“Um,” Mrs. Brittany said through tight lips.
She picked up her phone to call Mrs. Pratt, who again seemed to have been waiting just outside the door.
“Please show our new”—she looked up at me and smiled—“candidate to her suite.”
“I’m staying here now, tonight?”
“Is there any reason for you to go back to your whatever tonight? If there’s anything of value there, tell Bob, and he’ll see after it.”
“No, there’s nothing of value,” I said, “but these are the only clothes I have, and . . .”
“Please,” she said, holding up her hand, palm toward me. “Don’t insult me. You will have all that you need for tonight and for your time here. Periodically, I will take you on shopping trips, and we’ll begin your wardrobe as I become more confident that you will, shall we say, graduate. Everything else you need will be in your suite. I think it’s important that you get a good night’s rest. I believe in getting a new girl right into things. Time, as they say, is money, and for us, that’s really true, isn’t it, Bob?”
“Absolutely,” Mr. Bob said. He was beaming. I guessed whatever finder’s fee he expected, he would get, but then I wondered if he had to give it back if I failed or if he would get more if I succeeded.
“Give her the scarlet suite, Mrs. Pratt. It has the best view. I think our new candidate needs to improve her view of everything.”
“Yes, madam,” Mrs. Pratt said. She stood waiting for me.
I turned to leave.
“Hold up,” Mr. Bob said, gently seizing my right arm. “You have something of mine left with someone. I should know who that is so that I can retrieve it. You’ll have to call to let them know.” He looked at Mrs. Brittany when she groaned.
“You didn’t do that silly thing again with your license, did you?” she asked him.
He shrugged. “I thought it was necessary. She had her skepticism, and I thought she was worth it.”
“Nothing to worry about,” I told him, and took his license out of my purse. “I had no one to trust with it and thought you were worth taking a chance on.”
“Well, there. You see?” Mrs. Brittany said. “You do have a trusting way about you, after all, Bob.”
He smiled and put his license back into his wallet. “I like this girl,” he said. “She’s got guts.”
“We’ll see,” Mrs. Brittany said. “It takes more than just guts.” She nodded at me, and I followed Mrs. Pratt out of the office.
“This way,” Mrs. Pratt told me in the hallway. We returned to the foyer and started up the magnificent stairway. “You’ll be woken at six-thirty for breakfast,” she began as we walked. “I’ll lay out what you are to wear tomorrow. Everything is in your closet.”
“Six-thirty?”
She paused and looked back at me. “There’s not enough time in the day to do all you have to do as it is.”
“Well, it’s no good if I’m not awake.”
“Oh, you’ll be awake,” she assured me.
The second floor was just as elaborate as the floor below. Again, there were paintings on every wall, beautiful lamps and statuary in niches, and chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.
“These are the guest suites,” she continued, nodding at closed doors. “Currently, only Camelia and Portia are in residence.” She paused at the third door on the right. “Mrs. Brittany frowns on our girls partying in any of the suites. You can fraternize if you’re taking a lesson together with someone, but it’s better when you retire for the evening that you get your rest.”
“This sounds more like boot camp every minute,” I muttered.
She smiled. “Yes, but the boots you wear here are Gucci.”
Finally, I had something to laugh about. Maybe she wasn’t as hard and cold as I first thought. She opened the door, and I nearly gasped with surprise and delight.
The suite was easily three times the size of Mama and Papa’s bedroom. There was a king-size bed with a scarlet canopy and oversize pillows, all the bedding a lighter shade of scarlet. The bed was so high that there was a footstool beside it. The walls were also a lighter shade of scarlet, as were the curtains
. All the furniture—the bed frame, the dressers, the night tables and vanity table—was made from a cherry wood whose rich color I had never seen. And there was a fluffy white area rug. The rest of the floor was a continuation of the hardwood floor in the hallway.