Roxy’s Story (22 page)

Her room wasn’t quite as large as mine, but it was far cozier. She had posters of
her favorite movie stars and singers on the walls, and dolls on a shelf and one on
the bed. As I gazed around, I thought it was more
like the room of a young teenage girl. Her four-poster light maple bed was smaller
than my bed and wasn’t as high. I saw a pile of CDs and a large pile of DVDs on a
dresser, books on another, and many magazines. There was a built-in large-screen television
on the wall across from her bed and what looked like a stack of audio equipment in
a glass-framed closet beside it. In short, it had the look of a room for someone who
was mainly a shut-in. I plopped onto the oversize chair to my right.

“You’re exhausted,” she declared with a wide smile.

“Yes. This is the first minute I’ve had to myself. Thanks for your help with the homework.
Professor Marx was pleased.”

“Oh, we’ll do more tonight. After you have dinner with my grandmother, I mean. Yes,
I know your schedule. I wanted to be there, too, but she says it’s part of your training.
But,” she added, clapping her hands together, “we can have dinner tomorrow night without
anyone else. She said we could even go out. Of course, she would choose the restaurant,
but we’d go in her limousine. If I count our horseback ride together, it would be
like spending the whole day with each other. Well, not really, I know. You’ll be busy
until you go for your lesson, but still, it’s more time than I’ve spent with anyone
this year. Or last year,” she added with a laugh. “Maybe this coming weekend, she’ll
let us go to a movie. I don’t know what we should go see, but just going would be
fun, wouldn’t it? And afterward, maybe we could go for pizza or
something. Whatever you think is fine with me. My grandmother said she would let me
accompany you and her when she takes you shopping next week. Of course, she’ll buy
me things, too.”

It seemed she would talk incessantly, behaving like someone who was afraid of a moment
of silence or any sort of disappointment.

“That all sounds great to me, and it’s news. I didn’t know I was to go shopping next
week.”

“Oh, it doesn’t matter. It’s not a top government secret or anything. You’ve got to
see this dress she bought me last week in London. I wasn’t there, but she brought
it back. Don’t move.”

She stepped into her walk-in closet. I laughed to myself, thinking of how I was with
the girls in my school when they started talking about all the things they had and
all that their parents did for them. If they were looking to impress someone or make
someone envious, they were always disappointed in me. On the contrary, I would invariably
mock them or criticize what they were given and make them feel small and stupid. Most
girls didn’t mention such things to me after a while.

However, I wasn’t being friendly and pleasant with Sheena simply because she was Mrs.
Brittany’s granddaughter. I had never met someone Sheena’s age who seemed so innocent
and pure, so vulnerable and delicate. There was a part of me that wished I were just
like her. For sure, I would have gotten along much better with my father and my mother.
Girls like Sheena needed a grandmother like Mrs. Brittany or
a friend like me to watch over them. They wouldn’t recognize evil, envy, or just plain
meanness when they confronted it.

After a few moments, she stepped out in her dress. I nearly gasped with surprise.
Mrs. Brittany bought her this? It was a backless silver glitter dress with long fitted
sleeves and strong shoulders, in a stretch fabric that hugged every curve. It was
a good six inches above the knee, too. Where would she wear such a dress? I would
have thought she would have found her a dress that was at least ankle-length for obvious
reasons.

“Don’t you like it?” Sheena asked.

“I’m overwhelmed. You’re stunning in it,” I said. For the most part, she was, but
the prosthetic leg added an incongruous element, making her look a little bizarre.
I mean, she was sexy yet odd.

Why did Mrs. Brittany buy this for her? Was she trying to get her to forget about
her leg?

“I haven’t worn it anywhere yet. Do you think I should wear it when we go out to dinner?”

“Absolutely.”

“You can borrow it anytime,” she said.

“Thanks.”

She turned in a circle and then laughed. “I wouldn’t put it on until now. I knew it
would be all right to show it to you.”

“You could show it to anyone. Don’t worry about that.”

“Silly,” she said. “Of course, I would worry.” She looked down at her prosthetic leg.

“Anyone looking at you will be looking at the rest of you more. Believe me,” I said.
“You have a better figure than I do.”

She widened her smile. “I have other dresses I never dared to wear. I’ll show them
all to you, but not now,” she added. “That’s too boring.” She sat on her bed and faced
me.

“It’s not boring.”

“No, no. I don’t want to waste precious time. I know you have to get ready for dinner
with my grandmother, and I know how nervous you’ll be about it.”

“How do you know that?”

“I know. I’ve watched other girls when she didn’t know I was watching. I could see
how nervous they were. I’m a little bit of a Peeping Tom—or Thomasina.” She laughed
and then lost her smile. “I know you think that’s sick or something.”

“No, I don’t.”

“It is,” she insisted. “I’m always looking through something to see what’s really
happening, looking through windows or through television and movie screens or just
peering at life through words in a book. But not now, not with you here. You’re a
living person my age, who’s been places I dreamed of.”

“No, I haven’t.”

“Yes, you have.”

She sprawled on her side and propped up her face with her left hand.

“Tell me what it was like. Don’t leave out a detail, and don’t worry about how I might
react or anything.”

I leaned forward, smiling at her. “What
what
was like? Where do you think I’ve been?”

“You’ve been there,” she said, nodding. “Or you wouldn’t be here.”

I sat back. “Sheena?”

“Tell me about the first time. Start from the very beginning, especially when you
realized you were going to do it. Then tell me exactly what it felt like. I don’t
believe what I read in my novels, and I don’t get anything out of the textbooks.

“Oh, and tell me what he was like,” she added, “and if you ever saw him again or if
that mattered.”

