Two large windows were evenly spaced, each on one side of the headboard. The curtains were drawn closed at the moment. Mrs. Pratt entered and put the light on in the en suite bathroom. I walked in and looked at it. The bathroom was easily as big as my bedroom at home. It had a double-size shower stall, a Jacuzzi tub, two sinks, a bidet in addition to a toilet, cabinets, and wall mirrors everywhere. A professional scale stood beside the sink on the right. The bathroom was done in a swirling pink tile. There was a wall telephone and even a small television on the wall so that someone soaking in a bath could watch something.
Mrs. Pratt turned without comment and crossed the bedroom to the walk-in closet. She flipped another light switch. I saw clothes on the racks.
“What’s all that?”
“For now, you have what we call the basics, some blouses and slacks and a proper dress for an informal dinner.”
“What about size?”
“There’s a variety in here, but you’ll surely find something that fits well. We had a little warning about you.”
“What warning? You mean since the time Mr. Bob bought me this dress, shoes, and purse, these things were bought?”
“Something like that,” she said, smiling. “You needn’t be concerned with how fast Mrs. Brittany can get things done. She gets them done fast enough to satisfy her requirements. There are running shoes and some flats here that should also fit you. In these drawers,” she said, opening one of the drawers in the built-in dresser, “you’ll find panties, three styles of bras, and a sports bra, plus socks, belts, and handkerchiefs. All silk, of course. Lance Martin will have your bathing suit for you.”
She closed the drawer and opened another to take out a brand-new pink sweatsuit. She placed it on top of the dresser.
“This is for tomorrow morning,” she said. We walked out of the closet, and she nodded at the vanity table.
“For now, you have only a hairbrush. The table is not yet stocked. This will occur after you meet with Claudine Laffette and she decides on what would bring out the best qualities in your face, primarily your eyes and mouth. You’ll find sleepwear in your dresser here. There are slippers and a robe in the bathroom. I would recommend that you take a warm bath and go to bed. You’re about to begin quite a demanding period of development.” She started for the door.
“Oh,” she said, pausing. She returned to open a small cabinet beside the dresser. “This is a small built-in refrigerator. There are bottles of mineral water in here. If you need anything else now or during the night, just press zero on your phone. There’s someone available around the clock. Are there any questions? I’m sorry to be so abrupt, but I have to go over some economic matters with Mrs. Brittany. She has an important meeting tomorrow.”
“No,” I said. What was left to ask? What they served for breakfast?
She flashed a smile, nodded, and left, closing the door behind her.
For a moment, I just stood there staring at the door. Then I looked around. I didn’t know whether to feel like Cinderella or the Prisoner of Zenda. I knew all this should make me feel very happy, but it also filled me with new fears, and I wasn’t one to care or worry too much about fears. As a child, I rarely called out after a nightmare. I didn’t want to see my father’s disapproving face as he stood behind my mother, clearly revealing his displeasure in my having woken them. I learned how to swallow back my childhood demons the way we swallow down something that wants to come up out of our stomachs. Grin and bear it, or as Papa would say to me even when I was four, “Soldier up.”
It didn’t take much soldiering up to tolerate this, I thought. The bed felt like a large marshmallow when I sat on it and then tested it lying down. My head sank softly and slowly into the oversize pillow. It was like sinking into a cloud. I hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a perfume aroma in the room. It smelled like lavender. I rose and went into the bathroom. That beautiful bathtub did look inviting, and I always enjoyed bubbling jets. I saw bath oils and powders, perfumed soaps, and soft washcloths and towels. First, I found the nightgown I’d wear, and then I started the water to fill the tub.
After I got undressed and was soaking in ecstasy, I thought about the hovel of a room in the hotel I had found when Papa had kicked me out of the house, where I would be right now if Mr. Bob hadn’t been in that restaurant. I tried to convince myself that from the way he and Mrs. Brittany had described what escorts do, I wasn’t really selling my soul to the devil. It was more like acting. I would learn a great deal here, and then I would go out on a stage, not into the field, as she had said. On this stage, I would pretend to care for and appreciate whomever I was with. I would be so charming and beautiful that my date—could I use that word?—would ask for me repeatedly, and I’d make a fortune.
Maybe there would be a handsome, exciting young businessman or a movie star with whom I would want to have sex. So what? I had made love with boys for relatively nothing. As long as I was careful and made sure I didn’t get pregnant, I’d be fine. Why wouldn’t I do it if I wasn’t unhappy about it and I could make a lot of money?
I glanced at myself in the mirror as I thought these thoughts and asked that question of myself again. Mama would be devastated if she had any idea, not only of what I might do here but of what I had done. Papa would be so self-satisfied. If he learned where I was and what I was going to do, he would feel justified for the way he had thrown me out of the house. I could hear him now: “I knew we had to get rid of her. Imagine the sort of influence she would have been when Emmie was older.”
