She closed the drawer and opened another to take out a brand-new pink sweatsuit. She placed it on top of the dresser.
“This is for tomorrow morning,” she said. We walked out of the closet, and she nodded at the vanity table.
“For now, you have only a hairbrush. The table is not yet stocked. This will occur after you meet with Claudine Laffette and she decides on what would bring out the best qualities in your face, primarily your eyes and mouth. You’ll find sleepwear in your dresser here. There are slippers and a robe in the bathroom. I would recommend that you take a warm bath and go to bed. You’re about to begin quite a demanding period of development.” She started for the door.
“Oh,” she said, pausing. She returned to open a small cabinet beside the dresser. “This is a small built-in refrigerator. There are bottles of mineral water in here. If you need anything else now or during the night, just press zero on your phone. There’s someone available around the clock. Are there any questions? I’m sorry to be so abrupt, but I have to go over some economic matters with Mrs. Brittany. She has an important meeting tomorrow.”
“No,” I said. What was left to ask? What they served for breakfast?
She flashed a smile, nodded, and left, closing the door behind her.
For a moment, I just stood there staring at the door. Then I looked around. I didn’t know whether to feel like Cinderella or the Prisoner of Zenda. I knew all this should make me feel very happy, but it also filled me with new fears, and I wasn’t one to care or worry too much about fears. As a child, I rarely called out after a nightmare. I didn’t want to see my father’s disapproving face as he stood behind my mother, clearly revealing his displeasure in my having woken them. I learned how to swallow back my childhood demons the way we swallow down something that wants to come up out of our stomachs. Grin and bear it, or as Papa would say to me even when I was four, “Soldier up.”
It didn’t take much soldiering up to tolerate this, I thought. The bed felt like a large marshmallow when I sat on it and then tested it lying down. My head sank softly and slowly into the oversize pillow. It was like sinking into a cloud. I hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a perfume aroma in the room. It smelled like lavender. I rose and went into the bathroom. That beautiful bathtub did look inviting, and I always enjoyed bubbling jets. I saw bath oils and powders, perfumed soaps, and soft washcloths and towels. First, I found the nightgown I’d wear, and then I started the water to fill the tub.
After I got undressed and was soaking in ecstasy, I thought about the hovel of a room in the hotel I had found when Papa had kicked me out of the house, where I would be right now if Mr. Bob hadn’t been in that restaurant. I tried to convince myself that from the way he and Mrs. Brittany had described what escorts do, I wasn’t really selling my soul to the devil. It was more like acting. I would learn a great deal here, and then I would go out on a stage, not into the field, as she had said. On this stage, I would pretend to care for and appreciate whomever I was with. I would be so charming and beautiful that my date—could I use that word?—would ask for me repeatedly, and I’d make a fortune.
Maybe there would be a handsome, exciting young businessman or a movie star with whom I would want to have sex. So what? I had made love with boys for relatively nothing. As long as I was careful and made sure I didn’t get pregnant, I’d be fine. Why wouldn’t I do it if I wasn’t unhappy about it and I could make a lot of money?
I glanced at myself in the mirror as I thought these thoughts and asked that question of myself again. Mama would be devastated if she had any idea, not only of what I might do here but of what I had done. Papa would be so self-satisfied. If he learned where I was and what I was going to do, he would feel justified for the way he had thrown me out of the house. I could hear him now: “I knew we had to get rid of her. Imagine the sort of influence she would have been when Emmie was older.”
Mama would cry, but she would cry mostly when she was alone. If she shed any tears in front of him, it would just elevate his rage and make him blame me more, blame me for the pain and suffering my mother endured. I had caused it at birth and would forever.
What could I do about it? Just as he could never change me, I could never change him. Can you ever truly love someone who disappoints you? What was more painful, not loving my father because he didn’t love me or not loving myself because I couldn’t get him to love me?
