Ivy Secrets (8 page)

She pulled off her vest, weary from the long day of revamping production schedules and motivating salespeople, and all too aware that Princess Marina probably had no business trying to run a business, let alone one that needed to be a blockbuster from the opening bell. She hung her vest in her dressing room and thought that she should have paid more attention to her business management classes at Smith.

Smith.

The word shot into her mind.

“Shit,” Marina said aloud. She had forgotten to call Dell Brooks back. She had been so wrapped up …

She rushed into the sitting room off her bedroom. Maybe Nadine had left the message on her desk.

She felt for the wall switch and pressed it on. The crystal chandelier illuminated softly, casting an eager glow over the gold-and-wine-colored room. Marina stepped quickly across the thick oriental carpet to her Queen Anne desk.

The message was there.

“Call immediately,” it read. “Jenny is missing.”

A knife of fear pierced Marina’s heart. It was not about Tess or Charlie or a threat from Viktor Coe. It was about Jenny.
Jenny. Jenny was missing.
Marina stepped back. The note fell to the floor. She tried to suck in her breath, but suddenly she had none.

Green Street was too narrow for the silver limousine. Charlie O’Brien watched from the porch of Morris House as the long car tried to maneuver between parking meters. She knew that one of its occupants would be Marina Marchant—
Princess
Marina Marchant—the Smith College freshman who, unbelievably, was going to be Charlie’s roommate.

Northampton suddenly seemed a long way from Pittsburgh. But it was in this small New England town, within these prestigious ivied walls, that such visible women as Nancy Reagan, Julia Child, and Gloria Steinem had once studied, had once lived.

Julie Nixon Eisenhower.
Charlie smiled now as she remembered the reason she had wanted to come here, had worked so hard, had finally won her scholarship. Julie Nixon had come to Smith in the late sixties. Charlie had been just a girl, yet she had watched in awe the black-and-white television coverage of Julie at college, and studied the black-and-white photos of Julie on campus. It didn’t matter to Charlie that Julie’s family was Republican, though to Charlie’s Irish Catholic, Democrat father it was a fate worse than death. So Charlie had been careful not to verbalize her fascination for “those people,” those anti-union rightists with all the money and power. She didn’t care about politics, anyway. She only knew she didn’t want to grow up to be just another kid from a row house in Pittsburgh. She wanted to be somebody; she wanted to be pretty and rich and smart, and be around people who were. She wanted to be different
from the kids in her neighborhood; she wanted to be Julie Nixon.

Incredibly, she had made it this far. And now, she was getting a princess for a roommate.

She drew in a breath, stepped off the stairs, and walked toward the street, hoping that her hair wasn’t a mess, that her skirt was short enough, and that the princess wouldn’t guess that her poor-boy sweater had come from Aunt Helen’s secondhand shop.

The limo driver gave up and double-parked. The front passenger door opened and a tall man got out. He was older than Charlie, but not too old; he was dressed in wide-wale corduroys and a flowered shirt that was open at the neck and revealed a large gold chain. His brown hair grazed the top of his collar and he was rather good-looking with high, jutting cheekbones and a thin, tapered nose. Charlie wondered if he was Slavic. Except for the West End immigrants, she had never seen foreigners in person. She caught his dark eyes; he squinted, glanced around, then moved toward the back of the car and opened the black-glassed door.

The first thing Charlie saw was a pair of legs. They were small, slender, and covered by jeans. The boots were some kind of animal hide—alligator, maybe. Or snake. Charlie’s heart beat a little faster.

The gold-chained man reached inside the limo door and offered his hand.

“I can get out myself, Viktor,” came a deep-throated female voice, a Lauren Bacall kind of voice, Charlie thought, with a hint of an accent.

The man stepped back, and she emerged. Her very long, very straight black hair hung the way long, straight hair hangs, heavily, sensuously, sleek; she wore a plain white shirt and a short brown-leather jacket. Her eyes were huge and dark, her skin was surprisingly fair. Marina Marchant was pretty enough, Charlie thought, but she looked like a Smith freshman; not at all like a princess, more like somebody’s, anybody’s kid. A rich kid, maybe, but still, only somebody’s kid.

Charlie held her breath and stepped forward. “Princess Marina?” she asked.

The girl turned her head to Charlie and tossed back her hair. She did not smile.

“I’m Charlene O’Brien,” she managed to say. “Charlie. I’m your new roommate.”

Marina looked at the man and scowled. “A roommate?”

“I needed to have you in a room that overlooked Green Street,” he said as he pointed across the way toward a string of two-story structures. “My apartment is there.”

Marina’s gaze returned to Charlie. “This is my bodyguard. Viktor. Get used to him. He will be everywhere.”

“Not everywhere,” Viktor said with a warm smile. “You were quite explicit in your demand to live in a dorm.”

“It is not a dorm, Viktor. It is called a house. Morris House. And, yes, for once in my life I want to live like a real person. I want some freedom. Is that a crime?”

Charlie shifted her gaze, looking around for something to distract her. She felt as though she had appeared uninvited in someone’s living room. She pretended an interest in the limo driver, who was removing suitcases from the trunk.

“What floor are we on?” Marina asked Charlie.

“Fourth,” Viktor answered before Charlie had a chance.

Marina rolled her eyes. “Like I said, you will get used to him.”

Charlie smiled. Marina didn’t. Instead, she headed for the house. Viktor caught up with her. “I will go first,” he announced.

