But I wasn’t with her during the final days. Sheena was in and out of consciousness anyway, but as if she wanted to deny that it was happening herself, Mrs. Brittany had me remain at the estate, entertaining some of her important guests from Asia, CEOs of major companies.
“I know how upset you are,” she told me, “but this is a good test of your own abilities. Pleasing these guests is your first priority.”
I did what she asked. I hated it, but there was no question that the experience, the pain I had to hide, all of it, hardened me in ways that might otherwise have taken much longer. My first reaction was to hate her for forcing me to do it, especially when I thought Sheena needed me the most, but years later, I would find myself thanking her for showing me how to be stronger.
On the day after Sheena died, a day so heavy with gloom I thought we would all drown in shadows, I was surprised when Mrs. Brittany wanted to take a walk alone with me on the estate. Despite the heavy sadness we both carried, the sunshine gave us strength to talk about Sheena and rejoice in what we were able to share of her beauty and innocence. I realized that one other thing Sheena had done was to bring Mrs. Brittany and me closer, if only for a short while. I had the feeling that she was more revealing and intimate with me than she had been with anyone for some time, even her close companion, Mrs. Pratt. But she wasn’t one to accept sympathy or pity for very long. She practically took my head off when I said I felt sorry for her loss.
“Sorry for me. Don’t feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for Sheena. She’s the one who endured the pain and suffering all her life, thanks to my miserable daughter and her good-for-nothing husband. I’ll survive.”
“I just meant—”
“Never mind what you meant. Look, Roxy,” she said, stopping and turning that familiar hard, piercing gaze at me the way someone might aim a flashlight, “this is a very, very hard life for us, no matter how blessed we are with money or power. Turn everything into a life lesson. What you should understand is that you should never be ashamed of exploiting anything that will make life easier for you. I know that sounds bitter and cynical, but that’s what’s happening out there,” she said, nodding toward the world beyond her property.
“You don’t have to convince me of that anymore,” I told her, her hardness bringing back my own. “I didn’t exactly have the life of a little princess before I was brought to you.”
She smiled. “Good. I’m glad you haven’t lost your edge. It will keep you alive.” She straightened herself, pulling back those firm shoulders and becoming the Mrs. Brittany I had known and feared as much as respected.
“I hope so,” I said.
“I know so,” she replied. “You have wonderful instincts and qualities, strengths and insights, Roxy. You’re ready. I’m arranging for your apartment this week. Mr. Bob is on it all. I thought a great deal about your signature name, but in the end, it was Sheena who created it for you.”
“Really?”
“She wanted that to be her final gift to you.”
“What is it?”
“Fleur du Coeur, ‘flower of the heart,’ ” she said.
I smiled, remembering that the fern-leaf bleeding heart was her favorite. “I’m proud to have that name, Mrs. Brittany,” I said.
She nodded, and we walked on in silence. In a few short moments, she had resurrected the wall she kept tightly around herself. For a while, I had been her granddaughter’s best and only friend. I was practically her surrogate granddaughter, but that had died with Sheena.
There was to be no doubt in my mind or hers. I was back to being her employee.
Two days later, Mr. Bob came for me in a limousine similar to the one in which he had first brought me to Mrs. Brittany. Mrs. Pratt had decided what I would take with me and what I would leave behind. What I would take was packed and immediately put into the trunk of the limousine. Both Mrs. Pratt and Mrs. Brittany walked me out to the car, where Mr. Bob waited.
“We want you to settle in for a while before you go to work,” Mrs. Brittany said. “Bob will show you around your neighborhood, introduce you to the beautician and salon we’ve chosen for your coiffure and your manicure and pedicure. He will introduce you to the boutique I’m currently employing to provide you with wardrobe as it is required. He’ll also show you the cafés and restaurants to frequent. Your physical trainer will come to you twice a week. The schedule is already set. Your masseuse will also come to you, and that is scheduled, too.
