“That’s your place setting,” Camelia said, nodding toward the one across from her. Portia sat at the head of the table. Before I reached the seat, a curly-blond-haired man with very dark brown eyebrows came through the door that opened to the kitchen, carrying a tray with two plates of poached eggs, toast, and jam and two small bowls of mixed fresh fruit. He was a good two inches shorter than all three of us and wore a black leather vest over a white long-sleeved shirt and black slacks. A gold bracelet dangled on his left wrist, and he had a diamond stud earring in his right ear. He widened his smile, revealing piano-key-white capped teeth. His rust-brown eyes brightened at the sight of me.
“Is this our new princess, then?”
“Herself, Randy,” Camelia replied.
“Welcome, welcome, welcome,” Randy said, with just a slight shift in his hips. He served Camelia and Portia and then hurried over to pour me a glass of juice and a cup of coffee.
“Au lait?” he asked.
“S’il vous plaît,” I replied.
“Ooh, I like her,” Randy said. He poured some milk into the coffee. “Low-fat, you know,” he said, winking at Portia. “All the fat here is low.”
The girls laughed.
“Your breakfast will be just two shakes of a prostitute’s bum.”
He went back into the kitchen.
“What was that?” I asked, and they both laughed again.
“That was Randy Carr. He’s been with Mrs. Brittany for nearly ten years,” Camelia told me. “She stole him out of a restaurant in Key West. She’s very fond of him, so watch what you say about him.”
“One thing is for sure,” Portia said. “He’ll never say a negative word about her, and if you’re smart, you won’t say one in his presence, either.”
“In anyone’s presence,” Camelia warned.
“Amen,” Portia said.
“Everyone is so loyal to the queen,” I said. “I feel I should genuflect in her presence.”
Neither laughed.
“It’s her castle. We live in her kingdom. Besides, everyone is paid well and treated well,” Portia said. “Mrs. Brittany keeps her word when it comes to what she promises you. Don’t ever worry about that. And if and when she accepts you, you’ll have a very good friend for life.”
“Before you know it, you’ll be as loyal as we are to her, if not more,” Camelia told me. She looked at Portia and then back at me. “Considering where you are and where she might take you, probably more.”
“Where I am?”
“Assuming she gets the stamp of approval,” Portia reminded her.
“Oh, she will win over Mrs. Brittany,” Camelia said, smiling at me. “I think she has what it takes.”
I drank some orange juice, pleased that it was freshly squeezed. Mama always served freshly squeezed orange juice in the morning. Having fresh fruit and vegetables was always a priority to her. I recalled how proud she was of how they ate in France, shopping at farmers’ markets and rarely using frozen foods.
Why was it that even here, with all these distractions, I continually thought about Mama and Emmie and even Papa? Did this mean that deep down inside, I knew I couldn’t do this and that I would end up at my family’s front door, head bowed, begging to be permitted to come home? I pushed the thought out of my mind.
“She has barely begun her first day, Camelia,” Portia reminded her. She kept her smile. “A little early for predictions, don’t you think?”
Camelia shrugged. “I can remember my first day as if it were yesterday,” she said. She began to eat.
I watched how daintily she cut into the egg and how carefully she spread jam on her toast. In fact, both of them ate as if they were in a competition to see who could drop the least amount of crumbs. They patted their lips after every bite.
“Oh, and how did yours go?” I asked.
“I think I was terrified,” she said, turning to Portia. “Even though I never let anyone know it.”
“I know I was, and I’m sure they knew it.”
“Why were you two terrified?” I asked. I gulped the rest of my juice. They stared at me a moment and then smiled at each other. “What’s so funny?”
“You drink like a teenager,” Portia said. “Not very ladylike, and here you want to be very ladylike.”
“I see that Mrs. Brittany has her work cut out for her,” Camelia admitted, probably having second thoughts about my success.
“Yeah, well, maybe I’ll surprise her. I can tell you one thing. I’m not terrified, and this is not an act.”
