Our shopping sprees with Mrs. Brittany were probably our happiest times together. After the first trip to Manhattan, when I was overwhelmed with the money Mrs. Brittany laid out to start my wardrobe, the planning of another shopping trip always brought great excitement and anticipation. It wasn’t just what she would buy for me and for Sheena, but also the places she would take us to for our shopping.
We’d be flown in a private jet to Palm Beach to shop on Worth Avenue, or taken to Boston or Chicago because of some designer Mrs. Brittany had heard about. Sometimes she was sent a photograph, even whole portfolios of new fashions. There was always something she wanted to try on me. She took us to runway shows and many private showings in New York. People she admired or trusted brought back pictures of fashions being designed in Europe and the Far East.
One of her favorite fashion designers, Pierre Beaumont, came from Paris to stay at the mansion for a weekend and arranged for models to come and demonstrate some of his creations. Mrs. Brittany wanted me to listen to him and learn what made clothing exciting. He was very knowledgeable about the history of fashion. I learned a great deal from him at our lunches and dinners together.
It seemed to me that she had the whole world at her beck and call. Sheena was right to describe her as being like a queen. She could pick up the phone and call so many important people directly or reach any famous person who had anything to do with what was glamorous.
Sometimes at night, after a full day of training and exposure to something cultural, I would feel as if I had been lifted onto another level on our planet, a level far above the ordinary world, where people like my father and my mother lived. I began to sense what Camelia and Portia were trying to tell me, why they felt so special and were so special.
“If you think poorly of yourself, you will get others to think the same,” Mrs. Brittany told me. “You don’t want to be so arrogant that you make others feel inferior, even if they are,” she added with a smile. “You want them to admire you for your self-confidence, but also for the respect you give them. They won’t say it, but they’ll feel blessed to have you treat them well, and you won’t even have to look or act superior to have them do it. Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said. “I do.”
She gave me that look that told me she believed me. I couldn’t help feeling that now she not only had confidence in my becoming one of her girls, but had also developed a genuine and sincere affection for me. Maybe it was just wishful thinking, but it helped me to keep going, study harder, read more, master every task I was given, and win the admiration of every instructor or gentleman to whom I was introduced. It was all going so well that I couldn’t imagine anything that might stop me from becoming as successful as she had promised.
Perhaps that was because I was a little too arrogant now. That was something she had always warned me about, too. She described it as someone walking a tightrope way above the ground.
“As long as she keeps her eyes forward, she’s fine, but when she looks down to celebrate how high up she is, she loses her balance. I’d like you to remember that.”
I could blame only myself for forgetting.
12
Mrs. Pratt stepped into the library and interrupted my lesson on current events to tell me Mrs. Brittany had to see me immediately. There was no way to tell from her expression what this crisis was about, but it was clear that whatever it was, it was something serious. I raked through my recent memories to find something I had done wrong, something I might have said to one of the staff, or, worse, something I had told Sheena and Sheena had told her. Perhaps I had been wrong to be so revealing about myself and the things I had done. That first fear I had when Sheena and I started hanging out together reared its ugly head. I had been too R when I should have been PG. Mrs. Brittany had warned me about this. Would she just end my relationship with Sheena, or would it be even more devastating for me?
Life here over the past months had been so all-consuming that I’d had little time lately to think about my family and from where and what I had come. Sometimes thoughts about Mama and Emmie would sneak into my head just before I fell asleep, but I usually lost them under the dark vision of Papa’s face the day he pointed to our front door and said, “Get out.” The possibility of returning to them and having to explain where I had been and what I had been doing was too much to even consider.
I excused myself and rose from the table. Professor Marx said nothing, but he looked genuinely afraid for me. I knew that all his initial impressions of me had been wiped away and he was sincerely enjoying our tutorial sessions now. Sheena continued to help me in the evenings, but I had taken more control myself, using my free time wisely to read the books and articles Professor Marx assigned and suggested.
Recently, I had occasion to discuss current events and some other subjects with some of Mrs. Brittany’s guests, and I could see from the expressions on her face and theirs that I was coming off well. One man, a hedge-fund CEO, blurted out that I had brains and beauty, the unbeatable combination. He was so excited about me, in fact, that he asked Mrs. Brittany what name I was going under.
“We’re not quite there,” she told him. “Close, but no gold ring just yet.”
“I think I can be of some help when the time does come,” he told her, looking mostly at me.
“Of course, you can, Gerard,” she said. “You wouldn’t be here otherwise.”
He laughed at how easily Mrs. Brittany could make someone feel used but not insulted about it. Even I had to smile at her brutal honesty. She gave me an appreciative look, and for the first time, I felt as if we were working as a team. Wasn’t that enough? Didn’t she feel that, too? Couldn’t I have that gold ring now?
As I left the library to walk with Mrs. Pratt to Mrs. Brittany’s office, I could feel the trembling start in my legs and reverberate up my spine and around my heart. Could it be that I had come all this way and now would be asked to leave, my kill fee in hand? What would I do? Where would I go?
I called upon that raging, defiant spirit I had brought along with me that first day. If I was thrown out, I wouldn’t return home, and I wouldn’t go to any roach hotel, either. I’d find my way. I’d make them sorry they’d dismissed me.
Mrs. Pratt opened the office door for me and stepped in with me. Mrs. Brittany had her back to us. She was looking out the window. Her office had a view of the small pond on her property and some of the wooded area that separated her land from the closest neighbor’s. About a half dozen grounds people were cutting the grass and trimming hedges and the bushes around the pond. The dull hum of engines was just barely audible. I saw what looked like a flock of ducks lift off the surface of the pond when something frightened or disturbed them. She waited for them to disappear before turning to us.
“Sorry to interrupt your work with Professor Marx,” she began. She nodded at the red bullet leather chair in front of her desk. Mrs. Pratt sat on the settee. Whatever this meeting was about, her advice was obviously going to be appreciated. I had been in meetings she had attended before, and I realized that Mrs. Pratt wasn’t just an echo. Her opinions carried weight. I hoped I hadn’t done anything that had offended her.
I sat and waited. The pause and the silence could be just another test of my nerves, I thought. I was always under glass here.
Mrs. Brittany opened a folder on her desk.
“I have a copy of your birth certificate. You didn’t lie about your age. It was one of the first things I checked, of course. Even though you began here underage, we thought we could slip under the wire, so to speak.”
She glanced at Mrs. Pratt, who nodded.
“When your parents didn’t follow up on your disa
ppearance, I, like you, thought you had a father who was so headstrong and cold that he was able to write you out of the family without any regret. It’s not that unusual. Blood isn’t always thicker than water. It gets thinned out for various reasons,” she said.