Now I was feeling the same sadness.
Surely, despite Papa’s self-confidence and abilities, she was also a little afraid when she left France to live in America. She would have to learn new customs, more English, and new rules that governed everyday life. It took almost as much courage as love.
For me, the prospect of going to live with Roxy was probably not so far from the prospect of going to live in another country. I was excited and intrigued, but I would be lying if I didn’t admit to being afraid. Would Uncle Orman and Aunt Lucy be right? Would I find myself in an even more terrible situation? Where would I go then?
Once I was terrified of merely talking to Roxy because of what Papa would think and how betrayed he would feel.
If a corpse could really turn over in its grave, Papa might do just that the next time I went to visit. He would show me his back.
Or would he?
Maybe, just maybe, this was a way to bring Roxy home and not vice versa.
Maybe all that was Papa in me would be welcomed and loved again.
Maybe we would be sisters in every sense of the word.
I hoped so. Then Mama’s and his passing would have some meaning for both of us.
I would soon know.
20
Even with Roxy’s limousine driver helping me carry out my suitcases and bringing them into the hotel, I felt like a trespasser. I could see the curiosity and what I thought was disapproval in the eyes of the desk clerk and the bellman. Roxy didn’t even look their way. I told myself I had to learn how to ignore people the way she did.
When the elevator doors opened, I saw that there were only three apartments on her floor. Hers was to the right. It had a short marble entry with a small but expensive-looking teardrop chandelier. There was a coat closet on the immediate right and a work of art on the opposite wall. It was a picture of a flower cut out of black velvet with pink cloth petals. There were artificial flowers everywhere.
Fleur du Coeur, I thought. The room was designed to fit her image.
The entryway opened to a surprisingly large living room with elegant leather and wood furniture. The centerpiece was a softly curved, L-shaped sectional that consisted of a sofa, a corner back, and a loveseat. Directly across from it was a swivel accent chair with a round bottom frame. Accent pillows were on everything. A matching coffee table and end table filled out the center of the room. To the right was a large panel window that looked east, and down from it was another, smaller window. A set of four different versions of what looked like the same flower were hung high on the far wall. The walls were painted white with swirls of soft red and pink. The wooden floor was covered with a very large area rug that matched the furniture.
My eyes took in everything quickly. I saw the sculptures, the lamps, and the bouquets of artificial flowers, but there was a fresh real plant at the center of the coffee table. The flowers on it looked heart-shaped.
“What are those?” I asked. “They look like hearts.”
Roxy laughed. “They are. They’re called dicentra or bleeding heart. I have a client who has them shipped in from Japan. He’s actually very sweet. Okay, let’s get you settled in,” she said, and nodded at the small hallway down to the right. Her driver was already heading there. The floors were marble everywhere but in the living room, and the walls were painted with the same white with pink swirls. I followed him into a large bedroom. There was a king-size four-poster bed with oversized pillows and a comforter, plus a nightstand, dresser, and mirror. Everything had a cherry veneer. There was an en suite bathroom with a small vanity table and an oval mirror in a cherry frame.
“Just leave the suitcases, Mark. We’ll take care of it from here.”
The driver nodded and headed out without saying a word.
Roxy opened the sliding closet doors. “As you can see, you’ll have plenty of space here,” she said.
“It’s a beautiful place, Roxy.”
“Actually, it’s the biggest apartment in the hotel. Mrs. Brittany saw to that.”
“You mentioned her before. Who is she?”
She thought a moment and nodded to herself. “I should deal with all that first. Mrs. Brittany is the head of the company I work for. She wasn’t happy about your coming here to live with me. I had to make a number of promises to her about you and how you would behave here. You can’t violate any of these rules I’m setting down.”
She walked to the window and opened the drapes. My windows looked out on the avenue, but the panes were thick and almost soundproof.
“She will probably stop by soon to see you and how I’m managing this,” she continued, and turned back to me. “First, whenever I have a client visiting, you can’t leave this room. I’ll tell you way in advance so you will have time to get anything you want and bring it in here. You’ll keep the door closed and not come out until I let you know you can. Is that clear?”
“Yes,” I said. “How often do you have clients?”
“I’d rather you didn’t ask me any questions about any of this, M. When I think it’s necessary for you to know something, I’ll tell you, okay?”
I shrugged. Was she embarrassed, ashamed, or just secretive? “Okay.”
“There’s a restaurant on this block that sends up dinners. I’ll show you their menu, and you can order anything you want. We’ll do our own breakfasts when we’re here for breakfast. Should I have a client staying overnight, I’ll have you put up in a room on another floor. You’ll know in advance so you’ll have time to get your things together. You have a television in here and a phone, but be sure not to use the television when I have a client. It’s important.”
“Why?”
“Let’s just say some of these clients want to be very discreet and would rather very few, if any, know they’ve come here. It would especially spook them to know there was someone else in the apartment.”
“Are they famous people? Would I recognize them? Is that why?”
“What did I just say about questioning me, M?”
“I’m just curious.”