“Too bad,” Portia said quickly.
“Why?”
“You’ll try harder if you’re terrified of failure. I did, and so did Camelia.”
I shrugged. “Five thousand dollars isn’t a bad kill fee,” I said, and they both laughed. “Now what’s so funny?”
“Five thousand dollars is less than a night’s work for us,” Camelia said. “To see that as a safety net or something and be satisfied after being brought here and seeing what you could have is ludicrous.”
“She means ridiculous,” Portia said.
“I know what it means. I’m not stupid. I don’t know what you’ve been told about me.”
“Not much,” Portia replied, “and even if we had, we’d be D and D.”
“D and D?”
“Deaf and dumb.”
Camelia sat back, studying me a moment with a smile on her face.
“Now what?” I asked.
“You’re one of Mr. Bob’s Lana Turners, aren’t you?” she asked.
“What?”
“You know who Lana Turner was?”
“Yes, a movie actress. Actually, one of my father’s favorites.”
I almost bit my tongue after I said that, but it was too late. However, I could see that neither Camelian or Portia cared to hear about my father.
“She was supposedly discovered at a soda fountain in Hollywood. Part of it is myth, and part of it is fact,” Portia said. “I’m one of Mr. Bob’s Lana Turners, but I was discovered at a charity ball. Mrs. Brittany herself found Camelia.”
“Where did Mr. Bob find you?” Camelia asked. “I hope he’s not raiding high schools these days.”
Portia laughed and said, “He’d raid a nunnery if he thought he had someone with potential.”
“He wasn’t waiting outside my high school. I met him in a restaurant.”
“You were a waitress? That’s a first.”
“No, I was eating, and he approached me,” I said. “I’ve never been a waitress.”
“What have you been?” Camelia asked.
“A troublesome teenager,” I said, and they both laughed again.
“Haven’t we all,” Portia said.
“Not like I was—am, I should say.”
Neither spoke for a moment.
“Well, by now, Mrs. Brittany has confirmed whatever police record you have, and it’s not been enough to toss you out,” Portia said. “You can be assured of that. No one pulls the trigger faster on someone than she does.”
“I’m sure you won’t be a troublesome teenager here,” we heard as Randy returned with my dish of poached eggs and toast and a bowl of fruit.
“Eavesdropping, Randy?” Camelia asked him. “That’s very naughty.”
“ ’Ear now,” he said, imitating a Cockney accent. I ’ear what I ’ear.”
Camelia and Portia laughed.
“Do you need anything else, princess?” he asked me.
“No, thank you,” I said.
“Ladies?”
“We’re fine, Randy, thank you,” Portia told him. He winked at me and left.
“So where did Mrs. Brittany discover you?” I asked Camelia as I sipped some more coffee.
“In a dance studio in London,” she said. “I was good, but she convinced me that I was not good enough. ‘Why waste your best years?’ she asked. It was as simple as that, and voilà, here I am, not wasting them.”
Portia widened her smile. “I’ll drink to tha
t,” she said, and sipped her coffee.
Camelia looked at her watch. “I’ve got to get going,” she said.
“Where to?” I asked. I tried to cut my egg the same dainty way she had.
“London,” she said, and rose. “I wish you luck, Roxy. But take my advice, get a little terrified,” she added. “Take care, Portia.” She blew her a kiss. Portia blew one back, and we watched her walk out.
“Camelia is real British upper crust. She has a number of royals as clients. I love her.”
“I thought we couldn’t mention who our clients were,” I said.
“We can talk to each other, sweetie. We can’t talk out of school, but we still don’t mention names. And don’t think Mrs. Brittany wouldn’t find out if you violated one of her rules. She has eyes and ears everywhere, and I don’t mean just Randy Carr. Let me give you some early advice, too. You’ll meet others here from time to time. Don’t ever think you can confide in anyone. Whoever it is, she’ll betray you, if not to look better to Mrs. Brittany, then to protect the organization, which means protecting herself.” She smiled. “You’ll actually get to be the same way. If you make it,” she added.