“Basic foods have been delivered and will be replenished as they are needed. If you want something additional, just leave orders for it, and as long as it’s not something we disapprove of your having, you’ll have it delivered. You can eat in anytime, any meal you wish. You just order it. Bob has arranged all that for you, too. The phone numbers are there.”
“Your scheduled doctor appointments and dentist appointments will be posted in your kitchen,” Mrs. Pratt continued, “as are all of your important phone numbers. When you need or want your chauffeured car, you will call down for it.”
She handed me a leather-bound portfolio.
“In there,” Mrs. Brittany followed, “you will find your credit cards, your banking information, and your passport. There is a wall safe in your apartment. Your place is ultra-safe, lots of security, but we never trust anyone or anything. I have known wealthy men who love pilfering, either out of some mental sickness or some sick need for a souvenir. From your past, we know that you’re familiar enough with thievery to know how to prevent yourself from being anyone’s victim.”
“Yes,” I said. “Don’t worry about that.”
“I won’t worry. You worry,” she snapped back at me.
I pressed my lips together and nodded.
“Finally, let us remind you of your agreement, your responsibility not to involve anyone in your business unless we arrange for him or her to do that. You cannot invite anyone you wish to your apartment.”
“Whom would I invite?”
“I expect you will make some acquaintances, Roxy. Be careful,” she warned.
“Okay.”
“We’ll be around to visit in a few days.”
“When will I have my first assignment?”
“When I schedule it,” she said.
She nodded at the chauffeur, who opened the door for me.
“We don’t wish our girls good luck,” Mrs. Brittany said when I started to turn to get in. I paused. “We don’t believe luck has anything to do with anything. You make your own good or bad luck.”
“Well, I have to disagree,” I said.
Mrs. Pratt looked shocked. “What?”
“It was my good luck to have Mr. Bob notice me that day, wasn’t it?” I asked, smiling at Mr. Bob, who smiled back. “At least, I hope it was my good luck,” I added, and got into the limousine.
The chauffeur closed the door.
Mr. Bob spoke with Mrs. Pratt and Mrs. Brittany for a few moments, and then he got in on the other side. He still wore that little impish smirk as we started away.
“What is so funny?” I asked him.
“I was just thinking of the girl I brought here and the girl I’m leaving with today.”
“And?”
“It feels so damn good to be right,” he said.
I stared at him a moment, and then we both laughed.
The limousine turned out of the driveway. I looked back at the estate. In some ways, I did feel like someone who had graduated. I even felt a little affection for the grand place. Of course, most of the reason for that lay with my memories of Sheena, but in so many ways, it had become my home when I had lost my home. Mr. Bob once told me that Mrs. Brittany would replace my family. I never believed that fully in my heart, but for the moment, I had no choice. It was all I had. But sitting in this limousine, wearing clothes that cost as much as most people spent on their living needs for a month or two, and heading for an ultra-luxurious apartment with everything arranged for me, down to a bottle of orange juice, I had trouble feeling sorry for m
yself.
Maybe that was the ultimate lesson or power Mrs. Brittany had provided: Never feel sorry for yourself. That was when you became most vulnerable. And she was right, wasn’t she? It was a hard, bitter, and highly competitive world out there. It was no place for weak sisters. I had vowed when I arrived and I was vowing now as I left. I wouldn’t be a weak sister, ever.
The boutique hotel Mr. Bob brought me to was on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a very upscale neighborhood of very expensive apartments in high-security buildings, with doormen and private garages, expensive classy restaurants and cafés, designer shops and boutiques, and probably the cleanest streets in the city. The hotel was called the Beaux-Arts and consisted mainly of luxury apartments. It didn’t have a big or ostentatious lobby, and one look at the staff told me that discreetness and privacy were paramount. Mr. Bob had all the keys I needed before we arrived. No one was introduced to me formally, but I could see that everyone involved knew I was the new tenant. I wondered what name I was registered under and asked Mr. Bob when we stepped into the elevator, for which you had to have a key. My things were being brought up on another elevator.