I closed my eyes and lay back in the water. Then I pressed the buttons and started the jets. Squealing with delight, I looked at myself in the mirror. Shut down any second thoughts, Roxy Wilcox, I told myself. You’re on your way to better things and places you never pictured even in your dreams.
The bath turned out to be just what I had needed. Mrs. Pratt was right to suggest it. I had no idea how much tension I had been under and how tight every muscle in my body had become. Wasn’t it wonderful to have all this now, to be hedonistic and soak up all the pleasure I could? I always wanted to be spoiled, and Papa was always accusing me of that because Mama did so much for me and I was terrible about fulfilling my responsibilities and chores at home. She would always cover up for me, but he always seemed to know that and bawl her out for it.
Yes, I felt guilty about it, but I didn’t improve very much. I wasn’t going to deny it. I hated kitchen chores and housework. I wasn’t even very good about keeping my own room in order, which was something I knew irritated my father a great deal. He was practically brought up in a barracks. His room had to be neat and organized at all times, and he had to make his own bed, he claimed, when he was only five, “and make it perfectly.” He said his father actually used a bouncing coin to check how tightly made his and his brother’s beds were. He knew his coins might disappear if he tried that on my bed. If Mama didn’t get into my room quickly enough and he saw it, he would go on and on about it, first attempting to take away things that were out of place. When that didn’t bother me, he stopped, but he still complained.
Emmie was already taking good care of her room. I used to look at her and wonder how we could be born of the same parents. I looked enough like both of them never to doubt that my father was my father, but the resemblances felt more like a shell in my mind. I was so unlike Emmie when I was her age, and I couldn’t imagine her becoming more like me as she grew older. Maybe if I had paid more attention in biology class, I would understand how sisters could be so different. I thought she loved me, even looked up to me in certain ways. But she couldn’t have been oblivious to all of Papa’s criticism of me, and I felt certain that when I wasn’t around, he told her to be wary of me, not to emulate me, and in fact, to think of me as someone not to be and the things I did as things not to do. I was a good teaching tool for him, so good that he probably shouldn’t have thrown me out. I was a living, breathing example of all that was wrong. All he had to do was point his finger or nod in my direction and look at her, maybe adding, “See? That is exactly what you don’t want to do or be when you’re your sister’s age.”
I suppose I was simply a mystery to her. How could the same parents who loved and cherished her so much be so critical of me? How did I get this way in the same house, hearing the same things, eating the same food, and participating in family events, holidays, and trips? Sometimes I would catch her staring at me across a room, or I would feel her standing behind me, watching me. I knew she was struggling to understand me. Maybe my being gone wasn’t a surprise for her at all. Maybe she didn’t even look in my room anymore or glance at my empty seat at the dinner table. Perhaps my sudden disappearance was as inevitable as death itself. You knew it was waiting to happen. You just didn’t want to talk about it or think about it or even prepare for it.
I knew that after I had crawled into the luxurious bed in the magnificent suite, I should have been filled with renewed hope and happiness. Papa wasn’t going to win, after all, and there was a very good chance I would enjoy things and see things I would never have, even if he had tolerated me forever. I was surrounded by beauty and opulen
ce, all of it soon to be at my beck and call.
Maybe my high school English teacher, Mr. Wheeler, was right on target when he said I hated myself, but you didn’t wake up one morning and decide you’d be totally different, did you? And even if you could make that decision, could you change so radically, or were you cursed forever to be who you were? Probably, that was what was most interesting about being here, I thought. Mrs. Brittany and her people would turn me into a different person, would re-create me, change me in ways I had never dreamed of, and give me a new name and a new identity. I wouldn’t be someone Papa would love but probably just the opposite, someone he would hate more. However, after my training, I might very well love myself for real and not just out of some stubborn arrogance.
I knew how much I had failed back home and in school. I knew I was heading for nowhere fast. I was Miss Persona Non Grata everywhere. I never had a substantial relationship with either a girl or a boy. Perhaps in the end, I had nothing to give either a girlfriend or a boyfriend—no friendship, no love, and no concern or compassion. I was some dark shadow haunting everyone with whom I came into contact, including my own parents and my little sister. I was a natural for this, a perfect candidate to become Mrs. Brittany’s most successful girl.
