“You don’t have much of a formal education, apparently, and it remains to be seen if you have any talent. Your looks can get you just so far on their own, and there are many girls your age who are just as attractive, if not more so. You probably have fifty cents in your pocket, no friends or, according to you, close relatives to turn to for some sort of assistance. You’re as close to being a homeless creature as can be. Have I summed you up correctly? Well? What do you say about all this?”
No one, not even my father, could bring tears into my eyes this quickly, but when I thought about what was outside her door for me and how right she was, I did feel sorry for myself.
“I don’t know what to say,” I said. “You seem to have said it all.”
“Well, I do know what you should say,” she said, her nostrils flaring. “I’ve seen girls like you all my life, and I know what happens to you. You’ll either go home or become a street prostitute and eventually a drug addict and die in some alley like the butterfly who died on the water and thought he had died on the moon.”
“What?”
“Can’t you imagine why he thought he had died on the moon?” she asked, smiling. It had the ring of a teacher testing to see if a student had read her homework assignment.
“Yes, I know why he would think that. He died on the reflection on the water.”
“Exactly. Not real, an illusion. Here we deal only in reality. I want to know more about you,” she said, folding her hands over each other on her lap and changing her tone to a more officious-sounding one. “I want to know about your family, what sort of things you have been doing, what you like and don’t like. But before I waste my time learning about you, I want to see if you can fit in here. My time is very valuable to me and to those who depend on me.”
“I still don’t really understand what being here means. Mr. Bob told me you train girls to be escorts. He said it’s something like geisha girls.”
“Geishas are probably more artistic, more talented, and more intelligent,” she said dryly, “but we’re something like that.”
“What about sex?” I said, convinced that Mr. Bob hadn’t told me the whole truth.
She bristled. “My girls are not prostitutes. You’ll never see any one of my girls on the street, and no one, and I mean no one, gets to any of my girls without first going through me and a highly selective process. In all the years I’ve been in business, I’m proud to say I have never had a single one of my girls harmed. They know how to handle themselves in just about every situation they might confront. More important, however, is the fact that the men they escort respect them, know they are bright and resourceful women. We have no bimbos here. My girls are refined, educated, and full of poise and self-confidence. You’re full of defiance. There’s a difference.”
“If you see so much wrong with me, why don’t you just ask Mr. Bob to bring me back to the city?” I shot back at her. I was tired of hearing how dreadful I was and how helpless.
She shrugged, undisturbed by the sharpness in my voice or the fury in my eyes. “Well, I haven’t seen enough of you yet, nor have my people, who will give you an honest assessment. Besides, Bob raved about you, and when Bob raves about a girl, I listen. Don’t tell him I said so. I don’t want his head to swell up, but he has an eye for just the sort of young woman who can be a success in my company.”
“Company?”
“Business. Don’t act thick,” she shot back, her eyes now taking on a blazing fury. I remembered what Bob had told me about her not suffering fools gladly. “This isn’t some hobby of mine. I’d think even someone like you, in your state of mind and with your background, could realize it.”
“I resent being anyone’s punching bag. Maybe I should leave,” I said.
“Maybe you should. I can see why you couldn’t stand being told what to do, whether it was your father or your teachers. Believe me, Roxy, as good as it might make you feel, being headstrong is not an advantage. Nine times out of ten, you’ll just hit a wall and land on your derrière. Here, obedience and following orders are not a disadvantage.”
“I didn’t check out of my father’s house just to enlist in another army,” I replied.
She held her gaze and then surprised me with a smile. “Army. I don’t think we’d fit any definition of that, but we have rules, discipline, and, most of all, expectations.”
She fixed her eyes on me and tightened the corners of her mouth. I could see her patience was wearing thin.
“Do you want to know more about all this, or don’t you?” she demanded.