“No name,” he replied. “Just an apartment number, 3C. No one calling you will be connected through a hotel switchboard. You have your own private line.”
“Mrs. Brittany doesn’t own this hotel, does she?”
“Let’s just say she has a majority interest. She usually does with anything and everything she depends on,” he said.
“That’s a careful woman.”
“She wouldn’t be where she is otherwise,” he said.
Where was she? I wanted to ask him. She was a woman without a real family. She had lost her husband, her daughter, and now her granddaughter. The family she had was the family she manufactured. Of course, at the moment, I couldn’t claim to have much more.
We stepped out of the elevator. I could see that there were only three apartments on the floor. Mine was the one on the right. It had a short marble-floored entry with a small but expensive-looking teardrop chandelier. There was a coat closet on the immediate right and a work of art on the opposite wall. It was a picture of a flower cut out of black velvet with pink cloth petals. There were artificial flowers everywhere.
Fleur du Coeur, I thought. The room was designed to fit my new image.
The entryway opened to a surprisingly large living room, with elegant leather and wood furniture. The centerpiece was a softly curved, L-shaped sectional that consisted of the sofa, corner back, and love seat. Directly across from it was a swivel accent chair with a round-bottom frame. Accent pillows were on everything. A matching coffee table and end table filled out the center of the room. To the right was a large panel window that looked east, and down from it was another, smaller panel window. A set of four different versions of what looked like the same flower was hung high on the far wall. The walls were faux-painted white with swirls of soft red and pink. The wooden floors were covered with a very large area rug that matched the furniture.
My eyes took in everything quickly—the sculptures, the lamps, and the bouquets of artificial flowers, and a fresh real plant at the center of the coffee table.
“They look like hearts,” Mr. Bob said.
I laughed. “Don’t you know my signature name?”
“Oh, right. Fleur du Coeur. Mrs. Brittany thinks of everything.”
“I guess so. They’re called Dicentra or bleeding heart.”
He looked at me. “Well, aren’t you the impressive one now.”
I shrugged. It did feel good to have knowledge, to be confident about things. Why didn’t I understand that when I was in school?
I continued to look at my new home. The floors were marble everywhere except in the living room, and the walls were faux-painted with the same white with pink swirls.
“It’s a beautiful place,” I said.
“Actually, it’s the biggest apartment in the hotel. Mrs. Brittany saw to that.”
“Are there any other Brittany girls here?”
“If there were and she wanted you to know, she would have told you.”
“Right,” I said. “We’re the CIA love machine, on a need-to-know basis only.”
He laughed. “Don’t lose your sense of humor,” he told me.
“Is that what it is?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Roxy, Roxy, Roxy,” he chanted as we went through the hallway to the living room. He showed me the dining room and the kitchen, where everything important—numbers, my schedule of doctor and dentist appointments, even my first manicure and pedicure appointment—was pinned on a board. He glanced around at the very modern, up-to-date appliances.
“What a waste of machinery,” he said.
“Why?”
“A kitchen is almost a vestigial organ for you,” he quipped.
“Is that so, Mr. Smart-Ass? For your information, I can cook if I want.”
He smiled skeptically.
“Maybe one night, I’ll make you a special dinner.”
“Looking forward to it. I love to be proven wrong when I benefit from that proof.”
We went down another short marble-floored hallway to a double-door bedroom. The centerpiece was my blazing-red bed shaped like a heart. The walls were papered with depictions of beautiful gardens. There was a mirror on the ceiling above the bed. The area rug was a tight-threaded crimson. The wood in the dresser, vanity table, and nightstands was rich cherry. My en suite bathroom was very large, with a Jacuzzi, a large shower, and a second bathtub.
“Flowers and hearts,” I said, looking at the bathroom. “Fleur du Coeur. Even here.”
