What would happen if they suddenly found out I had a sister who worked for a high-priced escort service? Would it make me seem odder and forbidden, like someone who could spread a disease, or would it suddenly make me interesting to them? There were a few boys I found attractive and interesting. I wished one especially, Evan Styles, a sophomore, would give me a second glance, but that had yet to happen.
Evan was one of the more popular boys. His father was a mayoral assistant, an attorney, and he and Evan’s mother were often in New York magazines, photographed at charity events or government events. The question wasn’t whether there were any girls interested in Evan. The question was who wasn’t? Besides being bright and very good-looking, he had a winning personality. I knew our teachers were fond of him.
What would get him to look seriously at me?
I thought about Roxy. She was so well put together—her hair, her makeup, and the way her clothes fit. But it was that air of self-confidence that surprised me the most, the way she walked and held herself. Where did she learn how to do that if she had been thrown out onto the streets? Wouldn’t that make it far more difficult to have any self-confidence?
I looked at myself in the mirror. My hair was neat but dull, I thought. I wore nothing but a little lipstick, and that usually wore off or looked bland. I rarely wore earrings to school, and I was never excited about my clothes. Whenever Mama took me shopping for something new to wear, she always wondered aloud if my father would approve. I might as well be wearing a uniform. I’m in Papa’s private family army, I thought.
I need to buy something more attractive to wear. I’ve got to do something else with my hair, and I should wear more makeup to school.
Just a short look at Roxy had stirred all of these thoughts in my mind.
What would happen if I ever did speak to her and spent any time with her?
Maybe I shouldn’t think of the two of us as being like Cain and Abel in the Bible.
Maybe I should think of myself as Eve.
And of Roxy . . . as the snake.
4
“I need something new to wear to school,” I announced at breakfast the next morning.
“Why? What’s the special occasion?” Papa asked me.
“It’s nothing special. I look so drab and boring.”
“You’re going to school, not a gala ball,” he said.
“Now, Norton, a woman has to feel good about herself to do well in anything. Clothes are more important to us.”
“To you French, you mean,” Papa said, sipping his coffee. “She has nice enough clothes.”
“Nice but not what’s really in fashion,” I ventured.
He put his cup down and began to stir it again, which I knew was an indication that he was wrestling with two contradictory thoughts. While he did, he fixed his gaze on me with those searchlight eyes like some detective looking for a clue. Of course, I wondered the same thing I often did whenever I asked for something. Did Roxy ask for similar things? Did my asking set off new alarm bells in Papa? My heart was starting to thump.
“Fashion? Don’t become one of those clones, dressing like everyone else, thinking like everyone else,” Papa finally said.
“She’s not,” Mama said. “Look at the grades she gets and how well behaved she is. Her teachers have nothing but good things to say about her.” Mama looked at me and smiled. “I know exactly what she’s feeling. She’s a beautiful flower put in a pot and hidden in a closet. You can’t keep her a little girl forever, Norton.”
Papa grunted, which was something he would call a strategic retreat.
“I’ll take you shopping after school today,” Mama promised.
“I don’t want her wearing anything ridiculous,” Papa warned, “like those shirts that leave their middles naked.”
“You know they don’t let the girls look like that in her school, Norton.”
“They’re too lax in her school already. I’ve seen some of the girls there.”
“When?” Mama asked.
“Well, maybe not exactly there, but . . .”
“Norton, could you let this girl breathe, s’il vous plaît?”
He glanced at her and then at me.
“You’re the one who told me when we first met that if you hold a bird too tightly, you’ll crush its wings,” Mama added.
Papa stopped stirring his coffee. “Is that what you think happened?” he asked.
I knew exactly what he meant. He was referring to Roxy.
Mama blanched. I immediately regretted asking for anything.
She sucked in her breath and then stiffened. “We’re not going to make this into something more than it is,” she said. “It’s time your daughter had some new things to wear. I might buy myself a new dress, too,” she added. “You go to work, and let us enjoy being women, n’est-ce pas?”
Papa stared at her a moment. His eyes softened, and then he nodded. “Okay, okay. You’re right,” he said, holding up his hand.
He looked at me, and for a moment, I thought he wasn’t looking at me with any anger. He was looking at me with fear.
“I won’t get anything that would make you ashamed of me, Papa,” I said.
His eyes brightened, and he smiled. “I know. You’re my fille parfaite. Besides, what chance do I have with two French women?”
Mama rattled off some French expressions so quickly I couldn’t keep up, but Papa laughed.
The tension evaporated.
What would happen when I changed my hair and wore more makeup?
All day, I was excited about going shopping with Mama. When Chastity heard, she asked if she could come with us.
“Okay,” I said, “but we’re going right after school.”
“I’ll call my mother. I have her credit card. She’ll say yes, I’m sure. I haven’t bought anything new for a long time.” I didn’t say it, but I knew that was because she was hoping to lose weight.
Mama didn’t mind Chastity coming along with us. She was always hoping that I would have more of a social life at school and encouraged me to have friends.