Yes, I told myself, this was my chance to be reborn. My good looks and intellectual potential had come through for me. Admittedly, it was based on a lucky moment, but what difference did that make in the end? Didn’t Mama believe almost everything in life was bonne ou mauvaise chance? I had some good luck, and I could make something of it. Mrs. Brittany wasn’t wrong. It was up to me. I had to find the determination and the ambition. Those were two things I had definitely lacked until now.
Yes, I should be very, very happy tonight, I thought. I should have no problem sleeping. I didn’t have to worry about whether the lock on the door would hold. I didn’t have to hear sobbing and screams from other rooms. I didn’t have to hold my nose to sleep or curl up, hoping nothing would bite me or infect me. I was safe. I should be happy. Be happy, I kept telling myself. It became more like a chant in a church, except that the church I was in now was the church of pleasure and wealth.
But I wasn’t happy yet. I didn’t even want to think it, much less admit it aloud, but despite my bravado and defiance, I did miss my mother and my sister. Hell, I even missed Papa, missed his fury and his disappointments. There were also times when he was softer, even loving. He tried, but I didn’t respond in the manner he had been hoping to see. There were many times when I caught him looking at me with disdain, I had to confess, if only to myself, that there were also times when I saw his lips soften and his eyes brighten, and I knew he was thinking, She’s beautiful, and she is my daughter.
These thoughts made my heart ache, but I didn’t sob. I squeezed my eyes closed tighter and took a breath.
Soldier on, I told myself. Soldier on. The morning will bring a whole new life, a whole new world, and you will be a star in it. You’ll never want for anything. You heard Mr. Bob. You’ll find a new family here.
But as if someone was listening to my thoughts, someone invisible, my second self, whispered in the darkness, You’ll find a new family, but you won’t find the same love.
I don’t care, I chanted to myself, still in that church of pleasure and wealth. I don’t.
What greater lies are there, the other voice whispered, than the lies you tell yourself?
I didn’t want to listen to that voice. I closed my ears and willed myself to sleep.
6
I heard the sound of the curtains being drawn open, then the click of the lamp beside my bed. The light splashed on my face and popped open my eyes. When I focused, I realized Mrs. Pratt was standing there, gazing down at me full of disappointment and pity like someone looking at a body in a coffin. Her hair was the same, as was the modest makeup she wore, but this morning, she was dressed in a light gray tweed business skirt suit with a frilly white blouse. When I moaned, she clutched her hands against her chest and pursed her lips, now projecting a look of annoyance. For a moment, I forgot where I was. It had all happened so quickly yesterday that it seemed more like a dream. I pushed myself up onto my elbows and looked around the beautiful suite.
“What’s wrong? What’s happening?”
I had forgotten she had said I’d be up at six-thirty.
“Morning is happening,” she said. “And I assure you that I won’t be doing this every morning. Tomorrow and from now on, you’ll be woken by phone. You don’t have to do anything but lift the receiver and put it back, and the ringing will stop. I hope you will soon arrive at the maturity it takes to get yourself up without anyone else’s assistance. Small but essential things like that will help convince Mrs. Brittany that you have what it takes to bear adult responsibility.”
I rubbed my eyes and looked at her again as if I wanted to be sure she was really there and I wasn’t trapped in a dream. Because of the expression on her face and the tone of her voice, I was tempted to salute her the way I used to salute my father to annoy him.
“I take it you slept well,” she said.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said. “I didn’t hear a thing.”
“Good.”
She gazed with obvious disapproval at how I had left my new dress draped over a chair, my panties and bra on the chair, and my shoes beneath it.
“Why do you think you have a closet? Did you have a maid at home?”
“No.”
“Your mother looked after you? Even at this age?”
