“Yeah,” she said with a smile.
“I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I’m not exactly the daring kind.”
“Do you want to know what I’d do?”
I shrugged my shoulder, and the long silver chain around my neck moved between my breasts sending a cool shiver down my spine. I was curious. After all, I knew what Alex would do. I knew what Alexandria had done. I wondered exactly what someone else, someone not haunted with a split personality, would do. Then again, Chelsea may not be the one to ask. She had always been more daring than, well, than anyone I’d ever known.
“First,” she said, standing and strutting a circle before me. “I wouldn’t let his deep, velvet, sexy voice make me all wet and weak in the knees.”
“I didn’t say that it did. And I never used the word velvet.”
“You didn’t have to. It’s pretty obvious. I mean, I’d recommend going pantyless, but damn girl, the way you fidget when you talk about him, I’d be afraid the material of your dress would give you away.”
I raised my chin. “I disagree.” I sounded confident, but the memory of the beach towel forced me to face the fact—I was at the very least mildly turned on by this man.
“So you’re willing to take off—”
“No! Tonight isn’t going that far. My panties or lack thereof won’t be a conversation topic.”
“No one said anything about conversation topics,” she added as she leaned against the far wall, crossed her arms over her chest and stared me up and down. “Face it. You’re beautiful, and in that outfit you’re stunning. Listen to me. I know you have shit you’ve never told me. It’s none of my business. That shit is Alex’s or maybe Alexandria’s—I don’t know. Tonight, be Charli. Be bold, be fun, and play out your fantasy.
“How often does some hot man walk into your life without any hold on your future? You’re leaving for Columbia soon. You don’t need this guy. Have fun with him. Hell, use him. Men have been doing it to women forever. This is our fun, no-regret week. You only get one of those in a lifetime.”
I sat taller. “You still haven’t said what you’d do.”
“I’d find out as little as I could about him. The less you know, the less connected you’ll be. I’d eat a little, drink a little too much, and I’d explore every position—except missionary—that I’ve ever known or he was willing to teach me.”
I glanced over at the clock. “Well, if I’m really doing this, this shit is about to get real. I’m supposed to be there in less than an hour.”
“The presidential suite isn’t that far away.” Chelsea reached for my hand. “Let’s go to the bar and have a pre-mystery-date drink, a liquid boost of courage. My treat.”
I wasn’t much of a drinker, but if I was really going to go through with this, liquid courage sounded like a great idea. “Your treat?”
I loved Chelsea, but Stanford wasn’t her college because she could afford it. Actually, she’d only attended there her freshman year by the grace of scholarships. That’s when we met, paired together by fate. Some of her choices didn’t sit well with the administration and her grades wouldn’t allow her to keep her scholarships. After our freshman year, she transferred to a state college. Even though we didn’t take classes together, we’d become too close to part ways. We found an apartment together, off campus.
I’d like to think that we’ve helped each other. My determination rubbed off and she worked hard. The fact that she still graduated in four years made me as proud of her as my own achievements did of me. We both accomplished our goal. Her degree just had a different school’s name at the top.
While I was the studier, she was the survivor. She knew more about the game of people like Shaun because she did what she needed to do. And even though she was now a college graduate, extra money wasn’t one of her luxuries.
“Well,” she said with a wink. “I was going to sign the receipt. You did book this room in my name after all.”
I stood. “I did. If Alex or Alexandria isn’t who I am this week, I didn’t want my name on the reservation. I mean, Charli with an i can’t be listed on the reservation.” I shrugged. “She doesn’t have a last name.”
“Oh! I know! We could be sisters! You can share my last name.”
As I grabbed my small purse and took one last look at the creation in the mirror, I shrugged. “Our eyes are different colors. Yours are hazel and mine are some weird shade of brown.”
Chelsea hugged my shoulder and looked at us in the mirror. With her head close to mine, she said, “Our hair could be the same color. I’ve changed mine so many times, I forget what it really is. And hazel is close to gold. That’s the color I’ve always used to describe your eyes—golden.”