She sipped her coffee. I was getting tired of the big if.
“I’ll make it,” I said. “If I want to make it.”
“More power to you,” she said.
We heard footsteps in the hallway. I turned toward the door just as Mrs. Brittany entered, followed by Mrs. Pratt.
“Good,” Mrs. Brittany said, seeing that I was finishing up my breakfast. “You’re on schedule. Mrs. Pratt?”
Mrs. Pratt stepped up and put a card beside me. It was my training schedule. There were activities for me all day right up to dinner.
“I will return for dinner,” Mrs. Brittany said. “Please keep in mind that every meal and just about every activity you do in this house is an education and a test.”
“What isn’t?” I asked. “I imagine someone is watching me sleep.”
“Could be,” she said.
I glanced at Portia, who kept her face locked in a tiny smile.
Mrs. Brittany looked at Mrs. Pratt and then back at me, nodding at the card. “That’s your schedule for the foreseeable future,” she said. She started out, then paused and turned back to me. “If you have any problems today, see Mrs. Pratt.” They looked at each other, and she turned back to me one final time to add, “I suppose the big question to answer is whether you will still be here when I return.”
“I’ll be here,” I said.
“Don’t let us both down, then,” she replied, and left.
“She likes you,” Portia said immediately.
“You’re kidding. If she likes me, I pity someone she doesn’t like.”
“Exactly. That was our point.”
“How can you tell, anyway?”
“I’ve been around her long enough. After a while, you’ll figure it out for yourself,” she said, and finished her coffee.
I looked at the empty doorway.
There’s a woman who would be a match for my father, I thought, and finally smiled, thinking about the two of them in the same room talking about me. I’d love to be a fly on the wall that day. My smile widened.
“What’s so funny?” Portia asked.
“Nothing. Everything.”
She widened her eyes and laughed.
So did I, but I wondered when I would laugh again.
7
Portia left before I finished my breakfast. She told me she was going for a morning swim and then, after a massage and a session with Claudine Laffette, who had promised to give her a new hairstyle that was the rage in Paris, she would have lunch and rest before dinner. She said she didn’t expect to see me again until then.
“You’ll be much too busy.”
“I can see that,” I said, indicating my schedule. “How long are you going to be here?” I asked before she walked out.
“I’m leaving tomorrow. You’ll have the whole place to yourself for a while, I think, although we never know. Good luck,” she said.
I looked at the clock on the wall. I had ten minutes. I finished most of the fruit in the small bowl, drank some more coffee, and then picked up my schedule card and rose just as Randy returned.
“All alone? They deserted you on your first day. How sad,” he said.
“I’ve been alone a lot longer than this,” I told him.
“Poor pretty thing,” he said, and began to clear the table. “Well, I hope that will end soon and forever and ever,” he muttered like a silent prayer. I watched him carefully pick up cups and plates in small, dainty moves, as though he was trying not to make a sound. He smiled at me and shrugged his left shoulder. “I’ll see you at lunch. Don’t worry. I’ll help you in any way I can during the training.” He winked and returned to the kitchen.
Exercise was the first thing on my schedule, so I headed for the gym, where I found Lance Martin doing stretches. He saw me enter but didn’t stop. I stood waiting and watching for almost five full minutes.
“Sorry,” he said, rising off the mat, “but it’s very important to begin with stretching and not break your concentration. I’m Lance Martin.” He held out his hand.
“Roxy Wilcox.”
It wasn’t much of a handshake, more like just touching as if he was afraid he’d pick up some evil bacteria.
“Have you done much physical training?”
“None,” I said. “Unless you count brushing my teeth every morning and evening.”
He nodded without breaking into a smile. I imagined a sense of humor wasn’t part of the program.
“You don’t look much older than sixteen. Mrs. Brittany’s going to market you as the ingenue, I imagine.”
“Me? Sweet, innocent, and virginal? I doubt it.”