I stared at her a few moments and thought. Nowhere in Mama’s or Papa’s imagination could either envision me sitting here in this mansion talking to this obviously very successful woman about becoming a high-class escort. How confident Papa must have been that first night and even days afterward that I would come running back, desperately pleading for his forgiveness. I was tempted to do this just to spite him, but even more so now, I was intrigued. Were those two beautiful young women in here when I arrived once just like me? How could I look at all this and not want to be part of it, especially with all that was promised to me?
“Yes,” I said. “I would.”
She nodded, and then a woman appeared, as if she had been waiting and listening to our conversation just outside the door. She was older than Mrs. Brittany, probably in her sixties, about my height, with beautiful gray hair pulled into a basic chignon. Mama often wore her hair that way. She told me “chignon” came from the French phrase chignon du cou, which means “nape of the neck,” but this woman looked more English than French. She stood so perfectly straight that I thought she must have a steel rod for a spine.
“Ah, Mrs. Pratt, just in time,” Mrs. Brittany said. “I’d like you to give our guest a little tour of the house and then bring her to my office when you’re finished.”
“Very good, madam,” Mrs. Pratt said. She had a very educated-sounding accent, reminding me of Mrs. Roster, who made her consonants so sharp she could cut your earlobes. This woman had a narrow face with thin lips and grayish-brown eyes beneath a pair of very stylish eyeglasses. I was up enough on women’s fashion to recognize a St. John dress. She was wearing one. Mama had two.
Mrs. Pratt nodded at me.
I looked at Mrs. Brittany. Either she wasn’t going to give this woman any more information about me or she already had told her what she knew thanks to Mr. Bob.
“Well, go on,” she said. “You don’t need my permission to breathe.” She laughed and then said, “At least, not yet.”
I rose quickly and followed Mrs. Pratt out of the sitting room and down the long, wide hallway.
“I hope it’s cooler out here,” I muttered. She looked at me but didn’t react to that.
“You can’t tell from the front of the house,” Mrs. Pratt began instead, speaking like a guide in a museum, “but Mrs. Brittany has added considerably to the original structure, which was considerable at the start.”
She looked at me in anticipation of some response. All I could think to say was, “Yes, considerable.”
We turned to the right and paused. She opened a door and flipped the light switch to reveal a fitness center as complete as any I had seen.
“Lance Martin is the fitness trainer,” she said. “He was on an Olympic swimming team. Mrs. Brittany insists that all her women be in the best possible shape. If you become part of the organization, you will undergo fitness training immediately and be put on dietary supplements. Mrs. Brittany’s chef, Gordon Leceister, is a registered dietitian, so you will be eating right most of the time.
“Now, if you look off to the right,” she added, nodding toward the fitness room, “you will see the tanning salon and spa. Olga Swensen is our masseuse. At one time, she had her own very famous spa in Stockholm.”
When I didn’t react, she added, “You know that Stockholm is in Sweden?”
“Of course,” I said.
“While the Swedes didn’t invent massage, their techniques are hig
hly regarded. You will have a massage daily in the beginning and then eventually weekly.”
“Weekly?” I asked. How long was I going to be there? She ignored me and flipped off the light. Across the hall were double doors that opened onto an indoor pool. It was lit, and I saw Camelia and Portia swimming with a good-looking young man who looked as if he didn’t have an inch of fat on his body.
“That’s Lance Martin,” Mrs. Pratt said.
Camelia and Portia, both in abbreviated bikinis, waved. I nodded. Mrs. Pratt saw the way I was staring at the three of them.
“Any relationships between Mrs. Brittany’s women and the staff are strictly forbidden,” she said. “That goes for relationships with men or women.”
I looked at her as if she was nuts, but she just turned and led me farther down the hallway. She opened a door on the left and again turned on the lights, this time to reveal a full beauty salon.
“Mrs. Brittany likes to rotate her beauticians and stylists periodically. This month, we have Claudine Laffette from Paris. She’s an expert at both cosmetics and hairstyling.”
“Does everyone come here to be made up and stuff?”