Mama would cry, but she would cry mostly when she was alone. If she shed any tears in front of him, it would just elevate his rage and make him blame me more, blame me for the pain and suffering my mother endured. I had caused it at birth and would forever.
What could I do about it? Just as he could never change me, I could never change him. Can you ever truly love someone who disappoints you? What was more painful, not loving my father because he didn’t love me or not loving myself because I couldn’t get him to love me?
I closed my eyes and lay back in the water. Then I pressed the buttons and started the jets. Squealing with delight, I looked at myself in the mirror. Shut down any second thoughts, Roxy Wilcox, I told myself. You’re on your way to better things and places you never pictured even in your dreams.
The bath turned out to be just what I had needed. Mrs. Pratt was right to suggest it. I had no idea how much tension I had been under and how tight every muscle in my body had become. Wasn’t it wonderful to have all this now, to be hedonistic and soak up all the pleasure I could? I always wanted to be spoiled, and Papa was always accusing me of that because Mama did so much for me and I was terrible about fulfilling my responsibilities and chores at home. She would always cover up for me, but he always seemed to know that and bawl her out for it.
Yes, I felt guilty about it, but I didn’t improve very much. I wasn’t going to deny it. I hated kitchen chores and housework. I wasn’t even very good about keeping my own room in order, which was something I knew irritated my father a great deal. He was practically brought up in a barracks. His room had to be neat and organized at all times, and he had to make his own bed, he claimed, when he was only five, “and make it perfectly.” He said his father actually used a bouncing coin to check how tightly made his and his brother’s beds were. He knew his coins might disappear if he tried that on my bed. If Mama didn’t get into my room quickly enough and he saw it, he would go on and on about it, first attempting to take away things that were out of place. When that didn’t bother me, he stopped, but he still complained.
Emmie was already taking good care of her room. I used to look at her and wonder how we could be born of the same parents. I looked enough like both of them never to doubt that my father was my father, but the resemblances felt more like a shell in my mind. I was so unlike Emmie when I was her age, and I couldn’t imagine her becoming more like me as she grew older. Maybe if I had paid more attention in biology class, I would understand how sisters could be so different. I thought she loved me, even looked up to me in certain ways. But she couldn’t have been oblivious to all of Papa’s criticism of me, and I felt certain that when I wasn’t around, he told her to be wary of me, not to emulate me, and in fact, to think of me as someone not to be and the things I did as things not to do. I was a good teaching tool for him, so good that he probably shouldn’t have thrown me out. I was a living, breathing example of all that was wrong. All he had to do was point his finger or nod in my direction and look at her, maybe adding, “See? That is exactly what you don’t want to do or be when you’re your sister’s age.”
I suppose I was simply a mystery to her. How could the same parents who loved and cherished her so much be so critical of me? How did I get this way in the same house, hearing the same things, eating the same food, and participating in family events, holidays, and trips? Sometimes I would catch her staring at me across a room, or I would feel her standing behind me, watching me. I knew she was struggling to understand me. Maybe my being gone wasn’t a surprise for her at all. Maybe she didn’t even look in my room anymore or glance at my empty seat at the dinner table. Perhaps my sudden disappearance was as inevitable as death itself. You knew it was waiting to happen. You just didn’t want to talk about it or think about it or even prepare for it.
I knew that after I had crawled into the luxurious bed in the magnificent suite, I should have been filled with renewed hope and happiness. Papa wasn’t going to win, after all, and there was a very good chance I would enjoy things and see things I would never have, even if he had tolerated me forever. I was surrounded by beauty and opulen
ce, all of it soon to be at my beck and call.
Maybe my high school English teacher, Mr. Wheeler, was right on target when he said I hated myself, but you didn’t wake up one morning and decide you’d be totally different, did you? And even if you could make that decision, could you change so radically, or were you cursed forever to be who you were? Probably, that was what was most interesting about being here, I thought. Mrs. Brittany and her people would turn me into a different person, would re-create me, change me in ways I had never dreamed of, and give me a new name and a new identity. I wouldn’t be someone Papa would love but probably just the opposite, someone he would hate more. However, after my training, I might very well love myself for real and not just out of some stubborn arrogance.
I knew how much I had failed back home and in school. I knew I was heading for nowhere fast. I was Miss Persona Non Grata everywhere. I never had a substantial relationship with either a girl or a boy. Perhaps in the end, I had nothing to give either a girlfriend or a boyfriend—no friendship, no love, and no concern or compassion. I was some dark shadow haunting everyone with whom I came into contact, including my own parents and my little sister. I was a natural for this, a perfect candidate to become Mrs. Brittany’s most successful girl.