That brought a smile. He had a very strong mouth and deep-set hazel eyes. He was dressed now in a pair of swimming trunks and a tight-fitting T-shirt, and I could clearly see the perfect symmetry of his muscles. I couldn’t see an inch of fat on him. He looked unreal, more like a mannequin created to depict the ideal manly physique. I thought he had a waist only an inch or so wider than mine. Tanned, with neatly styled short dark brown hair, he was one of the healthiest-looking men I had ever seen, but there was something almost asexual about him at the same time. I didn’t feel any erotic excitement or attraction. It was as if everything about him, even his facial expressions, had been sanitized. He was the sort of man who worried about his own well-being and health so much he probably avoided sex with anyone except another health and fitness mannequin. Mrs. Pratt needn’t have been worried about my seducing him or him seducing me, I thought.
“Ingenue,” he repeated, looking me over. “It’s a matter of marketing, not reality. You have your sports bra and panties on?”
“Yes, why?”
“Please strip down to them,” he said, then reached for the tape measure he had lying beside a clipboard on the mat. He looked up at me, surprised, when I didn’t take off the sweatsuit instantly. “Don’t tell me you’re bashful,” he said. “If so, you’d be my first.”
“Hardly,” I said, and took off the sweatsuit. He stared at me a moment, walked around me, and then began taking measurements of my thighs, calves, waist, arms, back, and shoulders. He looked at my breasts for a moment. “Are you firm under there?”
“What?”
“You’re not one of those girls who go braless most of the time, are you?”
“Not most of the time, why?”
“Old gravity has a say in what shape you’ll take. You can be defiant and free like some feminist if you want, but stretching won’t be attractive.”
“Thanks for the advice.”
Ignoring me, he moved quickly to measure my breast size and picked up his clipboard to write down the numbers he had taken.
“You’re pretty good right now,” he said. “But I can tell you’re going to have a little trouble with your thighs. Your calves aren’t as tight as I would like them to be, and
your arms, especially in the triceps area, will be a problem later on if you don’t keep them tight. They’re a bit loose now for a girl your age, in fact. I guess you’re telling the truth when you say you don’t exercise much.”
“You can’t tell that way. Everything about me is a bit loose for a girl my age,” I muttered, reaching for a funny double entendre, but he acted as if he didn’t hear or care.
“Okay, let’s get started with the basics of stretching exercises. Then we’ll design a daily routine for you to attack the areas we need to attack, and we’ll get you into the pool and start building your stamina and strengthening your shoulders and your trapezius muscle. We’ll get you up to speed before we turn you over to Brendon in a day or so. Horseback riding is terrific physical exercise, too. Have you done much of that?”
“I rode a pony at some fun fair once, and I’ve been on a carousel—does that count?”
“Hardly. You can joke if you want. You may not appreciate it yet, but you have to be prepared for horseback riding. It will get you aching in areas you never knew you had. It’s great for stimulating muscles in the dorsal and abdominal regions that are seldom used in everyday life. Most people don’t understand that it’s a great calorie burner, too. They think the horse does all the work.”
I looked around the gym at the various machines, each specifically designed for one area of the body.
“All of this sounds exhausting,” I said.
He smiled, but it was a smile of condescension. “After a while, you’ll find it all invigorating, just as I do. When you’re on your mark, it’s as good as sex,” he said, and I thought maybe for him, that was definitely true, but it would never be for me. I think he saw my thoughts and laughed.
“Just kidding. Don’t panic. But I will tell you this,” he added almost in a whisper. “Women who are in top physical shape are better lovers. Even sex requires some endurance. One other thing,” he added, pulling himself up even straighter to emphasize his point. “We don’t use any steroids. No drug enhancements here.”
“Good. I don’t want to grow a mustache,” I said dryly.
He didn’t even smile. Was it healthy to be so damn serious about your work?
“Let’s get to the stretching,” he said. “As I said, it’s how we begin every day. I’m proud to say I haven’t had anyone I train pull a muscle or strain a tendon.”