalizing glimpses of art — mostly abstract paintings in glowing jewel-like tones — hung almost offhandedly, over fireplaces and in hallway nooks.
“Was that a real Rothko?” I asked Lucia as we zoomed past a formal dining room, its long mahogany table accommodating a startling number of chairs.