I returned with him to the stairway and began to ascend. We heard what sounded like opera coming from a set of closed double doors at the end of the hallway.
"Pamela likes to listen to operettas while she's in her
boudoir." When I made a face, he laughed. "You'll see?'
We stopped at a tall door, and he glanced at me with that impish glitter in his eyes just before he opened it. This time, I couldn't swallow back my gasp. The room, my room, was four times the size of what my room had been at the orphanage, and my bed was big enough to be a trampoline! It had four light pink posts and a headboard with a long-stemmed rose embossed on it. There was a milk-white desk with drawers and across the room a long counter with mirrors and a vanity table. The table was covered with brushes, containers of makeup, eyeliner, tubes of lipstick, a hair dryer, and an ivory box full of barrettes and hair ties.
All of my new clothes were put away in the dressers and large walk-in closet, and still there was room for lots and lots more. In the closet were mirrors and even a small table and chair.
On both sides of the bed were large windows draped in white and pink gingham curtains. My room looked out on a view of the countryside, and in the distance I could see a small lake.
Peter opened a cabinet across from the bed to show me a small television set. He then opened the bottom cabinet to reveal the sound system,
"We'll get you some music this weekend," he promised. "Pamela already has the next few days planned out, and shopping is a large part of it. So?" he said, standing there with his hands on his hips. "Are you happy?"
&nb
sp; I shook my head. Happy just wasn't a big enough word. I turned around and then touched things to be sure they were all really there and this wasn't a dream.
"This is my room?" I finally had to ask.
He laughed. "Of course. Why don't you rest and then shower or bathe and dress for dinner, our first together. Pamela has had something special prepared. She's determined to spoil you rotten. She says a beautiful woman has to be spoiled. She must be right. After all, who can deny I have spoiled her?" he said.
There was a knock on the door, and we turned to see Joline.
"Mrs. Thompson sent me to see if Miss Brooke would like me to run her bath now," she said.
Miss Brooke? I thought.
"See," Peter said, "how Pamela is always thinking ahead. Well?"
"Well what?" I asked.
"Would you like Joline to run your bath now?" "Run my bath?"
"Get it ready for you?" Peter explained.
I gazed at the large, round tub in the sparkling bathroom. What was so hard about getting a bath ready? "I can do that," I said.
"Of course you can," he said, "but from now on, someone else will do it for you. It's what Pamela wants. She wants you to be just like her."
Something nudged me deep down inside where all my dreams and secret thoughts were kept. It was like a tiny alarm. An alarm I didn't quite understand.
I gazed at my new clothes, my expensive watch, my whole new world, so much more privileged and safe than the orphanage.
What could possibly be the danger here?
2 Out with the Old
When Pamela had sent Joline to run my bath, she didn't mean simply to turn on the water. She instructed her on just how much of each of the bath powders and oils to mix as well. I stood by, watching her measure it all out with the precision of a chemist.
"What is all that?" I asked.
"These are things Mrs. Thompson says will keep your skin soft and silky and keep you from aging."
"Aging? I don't think I have to worry about aging. I'm not even thirteen," I said.
She smiled at me as if I had said something very stupid and then turned on the water. After that, she set out big fluffy bath towels and my robe and slippers.