I saw how she was eyeing the other girls around my age while she waited for us, checking out what they wore. I really didn’t have any stylish jeans or knit tops. The one-piece, drab-colored dresses I wore practically made me invisible. We went directly to the juniors section at Saks, and I began by trying on jeans. When I put on a pair with a tie-dye blue-and-white tunic in the dressing room and stepped out to show her, I saw the pride in Mama’s face.
“I didn’t realize what a beautiful figure you have already, Emmie,” she said. “You have a better figure at your age than your—”
She clamped her lips, her eyes watering with both pride and sorrow now. I realized that for the longest time, I had held back on being an active teenager, not because of any shyness but because I sensed that everything I would do and would want to do would stir up unpleasant memories of my sister for both my mother and my father. I knew that if Papa could keep me his little girl forever and ever, he would. Mama was caught between wanting me to do everything any girl my age could and should do, things she had done, and her sensitivity to Papa’s fears and emotions.
But whether or not it really was a result of my seeing Roxy beautiful and seemingly happy, I was suddenly experiencing a surge of feminine appetite. I, too, wanted to be beautiful, attractive, sexy, and buoyed by the same self-confidence I thought I had seen in Roxy.
Yes, I wanted clothing that would flatter my figure, a figure I had been keeping a secret, even from myself. Yes, I wanted my face to light up, use makeup to highlight my eyes and my lips. Yes, I wanted boys to notice me, really notice me, and not see me as part of the wallpaper or something. I wanted to be invited to parties, to go to friends’ houses to gossip and listen to music. In short, I wanted to be like most of the other girls my age and be more carefree after school and on weekends. I had never gone to a movie with a boy, held hands while we were walking, teased and excited each other with looks, caresses, and stol
en kisses. The truth was, I was ready to explode, and I was afraid that being kept so tightly under lock and key, I would reach too fast, try too hard, and, despite my caution, be more like Roxy than I intended.
“You should get three or four pairs of jeans,” Mama said. “And at least as many tops. We should do something with your shoes now, too, and then we’ll look at some dresses.”
Chastity, who had been fingering and sifting through a variety of garments, decided to try on a pair of jeans, but the saleslady said she had nothing in her size in the juniors section. She told her to go to the women’s section. I thought she would burst into tears, but instead, she chose a knit tank dress. I knew the girls at school would pounce on her and ask her if Omar the Tent Maker had made her new dress.
“That color doesn’t flatter you,” Mama told her, and got up to help her choose something that did more to flatter her figure.
I tried on a boat-neck knit dress with bat-wing sleeves. I knew I looked hot in it, but the hem was too high. Papa wouldn’t let me out of the house. Mama saw the pain of disappointment in my face.
“It will be our secret,” she said. “You look too beautiful in it to deny it.”
“Are you sure, Mama?”
“I’m sure,” she said.
Although Chastity was happy about the choices Mama helped her make, the envy in her face when she saw me modeling different things had an odd effect on me. I was no longer feeling sorry for her. I was angry. Why should I deny myself just to keep her happy? I thought. Let her lose weight.
I asked Mama to help me with some new makeup. Despite the way she dressed and lived now, I knew from old photographs that she had been a typical young French woman who cherished anything haute couture. Her clothing in all of the old photographs was stylish and sexy. She had been and still was a beautiful woman.
She knew just what I needed and promised to spend time showing me how to do my makeup so it wasn’t overpowering.
“As someone in Paris once told me,” she said, smiling at a memory, “your makeup shouldn’t create a new face but highlight the beauty that is in it already. And you have much beauty to highlight, ma chère,” she said.
Chastity listened and watched as Mama chose lipsticks, rouge, and some eye shadow for me. Chastity then bought everything I did. Mama helped her make the right choices, too.
When we were done, Mama said she would make an appointment with her hairdresser for me. “It’s time we had you looking your age,” she said with a firmness I knew she would have when Papa questioned her about anything. Chastity said she would be going to her mother’s hairdresser, too.
We took the taxi home, dropping Chastity off on her corner. I hugged my bags and boxes. For me, the afternoon was ten birthdays and Christmases all wrapped into one. When Papa came home, Mama told him about my jeans and blouses. She didn’t mention the dress or much about the makeup.
“We have to wean him into your maturity,” she whispered. “It will be all right.”
Papa looked at me with both pleased surprise and concern the next morning. I had my hair pinned up and wore a pair of blue crystal earrings Mama had loaned me. They were the first thing Papa questioned.
“Where did you get those?” he demanded. “You didn’t mention you bought her any jewelry yesterday,” he told Mama.
She shook her head. “I’m very disappointed in you, Norton. You bought me those earrings in France seven years ago for my birthday.”
“I did? Oh. Yes,” he said. His failure to remember put him on the defensive. He said nothing about the makeup I had on, nor did he complain about my jeans being too tight. “Well, okay,” he said just before he left for work. “You look very nice, Emmie. Be careful.”