“Yeah, well, contain your curiosity under lock and key for a while, will you? Now,” she continued, walking toward the door, “I really don’t anticipate Aunt Lucy making a thing of this, but you never know what someone as self-important as that will do. So you have to do well in school and stay out of trouble. I know you’ve been doing well, but what I mean is, you can’t suddenly change for the worse because you’re with me. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve made an appointment for us with this attorney, Steve Whitman. He handles estates and all that and will process Mama’s will. He’s also connected with some real estate people, so he’ll get the town house on the market very quickly for us—for you, I should say. How do you get to school every day?”
“I walk.”
“You have to walk farther now,” she said.
“I know how much farther this is, Roxy. I’ve been here before, remember?”
“Right,” she said. “Good.”
I wanted to tell her about Chastity and me spying on her, but I didn’t think it was a good time to do that.
“Well, do you want help unpacking?”
“No. Can I see your bedroom?”
She smiled. “Okay, but no jokes,” she said. Now I really was curious.
We went through the hallway to the living room. She showed me the dining room and the kitchen, and then we went down another short marble hallway to a double-door bedroom. It was about one and a half times larger than mine, but the centerpiece was her blazing red bed shaped like a heart. The walls were papered with depictions of beautiful gardens. There was a mirror on the ceiling above the bed. The area rug was a tight-threaded crimson. The wood in her dresser, vanity table, and nightstands was rich cherry. Her en suite bathroom was twice the size of mine, with a Jacuzzi, a large shower, and a second bathtub.
“Flowers and hearts,” I said. “Fleur du Coeur.”
“Mrs. Brittany takes her themes very ser
iously. Okay, go unpack, M. I’m expecting Mrs. Brittany in a few hours, and I’d like everything settled. I’m sending out for some lunch. What would you like?”
“Just a salad with some chicken, maybe.”
“Okay. Let me know if you need anything else. Oh,” she said as I started out of her bedroom, “there’s a maid here every day, of course. She’ll make your bed and change the linens, the towels. We send everything out to be washed, dry-cleaned, whatever. There’s a hamper in your bathroom. The maid will see to what has to be washed.”
“I’ll get so spoiled,” I said.
“So what? Don’t you think Aunt Lucy is spoiled? There are plenty of women like her.”
“I don’t ever want to be like her.”
She smiled.
“I doubt that you’ll ever be. Get going.”
I returned to my room and began hanging up my clothes and putting things in the dresser drawers. I had my favorite teddy bear, the one Papa had given me when I was only five. I wondered if Roxy would remember it. As I did in my room at home, I placed it between the pillows on the bed. Just having it with me brought me some comfort. I heard the buzzer ring. A delivery boy had brought up our lunch. I didn’t step out until he was gone.
“You don’t have to hide from everyone, M. It would be silly to try, anyway. I’m only concerned about my clients,” Roxy told me.
I joined her in the dining room. She had set the table.
“Don’t think because I did this much that I’m any sort of homemaker,” she said. “I don’t wash dishes, polish furniture, anything.”
“Can I ask how long you’ve been here?”
“Some other time,” she said. “I don’t feel like talking about myself right now. I suppose I’ll have to go to your school and register as your guardian or something.”
I shrugged. “I guess.”
“Well, don’t expect me to step into this big-sister role easily. I’ve been on my own too long.”
“What about friends?”
“What about them?”
“Don’t you have any close friends?”
I didn’t want to mention the young woman I saw her with that day when Chastity and I followed her.
“Close acquaintances,” she replied.
“What about when you were in school, living at home?”
“You don’t think I kept in touch with anyone I knew back then, do you?”
“No, I guess not.” I paused. “You sound as if you’ve been very lonely, Roxy.”
“I survived,” she replied, but I saw I had drawn a little emotional blood. She looked away. “I was too friendly with someone once, someone else who worked for Mrs. Brittany. Things didn’t work out for her.”
“What happened?” I asked.
“Let’s just say she took one of her clients too seriously and leave it at that.”
“You don’t see her anymore?”
“She died,” Roxy said, and slammed her fork down on the plate. “I asked you not to ask questions, M, and the first thing you have me doing is talking about things I don’t want to talk about.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Just do your own thing, and don’t interfere with me,” she said sharply.
“All right. Maybe this was a mistake,” I said, looking at my salad.
She was silent, and then she reached for my hand. “I’m sorry. It’s not a mistake. You’ll be all right. You’ll finish school, go to college, and marry a millionaire.”
“Yeah, right,” I said. “I don’t want to marry a millionaire. I want to marry someone I love, just like Mama did.”
“Okay. Here’s to that,” she said, raising her glass of white wine. “We all need some fantasy, I guess.”
I looked at her, still feeling fury inside me. Maybe I would soon get to understand exactly how she had gotten so under Papa’s skin that he could throw her out.
“And what’s your fantasy, Roxy?”
She thought a moment and shook her head. “I’ve run out of them,” she said. Then she surprised me with a smile. “Maybe you’ll bring some back.”