“Okay, sisters it is. And if I’m not back by midnight—”
“Oh no. I’m not sending out the cavalry until tomorrow. Charli with an i has some life to discover. I’m not the type of sister to put her on a time clock. There’s no magic pumpkin or glass slipper. Charli will be here all week. The stroke of midnight will have no bearing.”
“ALEXANDRIA!”
Alex, I silently corrected.
My mother’s greeting echoed through the enormous foyer as she stepped quickly from the sitting room. Her high heels clicking across the floor as she made her way toward me, arms open wide.
The brief pleasure I felt at seeing her evaporated as soon as Alton turned the corner only a few steps behind her. Of course he’d be on her heels. Heaven forbid that I’d have even a few seconds alone with my mother outside of his earshot.
“Mom,” I murmured against her shoulder as she wrapped me in her arms.
Almost immediately, she stiffened and held me at arm’s length. “Look at you. Are you ill? You look pale. I thought you were supposed to be resting before moving to New York. It’s that horrid girl, isn’t it? What does she have you doing?”
“Alexandria.” Alton’s icy tone sent a chill through the air.
Ignoring him, I kept my gaze focused on my mother. “I’m fine. I’m just tired, that’s all. I’ve been flying most of the day.”
“My dear, that’s why you should have flown privately and not commercial, all those layovers are ridiculous. You should rest, but first we can eat. I had Martha hold dinner.”
The idea of sitting in the dining room with my mother and Alton made any possible twinge of hunger evaporate. “Really, Mom, I’d like to settle whatever business you deemed so important it warranted my immediate trip to Savannah. Then I’d like to go.”
“Go?” Her perfectly painted face scrunched as her eyes narrowed. I wasn’t sure how many appointments she’d had with her plastic surgeon, but I wondered if her skin could be pulled any tighter. “Nonsense. Brantley! Brantley!”
“Yes, madam.”
It was an amazing feat that all well-instructed house staff possessed. They could materialize out of thin air. One moment, they weren’t there, and you were alone. The next, they’re beside you. If they were truly well-trained and well-paid, they also had the ability to be blind and mute to their surroundings. The employees of Montague Manor were among the best-trained staff on the face of the earth.
“Where are Alexandria’s bags? Have you taken them to her room?”
“Madam—”
“Mother, I asked Brantley to leave them in the car. I was hoping that we could conclude this family meeting and I could be back in the air. There’s a flight scheduled—”
“Brantley,” Alton’s voice superseded our discussion. “Retrieve Miss Collin’s bags and put them in her room. You may retire the car for the evening. We won’t be leaving the property.”
Though my neck straightened in defiance, my lips remained still, glued together by experience. Just like that, Alton had declared the future and sentenced me to prison behind the gates of Montague Manor.
Mother reached for Alton’s hand and turned back to me. “Dear, have you said hello to your father?”
“No, my father is deceased. I hate to be the one to break the news to you.
”
Alton’s glare narrowed while Adelaide did her best to make light of my comment. “Alexandria, you always did get cranky when you were tired. Now show Alton the respect he deserves.”
If only I truly could, but I was quite certain that my mother wasn’t speaking literally.
“Alton, hello. You can only imagine my disappointment when I learned that you wouldn’t be out of town on one of those meetings of yours this weekend.”
“And miss this family reunion? I wouldn’t think of it.”
My skin turned to ice as he reached out and patted my shoulder. Keeping his hand there, in a silent reminder of his dominance, he scanned me up and down. Slowly his beady eyes moved from my flat ballet-styled shoes, blue jeans, and top, to my hair pulled back in a ponytail. “Well, I’m glad you didn’t accept your mother’s offer of the private jet. I’m most certain they would’ve assumed you were the help. Then again, if you’d flown privately at least the entire world wouldn’t have seen you gallivanting around airports like some common…”
Mother’s glare stopped his assessment.
“Common twenty-something?” I asked through clenched teeth.