“Stuff?” she replied.
“I mean get their hair and makeup done.”
“This is a training facility. Our girls are first remade here, and then they return periodically, but those who are out in the field have their own fitness centers, salons, and favorite boutiques.”
“How long is the training?” I asked, this time more firmly.
She looked me up and down. “That depends on the candidate, of course. Suffice it to say, no one is brought here who doesn’t already have a great deal to recommend her. You have a beautiful figure, but you’re young. If you are not taught how to maintain it, it won’t service you for long.”
“Service me?”
“Everything we have, everything we do, is meant to service us, my dear. That’s something you have to realize as soon as possible. Unfortunately, most realize it too late,” she added.
I had often heard that people get to look like their pets, especially their dogs. Mrs. Pratt was not nearly as attractive as Mrs. Brittany, but she certainly took after her with her tone and attitude, especially toward me. Maybe mirroring Mrs. Brittany was the only way anyone could last working for her.
Just a few feet farther, she opened another door on the right and revealed a beautiful dining room. There were two dark maple tables, one that sat four and one that sat ten. The room looked about six feet larger than our dining room, with rich paneling and a hardwood floor. There were beautiful paintings of country scenes and lakes on the wall at my left and a full wall mirror at my right
“This is the main dining room?” I asked.
She laughed. “Hardly,” she said. “This is a classroom. Nigel Whitehouse, a famous restaurateur from London, conducts lessons in dining etiquette, appreciation of wines, and knowledge of some of the world’s most famous restaurants and recipes. When a girl leaves this room, any man she meets would think she was brought up in one of the finest royal families in Europe. The girls return periodically for updates and, shall we say, recertification.”
“My parents taught me dinner etiquette,” I said. “And I probably know as much about good wine as he does.”
She smiled. “I love it when a girl your age has such arrogance. It’s like watching a bullfight. Have you ever?”
“No.”
“You’ll learn about them. When a girl like you comes here with your attitude, it truly is like watching a bullfight. The bull is so strong and confident at the start. Slowly, the matador frustrates and frustrates it, forcing it to realize its failure and inadequacies until it practically falls on his sword.”
“That’s the first time I’ve been compared to a bull.”
“Really? No one’s called you bull-headed?”
I had to laugh. Papa had done that often. “I’m afraid someone has.”
“I understand you speak French?”
“Oui. J’ai parlé français toute ma vie. Parlez-vous français?”
“Bien sûr. That’s a big plus for you. Learning another language is always the most difficult thing for a trainee to accomplish, but Mrs. Brittany won’t put a girl into the field who doesn’t demonstrate sufficient proficiency with at least one other language. Many of our clients come from Europe, and they love it when an escort can speak their language.”
I looked at the dining room, thought about what I had been shown, and shook my head. “Learning another language?”
“Enough to fake it,” she replied, “but they continue to get lessons in the field. In a day or so,” she continued, “you’ll be shown the stables.”
“Stables?”
“Mrs. Brittany has three of the finest Arabian riding horses. Do you ride?”
“A horse?” I started to smile.
“Equestrianism is the art of horse riding. It teaches you grace and is excellent physical exercise. Many of Mrs. Brittany’s clients have private stables, and if you should be lucky enough to attract one of them, he could invite you to ride.”
“But I never . . .”
“Brendon Walsh is in charge of the stables and trains our girls. He was part of the Irish champion equestrian team.”
“Champion team, Olympic team, famous masseuse. Is anyone here just anybody?”
She laughed. “No, my dear. Everyone here is somebody. Let’s continue,” she said, and led me farther down the hall to another room, a beautiful library with what looked like hundreds of books if not more than a thousand, two computers, printers, and a rack of newspapers. A tall, thin man in a dark brown sports coat and brown slacks came out of an inner office. He had four books in his hands. He wore a pair of glasses in round frames and had his charcoal-gray hair pulled back and tied in a short ponytail.
