“I’m very, very sorry about Gil,” Jule said. She meant it completely.
“He was sick forever. So many pills.” Patti paused, and when she went on she sounded choked. “I think after what happened to Immie, he just had no fight left in his body. He and Immie, they were my sweetie potatoes.” Then she pushed her voice again into busy brightness: “Now, back to the reason I called. You’ll come to lunch, right?”
“I said I’d come. Of course.”
“The Ivy, tomorrow at one. I want to thank you for all you did for me, and for Gil, after Immie died. And I even have a surprise for you,” said Patti. “Something that might actually cheer us both up. So don’t be late.”
When the conversation was over, Jule held the phone to her chest for a while.
The Ivy inhabited its narrow corner of London perfectly. It seemed custom-fit to its plot of land. Inside, the walls were lined with portraits and stained glass. It smelled like money: roasted lamb and hothouse flowers. Jule wore a fitted dress and ballet flats. She had added red lipstick to her college-girl makeup.
She found Patti waiting for her at a table, drinking water from a wineglass. When Jule had last seen her eleven months ago, Immie’s mother had been a glossy woman. She was a dermatologist, midfifties, trim except for a potbelly. Her skin had had a moist pinkish sheen, and her hair had been long, dyed deep brown and ironed into loose curls. Now the hair was gray at the roots and chopped into a bob. Her mouth looked swollen and manly without lipstick. She wore, as women of the Upper East Side do, narrow black pants and a long cashmere cardigan—but instead of heels, she had on a pair of bright blue running shoes. Jule almost didn’t recognize her. Patti stood and smiled as Jule came across the room. “I look different, I know.”
“No you don’t,” Jule lied. She kissed Patti’s cheek.
“I can’t do it any longer,” said Patti. “All that time in front of the mirror in the morning, the uncomfortable shoes. Putting on the face.”
Jule sat down.
“I used to put on my face for Gil,” Patti went on. “And for Immie, when she was little. She used to say, ‘Mommy, curl your hair! Go put on sparkles!’ Now there’s no reason. I’m taking time off work. One day I thought, I don’t have to bother. I walked out the door without doing anything and it was such a relief, I can’t say. But I do know it disturbs people. My friends worry. But I think, meh. I lost Imogen. I lost Gil. This is me now.”
Jule was anxious to say the right thing, but she didn’t know if sympathy or distraction was required. “I read a book about that in college,” she said.
“About what?”
“The presentation of self in everyday life. This guy Goffman had the idea that in different situations, you perform yourself differently. Your character isn’t static. It’s an adaptation.”
“I have stopped performing myself, you mean?”
“Or you’re doing it another way now. There are different versions of the self.”
Patti picked up the menu, then reached over and touched Jule’s hand. “You need to go back to college, sweetie potato. You’re so smart.”
“Thank you.”
Patti looked Jule in the eye. “I’m very intuitive about people, you know,” she said, “and you have so much potential. You’re hungry and adventurous. I hope you know you could be anything in the world you want.”
The waiter arrived and took a drink order. Someone else set down a bread basket.
“I brought you Imogen’s rings,” said Jule, when the bustle was over. “I should have mailed them back before, but I—”
“I get it,” said Patti. “It was hard to let them go.”
Jule nodded. She handed over a package of tissue paper. Patti pulled the sticky tape off. Inside lay eight antique rings, all carved or shaped like animals. Immie had collected them. They were funny and unusual, carefully crafted, all different styles. The ninth one, Jule still wore. Immie had given it to her. It was a jade snake on her right ring finger.
Patti began to weep quietly into her napkin.
Jule looked down at the collection. Each of those circles had been on Immie’s fragile fingers at one point or another. Immie had stood, sun-kissed, in that jewelry store on the Vineyard. “I want to see the most unusual ring you have for sale,” she’d said to the shopkeeper. And later, “This one is for you.” She’d given Jule the snake ring, and Jule would not stop wearing it, now, even though she didn’t deserve it any longer, and maybe had never deserved it at all.