“Well, dear, you do look a little haggard. Why don’t you go up to your room and clean up? We’ll meet you in the dining room in fifteen minutes.”
I turned around for Brantley, ready to tell him to forget Alton Fitzgerald’s decree and take me back to the airport, but of course he had disappeared, evaporated into the mystical invisible plain. More than likely he was delivering my bags to my room. If I didn’t hurry, some poor young woman on the staff would be unpacking before I ever made it up the stairs. I wondered what that same person would think of my vibrator. It was the first thought since I’d been picked up at the airport that put a smile on my face. Honestly, I didn’t care if it was the talk of the kitchen. Montague Manor needed a good laugh.
“Mother, you know I’m in the middle of getting things set in New York. I have a lot that needs to be done before classes begin. I don’t have time to spend wandering around Montague Manor.”
She reached for my hand and led me toward the large staircase. “No one’s asking you to wander, dear: straight up to your room and back down. It’s been so long since you’ve been home. Don’t forget to wear appropriate clothes for dinner.” She squeezed my hand, like she was doing me a favor. “I may have done a little shopping. Besides, I’m sure the things in your suitcase are wrinkled.” She kissed my cheek. “Just peek in the closet.”
With each step up the stairs, I lost a piece of my life. When I’d entered the front gates I was Alex, a twenty-three-year-old college graduate. In less than ten minutes, I’d regressed to Alexandria Charles Montague Collins, a teenager caught in the tower of lies and deceit. If only the stairs went higher and higher. Instead of a teenager, I could go back further to a time of pure innocence.
How far back would I need to go?
I closed my eyes and inhaled the familiar scents. Even after four years, nothing had changed. The closed doors to unused rooms were like soldiers along the corridor, assuring that I did as I was told. They didn’t need rifles upon their shoulders. The glass doorknobs that glistened from the crystal lighting were their weapons, locked portals to destitute lands.
Before the loss of innocence, I pretended that Montague Manor was truly a castle and I was the princess. It was the name my mother said my father called me, his princess. But the princess I imagined was more like the one from storybooks I was read as a child, trapped in a tower.
A memory hit, stilling my steps. I hadn’t thought of it in years, but it was as vivid as if it were happening.
I was ten years old, and I’d embarrassed my mother by refusing to let a stylist cut my hair. It was the princess thing. I believed that if it grew long enough I could escape my room high in the sky. The second floor wasn’t that high, but it was to a ten-year-old.
Every time she’d talk about having my hair trimmed I’d cry and stomp. Thinking she could lull me into it, she made reservations for us at an upscale spa. We had pedicures and manicures. However, it was as they moved me to a stylist’s chair that I figured out their devious plan. I screamed at the stylist and my mother as I ran to the car.
Even now I remembered her ashen expression of disappointment and embarrassment. Per her usual response, I was sent to my room. It was all right: my hair would eventually get me to freedom.
That evening after Alton came home, I was summoned to the grand hall. When I arrived there was a chair. I didn’t understand at first and asked where my mother was. He said she was resting, too upset over my behavior to leave her room. Then he told me to sit in the chair. One by one the entire Montague Manor staff materialized around me until the hall was full of eyes.
That was when I learned about the staff’s ability to see and yet not see. That was my first lesson. He told me matter-of-factly that neither a Montague nor a Fitzgerald behaved in the manner I had. I reminded him I wasn’t a Montague or a Fitzgerald. I was a Collins.
He said that my behavior was unacceptable in public or in private, and if I wanted to behave like a common street urchin, then I could look the part. It wasn’t until he stood back and a man I recognized as one of the gardeners came forward with large shears that I understood what he was saying.
Alton wasn’t the one who cut my hair, and the cut wasn’t a trim. He and the rest of the staff watched as two other members of the grounds crew held me down and the other man cut. By the time he was done, my tears and fright had faded to whimpers and the room of eyes had disappeared, evaporated away. I was left alone with my stepfather in the grand hall in a chair surrounded by chunks of red hair.