“Look, I was excited and wanted to get into the tub to relax as you had suggested. I didn’t expect to have a barracks inspection with the playing of reveille first thing in the morning.”
She nodded like someone agreeing with her own thoughts. “I don’t know,” she said. “You have much to recommend you, but you might be too young yet.”
“Well, I guess we’ll know soon enough, won’t we?” I countered.
“Yes, we will,” she said. “Wash your face, or do whatever you need to do, and come down to breakfast. Portia and Camelia are almost dressed and will also be there.”
“Why are they up so early? Are they just starting here, too?”
“Hardly,” she said, now smiling at me, but with condescension, making me feel like a child, after all. “Anyone could see they are top Brittany girls.”
“Well, this is the first time I’ve ever seen a Brittany girl, so I don’t have someone to measure them by. Is Mrs. Brittany up this early, too?”
“Of course. Mrs. Brittany has to go to Boston for the day, and I have things to do for her preparation. We’re all very busy here. I’ll have your schedule prepared and bring it to you in the breakfast dining room.”
“Where is that?” I asked, getting out of bed. “You didn’t show it to me yesterday, or is that the same room for dining-etiquette instruction?”
“No, it is not. Why don’t you see if you can find it yourself?” she said. “Show some early initiative. Mrs. Brittany likes that in a girl. Besides, you know where it isn’t.”
“Excuse me?” I asked, pausing.
She sighed. “If you get lost, there’s staff all over the house, Roxy. Just go down and turn right this time.”
I could see she was definitely going to be a hurdle I would have to get over if I was to win over Mrs. Brittany, but I wasn’t in the mood to kiss up to her, now or ever. Was it my stubborn pride or my damned defiance, or was it because I had real backbone? I couldn’t be my father’s daughter without it, which was something he himself couldn’t appreciate or understand.
She picked up my dress and my shoes and brought them to the closet. “This is the first and last time I will do anything like this,” she muttered, as if she was trying to convince herself more than me.
I rose and looked out the window on the right. The view was magnificent. I could clearly see how much land Mrs. Brittany owned, and to the left, I could see the stables. Three horses were in a pen, all black and about the same size. Between the stabl
es and the mansion was an oval pool with a cabana. Someone was setting out lounges and opening the umbrellas at the tables. When I shifted a little, I could see farther to the left and caught a glimpse of two tennis courts.
“I didn’t realize how big this place is,” I said, more to myself than to her.
“There’s a lot you haven’t realized, Roxy,” she said, emerging from the closet. “You’re just beginning to make interesting discoveries. At least, I hope they are interesting to you.”
She had an impish smile. At the moment, she reminded me more of a commander of a prisoner-of-war camp than an executive assistant.
“I’m sure they will be interesting to me if they’re interesting to you, Mrs. Pratt.”
She mouthed a small laugh, looking like someone swallowing a bubble, and shook her head. “Fine. Don’t dilly-dally. Move along,” she said, and left my suite. The moment she walked out, I couldn’t help it. I did salute.
“Yes, ma’am,” I muttered, but I did rush to get ready. I ran a brush through my hair, but there was no lipstick for me. I wasn’t sure what I was supposed to look like, but they couldn’t blame me for anything in that regard. I was practically kidnapped. When I went downstairs, I turned right and was greeted by a maid coming out of Mrs. Brittany’s office.
“Breakfast table?” I said, and she told me it was the last door on the left.
It was a light maple room with one side nearly all windows. There was a large armoire on the right filled with pretty blue and white china and a long wooden table a shade or two darker than the walls. Camelia and Portia were there already. They both had glasses of orange juice and coffee. Camelia was dressed smartly in a ready-to-wear Dior I had recently seen advertised, a coated-cotton blue jacket with a silk jersey T-shirt and soft lambskin baggy pants. She looked like the model in the magazine. Portia was in a sweatsuit not unlike mine.
“Roxy, right?” Portia asked when I entered.
“Yes.”