Jule gagged, a feeling that came from deep in her stomach and rippled through her throat. “Excuse me.” She got up and stumbled toward the ladies’ toilet. The restaurant spun around her. Black closed in from the sides of her eyes. She clutched the back of an empty chair to steady herself.
She was going to be sick. Or faint. Or both. Here in the Ivy, surrounded by these pristine people, where she didn’t deserve to be, embarrassing the poor, poor mother of a friend she hadn’t loved well enough, or had loved too much.
Jule reached the restroom and stood bent over the sink.
The gagging would not stop. Her throat contracted over and over.
She closed herself in a stall, steadying herself against the wall. Her shoulders shook. She heaved, but nothing came up.
She stayed in there until the gagging subsided, shaking and trying to catch her breath.
Back at the sink, she wiped her wet face with a paper towel. She pressed her swollen eyes with fingers dipped in cold water.
The red lipstick was in the pocket of her dress. Jule put it on like armor and went back to see Patti.
—
When Jule returned to the table, Patti had composed herself and was talking to the waiter. “I’ll have the beetroot to start,” she told him as Jule sat down. “And then the swordfish, I think. The swordfish is good? Yes, okay.”
Jule ordered a hamburger and a green salad.
When the waiter left, Patti apologized. “Sorry. I’m very sorry. Are you all right?”
“Sure.”
“I warn you, I may cry again later. Possibly on the street! You never know these days. I’m liable to begin sobbing at any given moment.” The rings and their tissue paper were no longer on the table. “Listen, Jule,” said Patti. “You once told me that your parents failed you. Do you remember?”
Jule did not remember. She never thought of her parents anymore, at all, unless it was through the lens of the hero’s origin she had created for herself. She never, ever thought of her aunt.
Now the origin story flashed into her mind: Her parents in the front yard of a pretty little house at the end of a cul-de-sac, in that tiny Alabama town. They lay facedown in pools of black blood that seeped into the grass, lit by a single streetlight. Her mother shot through the brain. Her father bleeding out through bullet holes in his arms.
She found the story comforting. It was beautiful. The parents had been brave. The girl would grow up highly educated and extremely powerful.
But she knew it was not a story to share with Patti. Instead, she said mildly, “Did I say that?”
“Yes, and when you did, I thought maybe I had failed Imogen, too. Gil and I hardly ever talked about her being adopted when she was little. Not in front of her, or in private. I wanted to think of Immie as my baby, you know? Not anyone’s but mine and Gil’s. And it was hard to speak about, because her birth mother became an addict, and there were no family members who would take the baby. I told myself I was protecting her from pain. I had no idea how badly I was failing her until she—” Patti’s voice trailed off.
“Imogen loved you,” said Jule.
“She was desperate about something. And she didn’t come to me.”
“She didn’t come to me, either.”
“I should have raised her so that she could open up to people, get help if she was in trouble.”
“Immie told me everything,” said Jule. “Her secrets, her insecurities, how she wanted to live her life. She told me her birth name. We wore each other’s clot
hes and read each other’s books. Honestly, I was very close to Immie when she died, and I think she was mad lucky to have you.”
Patti’s eyes welled and she touched Jule’s hand. “She was lucky to have you, too. I thought so when she first took up with you at Greenbriar freshman year. I know she adored you more than anyone in her life, Jule, because— Well. This is what I wanted to meet with you about. Our family lawyer tells me Immie left you her money.”
Jule felt dizzy. She put down her fork.
Immie’s money. Millions.
It was safety and power. It was plane tickets and keys to cars, but more importantly, it was tuition payments, food in the larder, medical care. It meant that no one could say no. No one could stop her anymore, and no one could hurt her. Jule wouldn’t need help from anyone, ever again.
“I don’t understand finance,” Patti went on. “I should, I know. But I trusted Gil and I was glad he took care of all that. It bores me out of my skin. But Immie understood it, and she left a will. She sent it to the lawyer before she died. She had a lot of money from her father and me, once she turned eighteen. It was in trust till then, and after her birthday, Gil did the paperwork to shift it over to her.”