I wasn’t particularly in the mood for fantasies, either. Reality was a bully. It shoved and pushed its way into your mind, driving rainbow dreams down or out. Dared I think of what my future would be now? Did ambition matter? When would I think about romance again? Roxy had this lovemaking hideaway, the most beautiful dresses, the most expensive perfumes, probably the best hairstylists in the city, but it all seemed more like ways to trap and entice and had nothing to do with love and romance. Did I dare ask her if she had someone special, ever dreamed of someone special or wanted someone special? What did she see as her future? How long could this go on?
I returned to my room to finish up organizing my things. Soon after, I heard the door buzzer again and listened at the door. It was a woman. She had an English accent. A moment later, I heard footsteps coming my way and stepped back from the door. Roxy opened it, and she and a woman who looked about fifty but was probably older stepped in. She was a few inches taller than Roxy and had her light blond hair parted in the middle and curled at her neck. The most striking feature of her face was her crystal-blue eyes. There probably wasn’t a more perfect nose on any woman in the city. I thought her lips were recently injected with Botox. Actually, she looked like someone who had a plastic surgeon on call. If she looked in the mirror and saw something she didn’t like, she picked up the phone and left the house immediately.
“This is M,” Roxy said. “M, this is Mrs. Brittany.”
I said hello, but she didn’t reply. Instead, she walked in farther and looked me over the way I imagined Southern slave owners at a slave auction looked over new Africans brought into the country.
“With a little work, she could be prettier than you,” Mrs. Brittany said.
I glanced at Roxy and thought I saw fear ripple through her face.
“She’s only fifteen,” Roxy said.
“You weren’t much older,” Mrs. Brittany replied quickly. Roxy forced a smile.
“I was much, much different,” she said.
“Maybe. In my experience, we never know what lies under a young girl’s skin. Are you sexually active?” she asked me.
“What? No.”
She looked surprised and smiled skeptically. Then she grew serious again. “Sorry about your mother. I understand you have horrible relatives.”
“Let’s just say it wouldn’t have been difficult to leave them on the Titanic,” I replied, and she laughed.
Her laugh was deep, more like a rumbling in her chest. Now that she was closer to me, I saw the small birthmark on the bottom left of her chin and the strands of hair with gray roots beginning to expose themselves. Her face was tight, plastic-surgery tight, so that her smile seemed more like a folding than a relaxed movement in her cheeks and lips. How old was she? I wondered.
“Okay. We don’t want to send you back on the Titanic. You can stay here with Roxy, but you will have to obey the rules your sister and I have set down.”
“I know. I’m not going to cause any trouble. I know how to keep to myself,” I said.
She tilted her head, gave me an appreciative smile, and looked at Roxy. “I’m surprised you didn’t talk more about her.”
I looked at Roxy, too, to see what her answer would be.
“You knew my memories of my family were painful, Mrs. Brittany. If anyone knew, you did. I wasn’t about to talk about anyone.”
“Yes. Well, let’s see how it goes.” She stared at me again and then smiled. “If she stays looking this young, she could be our Lolita. I get a lot of calls for a Lolita these days, you know. The older men get, the more they look to youth. There’s nothing a man fears more than losing his erection, and most of these men have wives who could discourage the most psychotic rapist. Youth is a valuable commodity. It always has been and always will be.”
“She’s going to college, Mrs. Brittany. She’s got a good inheritance coming. She’s far from the state I was in at her age.??
?
“Um,” she said, still considering me. “We have college girls, too, you know.” She turned to Roxy. “Clair de Lune has a BA from Columbia. Anyway,” she continued, starting to look bored, “I don’t want to see or hear about any problems, Roxy.”
“You won’t.”
She looked at me again. “You mean to stand there and tell me you’re a virgin, then?”
“Yes,” I said. “I haven’t met the right young man for that.”
“The right young man? I thought you kids today weren’t as discriminating and treated sex as just another recreation.”
“I don’t,” I said firmly.
She shook her head. “It’s amazing how two girls from the same home can be so different,” she said, and laughed. I saw how uncomfortable Roxy was becoming.
“I’m sure there was no one in your family exactly like you, Mrs. Brittany,” I told her, and she lost her smile for a moment. The silence that fell was heavy. It felt as if all of the oxygen had left the room.
Then she relaxed. “I see in you one quality you share with your sister, being headstrong, fearless. That could be good, or . . .” She turned to leave, then turned back at the door. “It could be disastrous. The trick is knowing when to watch your mouth.” She smiled. “Maybe that’s something you’ll learn while you’re here, and it won’t be a total waste.” She looked at Roxy. “Let’s talk,” she snapped, and walked out.
Roxy glanced at me, nodded, and followed her.
I let out my breath.
From a distance, Mrs. Brittany looked like an attractive, elegant woman, but up close, her true nature showed itself. She wasn’t just tough; she was street tough, with those rough edges of someone who had clawed and scratched her way out of the gutter. Maybe she had learned how to appear dignified, aristocratic, and cultured, but as Mama might say, scratch her skin, and you’ll find an alley cat lurking.