“Really, Viktor,” Marina said. “I doubt there is an assassin here. But if you want to come up to my room, I will be the last person to stop you.”

Charlie was left standing by the curb with the limo driver and the suitcases. “Good luck to you, miss,” the driver said as he tipped his cap. “I think you may need it.”

She watched the backs of Marina and Viktor as they mounted the stairs to the porch, then disappeared inside the house.
Living with a princess
, Charlie realized,
might not be such a wonderful thing after all.

    Although their room was considered a double, it wasn’t. It was actually two rooms, separated in suite style by a full wall, a large closet in between. The only thing they shared was the entrance and a small hall. Charlie had already settled
into the room on the left, the one with the bright sunny windows on the corner of the house.

“You will have to move,” Marina said.

Charlie looked around at her carefully hung posters of Paris and London and other places she would one day visit; she looked at the small framed photos of her family that adorned her wooden desk, and at her collection of stuffed animals cheerfully perched atop her madras plaid bedspread, the one her mother had traded in six and one-half books of Green Stamps for.

“What do you mean?” she asked.

“I need the princess in the corner room,” Viktor said. “I need to be able to have her signal me when she is going out, or when she is in for the night.”

Marina turned and tossed her pocketbook on Charlie’s bed. “Barbaric, isn’t it?” she asked. “Come on, I will help you move your stuff in the next room before the majordomo arrives with my suitcases.” She began gathering up Charlie’s stuffed animals.

“You mean I have to move next door?” Charlie asked.

“Yep,” Viktor answered. “Sorry.”

Marina brushed past Charlie and went into the adjoining room. Viktor began taking down Charlie’s carefully hung posters. Charlie wanted to protest. She felt as though she should. But then, Marina was a princess and Charlie was … well, Charlie was only Charlene O’Brien, here at Smith on a scholarship.

“No problem,” she responded, and reached up to remove a poster of Greece. “The rooms are the same size,” she added, so that Marina wouldn’t feel bad about uprooting her. As she carried the poster into the other room, she saw Marina smooth her hair in front of the mirror, then wet her lips. Charlie noticed an exquisite ring on her finger—a sapphire, perhaps, surrounded by a cluster of diamonds.

“I have never had a roommate,” Marina said.

“I have. Two sisters most of my life,” Charlie answered.

Marina laughed. “Living in a room with my sister probably would have killed me by now.”

“I’m surprised you didn’t get a single room.”

“I never asked if it was an option. Look, I am not crazy about this arrangement, but if this is what it takes—”

“I’ll be quiet,” Charlie interrupted. “I don’t play loud
music, and I’ll try not to talk to myself.” She hoped Marina would see the humor in her remark, but the princess stared at her blankly. “It’s just that—” Charlie stumbled for words, “well, I’ll try to make you comfortable.”

“You are not to ‘make me comfortable,’ ” Marina answered. “Please. I do not need any more caretakers than I have already.” She glanced around the room. “I assume this old house has indoor plumbing. Where is the bathroom?”

Charlie grimaced and pointed toward the door. “Down the hall,” she said, then added, “Sorry.”

Marina rolled her dark eyes. “We need to get something straight. Do not pamper me and do not treat me differently from the way you treat the others. If you can manage that, we will get along fine.” She turned away from Charlie and stared out the window. “And whatever you think,” she said slowly, “you must understand that being a princess is nothing special.” She faced Charlie again. Charlie noticed a look of distant sadness sweep from her eyes. “Did you register for classes yet?” the princess asked.

“I registered early. I didn’t know if I’d have time between working.”

“Working?”

“In the kitchen. It’s part of my work-study program.”

Marina looked at Charlie and scowled again. “What is a work-study program?”

Charlie hesitated. She hated to have Marina think she was one of the poor kids. She’d never felt poor—hell, her father had a good job in the steel mill, and they never went without. Still, she supposed they were middle class. And to Princess Marina, middle-class Americans were probably below poverty level. But then, Marina would find out sooner or later. “I’m here on a scholarship,” she confessed. “Part of it means I have to work in the kitchen.”

Marina studied her as though trying to figure out what Charlie meant.

“Don’t worry, though. I don’t cook. I clean up after the cook,” she said, trying to sound light. “I only have to work one meal a day,” she added quickly, as though that made it sound less middle-class. “It varies though,” she heard herself prattle on. “Sometimes it’s breakfast, sometimes dinner.”

“What’s your major?” Marina asked.

Charlie shrugged. “Liberal arts. For now.” She didn’t
want to tell Marina that her parents expected her to be a teacher, but that Charlie hoped to learn what other options were available to her. She didn’t want to tell Marina that she would one day like to own her own business—a chic clothing store, perhaps, one like Felicia’s where Charlie had worked in the summer, where the clientele included women like Marina who could well afford several hundred dollars for a dress, then add to that the right bag, shoes, and accessories. She didn’t want to explain that a Smith degree would help her look good to the customers she wanted to attract. And, in the meantime, it also wouldn’t hurt if she found herself a husband. A
rich
husband. She didn’t want to tell Marina all this because she sensed the princess wouldn’t understand. Or care. “What are you majoring in?”

“Government,” she responded quickly. “My father’s idea.” She turned back to the mirror. “Viktor?” she called out as she walked into what was now her room. Charlie followed close behind. “You can leave now.”