“She got the money when she was still in high school?”
“The May before college started. Maybe that was a mistake. Anyway, it’s done.” Patti went on, “She was good with finances. She lived off the interest and never touched the capital except to buy the London flat. That’s why she didn’t have to work. And in her will, she left it all to you. She made small bequests to the National Kidney Foundation—because of Gil’s illness—and to the North Shore Animal League, but she made a will and left you the bulk of the money. She sent the lawyer an email that specifically says she wanted to help you go back to college.”
Jule was touched. It didn’t make sense, but she was.
Patti smiled. “She left this world sending you back to school. That’s the bright side I’m trying to see.”
“When did she write the will?”
“A few months before she died. She had it notarized in San Francisco. There are just a few things to sign.” Patti shoved an envelope across the table. “They’ll transfer the money directly into your account, and in September you’ll be a sophomore at Stanford.”
—
When the money arrived in her bank, Jule withdrew it all and opened a new checking account somewhere else. She started several new credit card accounts and arranged for the bills to be paid automatically every month.
Then she went shopping. She bought false eyelashes, foundation, liner, blush, powder, brushes, three different lipsticks, two shadows, and a small but expensive makeup box. A red wig, a black dress, and a pair of high heels. More would have been nice, but she needed to travel light.
She used her computer to purchase a plane ticket to Los Angeles, booked an LA hotel, and researched used car dealers in the Las Vegas area. London to LA, then LA by bus to Vegas. From Vegas by car to Mexico. That was the plan.
Jule paged through documents on her laptop. She made sure she knew all the bank numbers, customer service numbers, passwords, credit card numbers, and codes. She memorized passport and driver’s license numbers. Then one night, long after dark, she tossed the laptop and her phone into the Thames.
Back at the youth hostel, she wrote a sincere letter of thanks to Patti Sokoloff on an old-fashioned piece of airmail paper and posted it. She cleaned out her storage locker and packed her suitcase. Her identification and papers were neatly organized. She made sure to place all her lotions and hair products in travel-size bottles in sealable plastic bags.
Jule had never been to Vegas. She changed her clothes in the bathroom at the bus station. The sink area was inhabited by a white woman in her fifties with a granny cart. She was sitting on the counter, eating a sandwich wrapped in greasy white paper. She wore dirty black leggings on narrow thighs. Her hair was teased up high, gray and blond. It was matted. Her shoes were on the floor—pale pink vinyl stilettos. Her bare feet, with Band-Aids on the heels, swung in the air.
Jule went into the biggest stall and dug through her case. She put on her hoop earrings for the first time in nearly a year. She wiggled into the dress she’d bought—short and black, paired with leather platform heels. She got out the red wig. It was unnaturally sleek, but the color looked good with her freckles. Jule took out the makeup box, closed her bag, and went to the sink.
The woman sitting on the counter didn’t remark on the change of hair color. She crumpled her sandwich wrapper and lit a cigarette.
Jule’s makeup skills came from watching online tutorials. For most of the last year she’d been wearing what she thought of as college-girl makeup: natural skin, blush, sheer lips, mascara. Now she brought out fake eyelashes, green shadow, black liner, base, contouring brushes, eyebrow pencil, coral gloss.
It wasn’t really necessary. She didn’t need the cosmetics, the dress, or the shoes. The wig was probably enough. Still, the transformation was good practice—that was how she thought of it. And she liked becoming someone else.
The other woman spoke as Jule finished her eyes. “You a working girl?”
Jule answered, just for fun, in her Scottish accent. “No.”
“I mean, you selling yourself?”
“No.”
“Don’t sell yourself. So sad, you girls.”
“I’m not.”
“It’s a shame, that’s all I’m saying.”
Jule was silent. She applied highlighter to her cheekbones.
“I did that job,” the woman went on. She lowered herself off the counter and stuffed her messed-up feet into the shoes. “No family anymore and no money: that was how I started, and it’s no different now. But it’s not a way up, even with high-rolling guys. You should know that.”