“Ah, Professor Marx,” Mrs. Pratt said. “Roxy Wilcox might be your new student.”
“Excellent,” Professor Marx said, barely giving me a glance. He turned and began to place the books he carried in the bookcase on his right.
“I didn’t mean to create such excitement,” I muttered when we stepped out of the library.
Mrs. Pratt nearly laughed. She stopped with an extended smile. “Professor Marx is our resident intellectual. He was a college professor at one of the nation’s most prestigious universities.”
“What would I do in there?”
“You would be schooled in current events and historical background, along with the arts, literature, classical music, even pop and jazz. Of course, you need to have a good working knowledge of business and some math.”
“Math, too?” I groaned.
“Just to make it seem as though you know what the Pythagorean theorem means,” she said. “I’m kidding. You’ll get a smattering of the subject.”
“What about business?”
“Very important. Most of Mrs. Brittany’s clients are involved in high finance. You know the difference between a put and a call, shorting a stock, capital gains, things like that?”
“I know a great deal about that, actually,” I said. “My father is in finance.”
“Oh, that’s good. You’ll learn more about it, of course, have a deeper understanding. It’s all just information that will help you conduct an intelligent conversation. Don’t worry. It’s not that intense. Professor Marx is an expert in giving our girls just enough to convince any man that they’re not airheads.”
“I was lousy in school, but I’m not stupid, even though I’m sure I won’t know most of what he expects me to know,” I insisted.
“I wouldn’t be showing you around here if Mrs. Brittany thought you were stupid, Roxy. I assure you of that,” she replied. “You will also go to the library to meet with Professor Brenner, a retired speech and drama professor, who will give you speaking lessons.”
“Speaking lessons?”
“Improve your speaking, I should say. Make you more conscious of how you pronounce words, avoid slurring. You want to sound li
ke someone who deserves to be making the sort of money you’ll be making, don’t you? It’s all about impressing people, Roxy. Making good first impressions.”
I looked into the classroom dining room as we passed by it again and digested all she had told me so far, all that I had to learn and achieve.
“Professor Marx knows about all those subjects you listed?”
“As I said, he’ll make sure you know enough for your needs,” she replied.
“Really, Mrs. Pratt, I’d like to know, how long does this all take?”
“I told you it depends on the trainee, obviously. Some can’t hack it and are given a kill fee and sent on their way.”
“Kill fee?”
“Some money to leave with,” she said dryly. She looked at her watch.
“Is there anything else?” I asked.
“Training-wise?”
“Yes.”
“Mrs. Brittany herself will evaluate how you walk and move, whether you have proper poise, and she will instruct you in that regard.”
“You mean I don’t walk right or sit right?”
She looked at me and nodded. “You have a bit of a slouch. That must go, and when you walk, you tend to keep your head down, which makes you look insecure. But don’t worry. If she thinks you’re worth it, she’ll get you up to snuff. Let’s proceed to Mrs. Brittany’s office.”
She led me back into the main house, and we crossed in front of the stairway and went down another corridor. I couldn’t imagine how many maids were used to keep the place in shape. Jeffries stepped out of a room, nodded at us, and continued toward the front of the mansion. We paused at two beautiful tall light oak doors embossed with Greek nymphs in trees. Mrs. Pratt knocked on the door.
“Yes?” Mrs. Brittany said, and we entered. Mr. Bob was sitting off to the right on a beautiful black leather sofa. He had a brandy snifter in his hand.
Mrs. Brittany’s office was as large as, if not larger than, most living rooms, I thought. It was richly paneled, and behind her were large double windows. It was too dark by now to see what her view was. She sat behind an oversize dark oak desk with everything on it very neatly organized. There were framed pictures all over the wall on the left, many with politicians I recognized, and an oil portrait of her hung on the wall behind Mr. Bob. In it, she was probably twenty years younger, wearing a beautiful pearl-colored gown and a diamond tiara. There was no doubt that she had been a remarkably beautiful young woman.