“Mrs. Brittany takes her themes very seriously. Okay, let Laura get you unpacked,” he said, when my things were brought in followed by a middle-aged, slightly gray-haired woman in a maid’s uniform. “Laura’s here every day, of course. She’ll make your bed and change the linens, the towels. We send everything out to be washed, dry-cleaned, whatever. There’s a hamper in your bathroom. Laura will see to what has to be washed, and she’ll also see to your basic groceries.”
“So I don’t do anything here?”
“I wouldn’t say that,” he replied with his charming smile. “C’mon, let me show you around the neighborhood and take you to lunch.”
We left the hotel, crossed the street, and went up a few blocks to a salon, where I was introduced to the beautician Mrs. Brittany had chosen for me. After that, we stopped at one of the boutiques to meet the owner, who happened to be a woman from Lyon, France. We spoke in French for a few minutes, and then Mr. Bob took me to a delightful little café that happened to have the same name as the last restaurant Paul Lamont had taken me to, the one in Villefranche-sur-Mer, La Mère Germaine. For a few moments, memories came rushing back.
The delightful, flirtatious conversations, the passion that quickly had developed between us, bringing with it those long, demanding kisses, and the soft caresses that caused the sexual energy in me to turn my heart into a drum—it all seemed like a cruel joke now. They had nearly convinced me that I could fall in love and have a relationship in which he and I could grow old together, build a life together, with children and grandchildren.
When I thought back to all of that now, I couldn’t help but wonder if it had happened by design, if the entire thing had been another lesson Mrs. Brittany had created to harden my heart and form the cynicism that would enable me to be the kind of woman I was about to become. Perhaps she wanted me to be disillusioned, to snuff out the last vestiges of illusions and romance.
What difference did the truth make? Even if she hadn’t planned it that way, it was the way it was now. Whatever had remained in me that was still a young girl, with the dreams and fantasies young girls have and need to remain hopeful, was washed away. I was Fleur du Coeur in every respect, out for myself. There would be no false illusions, no disappointments. There would be no trust, no deep affections, and no deeply meaningful words or embraces.
And I wouldn’t be pitied for th
at. I would tolerate no sympathy. My eyes would be dead to the sight of mothers and daughters, fathers and daughters, sisters, and families, especially on holidays. The only gifts under my Christmas tree, if I had one, would be gifts I had given myself, and I was determined never to shed a tear over that.
Maybe, in a very ironic and cold way, I had become more like my father and his father and brother. I would bury my emotions under the mountains of rules and regulations that now governed my life. I would take orders and fulfill missions. I would keep my body fine-tuned, my beauty exquisite. I would bring strategy, plans, and discipline to every assignment, and just as they could send thousands of young men and women into battle accepting the projected casualties, I would willingly die a little inside to plant my flag atop the hill of material comfort, luxury, and pleasure.
“You all right?” Mr. Bob asked as we sat at a table near the front window. He saw how silent I had become.
Outside, the sidewalks were filling with people off to lunch, many in suits and ties, designer dresses, and fashionable outfits. Some were the wealthy, who lived in the expensive apartments. Everyone had that look of success and contentment. There were no homeless in this neighborhood, no lost girls from the roach hotels.
I do belong here, I thought. I’ve always belonged here.
“Yes,” I said. “I’m fine. Why?”
“Just for a moment, you looked more like that young girl I saw across the restaurant that first day, the innocent beauty who looked lost.”
“She died a while back,” I said, and reached for the menu.
“Miss her?”
“No,” I snapped back at him.
“Don’t lie to yourself, Roxy. Don’t ever do that.”
There were tears in my eyes, but I choked them back. When I was in one of my rages, Mama used to tell me that the worst lies were the lies you told yourself because you couldn’t hide from them.
“Put on a false face,” she’d said. “Rage, run away, be wild, do whatever to try to forget, but in the end, you’ll remember. I can’t guarantee anything for you in life, ma chère, but I can wish that my children don’t have to lie to themselves.”