I started to shake my head, saw the disappointment creeping into her face, and stopped.
“I was only fourteen,” I began, “and it wasn’t long after I had my first period.”

“Menarche,” she said, nodding. “I was only twelve, and my mother was furious because
I didn’t tell her. She didn’t know it until she saw my panties and what I had stuffed
in them. Did you tell your mother right away?”

I thought for a moment. That should have been something a mother and daughter shared.
It should have been a remarkable moment.

“No,” I said softly. “I was prepared. I’ve always been prepared.”

And then something hit me like a snowball in my face.

“I’ve never really been a little girl,” I said.

We were both silent. I saw how fearful that made her, so I quickly smiled.

“He was a pimply-faced sixteen-year-old,” I said, “but he had been around the block.”

She perked up, and I got so involved in my story and how grateful she was to hear
about it that I nearly forgot to get ready for my dinner with Mrs. Brittany.

And that was surely at the top of the list for fatal mistakes.

Having dinner with Mrs. Brittany was intimidating enough, but just the two of us in
that grand dining room made me feel I was on a larger stage and in a brighter spotlight.
The room seemed cavernous without any other people present. As I walked over the tile
portion of the floor, the echo of my footsteps in the new high heels sounded like
spikes being driven into it. I tried to step more lightly.

She sat at the head of the table and watched me approach, her eyes like X-rays examining
every turn and twist in my hips as I walked. I don’t think anyone could make me more
self-conscious of my every move, my every breath. As soon as I had entered the grand
room, I corrected my posture and kept my head up. She seemed to grow larger and more
intimidating as I approached, while everything around her seemed to diminish.

“Did you look at yourself before you left your bedroom?” she asked the moment I reached
the table.

“Yes.”

“You put your lipstick on too thickly. It’s off your lips on the right side, in fact.”

“Oh.” I reached up to wipe it clear. “I guess I was in too much of a rush.”

“Don’t do that. You’ll only smear it more.”

She opened the purse she had hanging off her chair and handed me an ivory case that
opened to a small mirror. I saw what she meant, and using a tissue she handed to me,
I wiped away the excess lipstick. I thought she must have microscopes for eyes to
have picked up on this so quickly. I looked at the case when I closed it.

“Beautiful.”

“It was a gift from a member of the president’s cabinet,” she said, taking it back.
She nodded toward the seat on her right, and I sat. “If there is one thing I never
want you to rush, it’s preparing your appearance. Every Brittany girl takes pride
in how she looks, not only to the person she is accompanying but also to herself.
That’s why I bring in experts in makeup, coiffure, and style. What good is all that
if you don’t take great care? Always be sure to leave yourself enough time. If you
appeared before one of our clients who was paying top dollar and looked like that . . .”

“It won’t happen again,” I said.

Maybe to come to my rescue, Randy hurried out with a bottle of white wine chilling
in an ice bucket. He set it down quickly. I saw that it had been opened.

“There was no need to test you on that again,” Mrs. Brittany said when she saw me
looking at it. Randy pulled out the cork and poured us each a glass. “You can bring
our salads, Randy,” she told him.

He glanced at me, smiled, and hurried back to the kitchen.

“How far away is the kitchen?” I asked her.

“Now you’re worried about Randy working too hard? What’s happened to the self-centered
young girl who arrived?”

“Maybe I’ve become a bit bored with her,” I replied. “She was just one-note.” I saw
in the way her eyes sparkled that she liked my response.

“You continue to get high praise from members of my team,” she said. “But don’t think
that’s convinced me yet. As was just demonstrated, you have a long way to go.”

“I understand.”

“Do you? Most girls your age these days want instant gratification.”

“I’m not most girls my age these days,” I fired back. If I had been brought here to
be slowly cooked over the hot coals in her eyes, she had a surprise coming.

She nodded, clearly seeing the fire in my eyes, too. “Okay. Let’s put that all aside
for now. Tell me more about your family, why things became so difficult for you and
for them, and what you expect will happen with them in the near future, as regards
you, I mean,” she said, relaxing.

Randy brought out our salads. I waited for him to serve and leave before I began to
describe my parents and what life had been like for me growing up in the house my
father ruled like a commanding general. I gave her as much detail as I could, but
I didn’t blame
everything on him. I confessed to as many of my indiscretions as I could recall, elaborating
on some of the bigger incidents at school.

“I’m surprised you weren’t sent off to some behavior-modification camp,” she said.

“So am I, although that was probably coming if I remained there any longer. I think
my father thought it was too late even for that, however. If I stepped out of myself,”
I said, “and took a good look, I don’t think I’d want me around, either.”

As I spoke, I knew she was listening keenly but also watching how I ate my salad and
talked without food in my mouth. Nigel Whitehouse, as if he knew what to prepare me
for tonight, had made a big deal of the way people conversed at lunch and dinner tables.
He referred to it as “the delicacies of gracious living.”

“It will give you the aura of sophistication that the men you will be with appreciate,
look for, and actually demand. It’s part of what justifies their cost,
comprenez
, my dear?”

“
Mais oui
,” I told him.

A week ago, I might have come close to spitting in the face of someone who told me
I looked gross the way I ate or sat, but it was as if another window on the world
had been opened for me, and when I looked through it, I saw what lay in wait for someone
who had more than just a modicum of class. When I had first arrived, I was skeptical
and indifferent about the value of all this cultural training, but that skepticism
was dying away. I wanted to do well now. I wanted more.

I saw from the expression on Mrs. Brittany’s face that I was passing this particular
test. She concentrated now on what I was saying and not so much how I was saying it.
She really wanted to know more about me, and I knew she wouldn’t take interest in
anyone she thought would not succeed with her. When I was finished with my description
of what my life had been like, she signaled for Randy to take our dishes.