“She has to agree to give you a day off, doesn’t she?”
“I don’t think she believes in the concept.”
“Oh, she does. I’ll work on her.”
“Don’t work on her too hard, or she’ll just ship me off,” I warned.
“I know how to handle my grandmother,” she whispered at the door. “I got her to let you see me, didn’t I? Don’t worry about it. I have all kinds of things I want to show you, including some clothes I want you to try on. We’re almost the same size in everything, I bet. Okay?”
I saw the desperation in her face. On this great estate with almost anything anyone could want at her beck and call, Sheena was hungering for the simplest thing of all, some real companionship.
Maybe I was, too.
Maybe escaping loneliness was the reason we did everything we did in this life.
Maybe my father was lonelier than I had ever imagined. Maybe my mother was, too.
Now Emmie would be.
And despite what my father hoped for now, no one would be happier because of what had happened.
“Okay,” I said.
Sheena leaned forward to kiss me on the cheek. “Sweet dreams,” she said.
I don’t know why, but as she walked away, limping, I felt like bursting into tears.
Only I didn’t know if I would be crying for her or for myself.
I closed all the books and crawled into bed.
In the morning, the phone woke me just as Mrs. Pratt had promised. I felt like throwing it against the wall, but I sat up quickly, lifted the receiver, and put it back as she had instructed. Groaning and moaning from the charley horses Lance had predicted with such glee, I got myself into a hot shower and then shifted to icy-cold water to wake up every cell in my body.
This time, when I arrived at the breakfast nook, there was no one there. Randy informed me that Portia had already left.
“She had to fly to Los Angeles,” he revealed, and then pretended to zip up his lips.
I ate my healthy breakfast and then reluctantly rose and went to the gym.
“Stretching,” Lance called the moment I entered. “You know the routine.”
Yes, I knew it.
They’ll kill me before I have a chance to be approved for anything, I thought, but the workout wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. Lance did know what he was doing, just how much to push me and when to give me rest. We returned to the pool afterward, and according to him, I swam better. I didn’t get a massage this time but was told to go to the library to see Professor Brenner, the man who was going to work on my elocution.
Unlike Professor Marx, he was jovial from the start and seemed genuinely amused at the way I pronounced some of my words. He wore a western-style tie and jacket, jeans, and boots and had a well-trimmed rust-red mustache. I didn’t think he was more than fifty years old and wondered why he was a retired professor.
He pounced on my slurring of consonants and what he called my lazy tongue.
“You’ve got that New York thing, saying ‘mounain’ instead of ‘mountain,’?” he said. “Also, just like most people your age today, Roxy, you speak too fast. Do you know what a caesural pause is?”
I remembered Mr. Wheeler talking about it and said, “Sort of a pregnant pause?”
Professor Brenner laughed. “Exactly. You capture your listener’s attention with it and elevate the importance of what you’re saying next. Think about that, and it will help you slow down. You’ll sound more . . .”
“Educated?”
“Yes, but I was thinking more mature,” he said.