“You will not tell your mother about this.” It was the first time he told me that, but not the last.
I wondered how he thought she wouldn’t know. After all, the entire staff had witnessed what had happened and with one glance she’d see that my once-long hair had been butchered. But my lesson in Fitzgerald / Montague living wasn’t complete.
After Alton made me sweep the lengths of hair from the floor, he handed me off to Jane, both my nanny and friend. She was the one who read me my bedtime stories when I was little and tucked me into bed. As I aged, her role in the household morphed. Her responsibilities grew, but always she was there for me.
That evening, as she held me, she promised to make it better. She wouldn’t let me look in the mirror, but I could feel it. It was almost my bedtime when Jane brought a woman to my room and explained that the woman would do the best she could to make my hair pretty. I was only ten, but I was certain that pretty wasn’t possible.
With delicate scissors, the woman snipped and clipped. When she was done, it was the smile on Jane’s face that gave me the courage to look at myself in the mirror. The cut was even and maybe even stylish, but it was short and I felt like a boy. It wasn’t until Jane tucked me in that I finally understood: my hair wasn’t the only thing that was gone. So was any hope of escape.
Jane explained that I’d thrown a temper tantrum about the salon. In my own rage I’d taken scissors to my long hair. I cut some places so short that the only way to fix it was to cut it all off. Though she told me the story with determination in her voice, I saw the sadness in her eyes and knew that she was telling me the story my mother would hear. And it was.
I straightened my neck, my long ponytail sliding across my back, and resumed my walk toward my room. The memory reminded my why I’d successfully avoided this house and room for nearly four years. Though my stomach turned, I was now an adult. I could make it for one night.
“Oh!” I exclaimed as I entered my room. It wasn’t the sight of my canopy bed or flowered wallpaper that excited me. My heart leapt at the sight of the woman standing beside my bed. Her smooth, dark skin had a few wrinkles and her brown eyes were older, but they’d been my anchor. I’d assumed that after I left Savannah, her job would no longer exist, or Alton would find a way to get rid of her. “Jane! You’re still here.”
Sh
e wrapped me in the warmest hug I’d had since I arrived. “Child, of course I’m still here. Where did you think I’d go?”
When I was little, Jane seemed so old, but now I saw her as closer to my mother’s age, actually younger. Memories spun through my mind like a carousel. It was everything: the bedroom, the house, and the grounds. It was the sense of imprisonment and the love of the woman squeezing my shoulders.
“I don’t know.” I squeezed her too. “You’re the best surprise I’ve had since I arrived.”
Her cheeks rose and a dimple appeared. “Look at you! You’re all grown up.” She tapped the top drawer of my bedside stand and let out a low whistle. “I’m glad I was the one who unpacked your things.”
My cheeks filled with crimson. “I guess I am. Grown up and also glad it was you.”
She spun me around. “And look at you! So pretty! You’re going to be a big, fancy lawyer.”
I nodded. “That’s the plan.”
“I’ve missed you.”
“I’ve missed you, too.” It was the sincerest statement I’d made since I returned.
She walked into the closet and came out with a pink sundress. “Your momma’s been real excited about your visit. She’s been shopping.”
“Oh please, Jane. We all know my momma doesn’t need a reason to shop.”
Jane winked at me. “Did I hear that you’re not Alexandria anymore?”
I nodded. “That’s right. I’m Alex.” Just saying the name gave me strength. “I’m Alex Collins.”
“Well, look at you, all-grown-up Alex Collins. I know you don’t need no nanny, but maybe for tonight, could you settle for an old friend? After your dinner, maybe I can come back up here and we can catch up. You can tell me all about California.”
The black hole of Montague Manor evaporated. In a room I hated, I remembered how I’d survived. “Under one condition,” I said with a grin.
“What would that be?” she asked with a wink.
“You sneak some mint chocolate chip ice cream up here and we find my old DVD of A Knight’s Tale.”