Who else’s father would tell her to be careful because she looked nice? He did give me a kiss and a hug, which was something he didn’t do that often in the morning before he left for work. When I glanced at him, I thought I saw great sadness in his eyes quickly replacing his moment of joy. It nearly brought tears to mine.
After he walked out, I turned to Mama. She had seen his teary eyes, too. She smiled. “He’s losing his little girl,” she said.
And he’s already lost one, I thought, but I couldn’t wait to get to school to see the reactions to my clothes and makeup. Some of the girls were surprised and happy for me, but there were others who looked so envious that they seemed angry. It was as if I had violated some unwritten assumption: Emmie Wilcox will always look uninteresting, bland, and drab. She will never be competition for me.
I so overshadowed Chastity that no one noticed her new clothes, shoes, and makeup. Right before lunch, what I had dreamed might happen, did happen. Evan Styles stepped up beside me in the hallway. I was in such a daze from the compliments I had received that I didn’t notice he was there until I heard him say, “Parlez-vous français?”
I turned and for a moment was so surprised, I didn’t speak. He shrugged.
“I thought you were part French and spoke it at home,” he said.
“Oh. Oui. Je parle français. Pourquoi demandez-vous?”
“Demandez-vous,” he muttered. “Oh. Why do I ask?”
“Oui. Pourquoi?”
“I’m in first year French. I mean, moi les premiers francais d’année,” he replied, pointing at himself.
I laughed. “Je prends français premier-ans.”
“Oh. Je prends. Oui. I thought,” he said, looking around and then leaning toward me as if he were going to tell me a great secret, “if I could talk to you every day, I’d get way ahead of anyone else in the class. I mean, my parents know French people, but I don’t see myself talking with them much except, you know, simple stuff when they come to dinner, like comment allez-vous? Je suis bien. Or Quelle heure est-il? Like they don’t have a watch.”
“Bien. Quand voulez-vous que nous parlions?”
“When do I want . . . oh, how about right now? At lunch.”
“Mais oui,” I said, and we walked on to the cafeteria.
I saw Chastity waiting for me near the food line. Her eyes widened when she saw me enter with Evan. I smiled at her and shifted my eyes toward him, but she didn’t react.
“Why don’t you take that table in the corner for us?” Evan said. “What do you want for lunch? Burger?”
“Just a salad and a cranberry juice,” I said.
“Très sage,” he replied.
I started for the table when he started for the line.
Chastity hurried over to me. “Where are you going?”
“Evan wants to practice his French with me. I said yes. He’s getting me my lunch.”
She looked back, and then her whole face seemed to begin to slide off her skull. She muttered a soft “Oh” and started away.
“I’ll tell you about it later,” I offered. She didn’t turn back.
I could feel most of the other girls and some of the boys looking our way when Evan brought me my lunch and set his down beside mine.
“So? Your mother is French?”
“Oui. Ma mère est née à Paris.”
“Let’s see. Your mother was something in Paris.”
“Born.”
“Oh, right. That makes her French.”
“Yes, it does,” I said, laughing.
“But you were born here in America, right?” he asked, as if that were a real concern.
“Yes. I can run for president.”
He smiled. What a sweet smile he has, I thought. It seemed to begin in his eyes and then ripple through his face to soften those perfect lips. I realized he had a much darker complexion than most of the students.
“You’re out in the sun a lot?”
“We took a long weekend in Puerto Rico. My father had some business to do for the mayor.”
“Vous êtes-vous amusés bien?”
“Huh?”
“Did you have a good time?”
“Oh. Yes. I mean, oui. I was on the beach most of the time.”
“La plage. That’s beach.”
> “La plage,” he repeated. “Were you brought up speaking French?”
“Non. Anglais, but my mother, ma mère, spoke French to me, too. She still does.”
“You really can’t learn a language in a classroom,” Evan said.
“Yes. You can learn to read it well, but holding a conversation is different. Maybe you’ll spend a summer in France.”
“Yeah, I think so.”
“En français.”
“Oui, je—”
“Pensez. Think. Ainsi.”
“So?”
“Oui.”
“I knew it,” he said. “You’re just going to have to cancel all of your dates for the next few weeks and spend your weekends with me.”
“Is that so?”
“Absolument,” he said, and we both laughed.
Was this really happening? I felt like Cinderella. I didn’t even notice any of the other students in the cafeteria. Their chatter seemed to die away. I was too intent on hearing every syllable when Evan spoke. I wanted to memorize the movements in his face when he smiled, laughed, and thought seriously about something. I was never as disappointed as when the bell rang to end lunch period.
“So, what about Friday night? I was thinking we would go to this French movie at Lincoln Plaza. I mean, it has subtitles, but I think I could learn a lot with you beside me.”
“Peut-être.”
“Maybe. You mean maybe you’ll go, or maybe I’ll learn a lot?”
“Tous les deux.”
“Huh?”
“Both,” I said.
“Man, this is great. I’ll walk you home after school today, okay? That way, I’ll know where to go to pick you up Friday.”
“If my parents say yes,” I said.
“Just tell them it’s a school project,” he said. “See you later.”
“Plus tard,” I called to him as he started away.