Jule shrugged into a green cardigan and picked up her case. “Don’t worry about me. I’m fine, honestly.” Dragging the bag behind her, she headed for the door—but she stumbled slightly in the unfamiliar shoes.
“You all right?” the woman asked.
“Oh, yeah.”
“It’s hard to be a woman sometimes.”
“Yeah, it pretty much sucks, except for the makeup,” Jule said. She pushed through the door without looking back.
With her suitcase stashed in a bus-station locker, Jule shouldered a tote bag and took a taxi to the Las Vegas strip. She was tired—she hadn’t been able to sleep on the bus ride, and she was on London time.
The casino was lit up with neon, chandeliers, and the sparkle of the slot machines. Jule walked past men in sports jerseys, pensioners, party girls, and a large group of librarians wearing conference badges. It took two hours, walking from place to place, but eventually she found what she was looking for.
There was a cluster of women around a bank of Batman slots having what seemed to be a ridiculously good time. They had frozen drinks, purple and slushy. A couple looked Asian American, a couple white. It was a bachelorette party, and the bride was perfect, just what Jule needed. She was pale and petite, with strong-looking shoulders and gentle freckles—couldn’t have been more than twenty-three. Her light brown hair was up in a ponytail, and she wore a hot-pink minidress and a white sash with rhinestones on it: BRIDE TO BE. Dangling from her left shoulder was a small turquoise bag with multiple zippers. She leaned over as her friends played the machines, cheering, comfortable being adored by everyone around her.
Jule walked over to the group and used a lowland Southern accent, like in Alabama. “ ’Scuse me, do any of y’all—well, my phone’s out of charge and I gotta text my friend. I last saw her over by the sushi bar, but then I started playing, and now, whoop! It’s three hours later and she’s MIA.”
The bachelorettes turned around.
Jule smiled. “Oh, are y’all a bridal party?”
“She’s getting married on Saturday!” cried one of the women, clutching the bride.
“Hooray!” said Jule. “What’s your name?”
“Shanna,” said the bride. They were the same height, but Shanna wore flats, so Jule stood over her a little.
“Shanna Dixie, soon to be Shanna McFetridge!” cried a bachelorette.
“Dang,” said Jule. “Do you have a dress?”
“Of course I do,” said Shanna.
“It’s not a Vegas wedding,” said a bachelorette. “It’s a church wedding.”
“Where are y’all from?” asked Jule.
“Tacoma. It’s in Washington. You know it? We’re just in Vegas for—”
“They planned the whole weekend for me,” said Shanna. “We flew in this morning and went to the spa and the nail salon. See? I got the gel. Then we hit the casino, and tomorrow we’re gonna see the white tigers.”
“And what’s your dress? For the wedding, I mean.”
Shanna clutched Jule’s arm. “It’s to die for. I feel like a princess, it’s so good.”
“Can I see it? On your phone? You must have a picture.” Jule put her hand over her mouth and ducked her head a little. “I have a thing about wedding dresses, you know? Ever since I was a bitty girl.”
“Hell yes, I have a picture,” said Shanna. She unzipped her bag and pulled out a phone in a gold case. The lining of the bag was pink. Inside were a wallet of dark brown leather, two tampons wrapped in plastic, a pack of gum, and a lipstick.
“Lemme see,” said Jule. She stepped around to look at Shanna’s phone.
Shanna swiped through the pictures. A dog. The rusty underside of a sink. A baby. The same baby again. “That’s my boy, Declan. He’s eighteen months.” Some trees by a lake. “There it is.”
The dress was strapless and long, with folds of fabric around the hips. In the picture, Shanna modeled it in a bridal store filled with other white gowns.
Jule oohed and aahed. “Can I see your fiancé?”
“Hell yes. He, like, killed the proposal,” said Shanna. “He put the ring in a doughnut. He’s in law school. I won’t have to work unless I want to.” She went on. Talking, talking. She held up the phone to show the lucky guy grinning on the slopes.