Pretty Things

by Janelle Brown

  My grandmother sat all of the cousins down on the day we got there. “There will be no running inside Stonehaven,” she warned us all sternly. Benny and I were perched side by side on a silk-covered sofa in the drawing room, sipping chocolate from child-sized teacups. Grandmother Katherine’s silver hair had been shellacked and teased until it was as stiff and shiny as the ornaments on the tree; she wore a pink Chanel suit that dated back at least two decades. My mother (Maman, she liked us to call her, though Benny refused) paced silently behind her, tugging on her diamond studs, chafing at being sidelined here. “There will be no throwing of balls, or wrestling, or playing of wild games. Do you understand me? In my house, little children who do not follow the rules get spankings.” My grandmother peered over her bifocals at the children. We all squirmed under her gaze, and nodded.

  And then I forgot. (Of course I forgot! I was six.) In the third-floor bedroom where I was supposed to sleep with my baby brother, there was a glass-fronted cabinet full of darling porcelain birds. I was immediately besotted with a pair of bright green parrots, their black eyes like little beads. At my family’s mansion in San Francisco, everything in my bedroom was solely for my entertainment—no one got upset if I smeared makeup on my Barbies or fed puzzle pieces to the dogs—and so of course I assumed that these birds were toys that had been put there for me. That first night, I pulled one of the parrots from the cabinet and set it next to the bed where I slept, so that it would be the first thing that I saw in the morning. Instead, as I slept that night, a decorative sham slid off the bed, taking the parrot down along with it. When I woke up at dawn, there was no bird, just a pile of shards on the floor.

  I burst into tears, which woke Benny up, and then he started wailing, too. Maman soon appeared in the door with her silk robe wrapped tight against Stonehaven’s chill, blinking blearily.

  “Oh God. You broke a Meissen.” She nudged a shard of green porcelain with her toe and made a face. “Gaudy little baubles.”

  I sniffled. “Grandmama is going to get mad at me.”

  My mother stroked my hair, gently tugging out the tangles. “She won’t notice. She has lots of them.”

  “But it was a pair.” I pointed to the cabinet, where the remaining parrot was peering inquisitively through the glass, as if looking for his dead friend. “She’ll see there’s only one left. And then she’ll spank me.”

  Benny wailed some more in the bed beside me, sallow and sulky. Mother swept him up with one arm and perched him on her hip, and then swanned across the room to the cabinet. She threw the glass door open and reached in to grab the remaining parrot, placing it on the palm of her hand. She balanced it there for a moment, and then tipped her hand slightly, so that the bird fell to the floor and shattered. I shrieked. Benny whooped with excitement.

  “Now we both broke one, and she won’t dare punish me, which means she can’t punish you, either.” She came back and sat on the bed next to me, wiping the tears from my face with her soft white hand. “My beautiful girl. You are not going to be spanked, ever. Do you understand? I will never let that happen.”

  I was stunned silent. My mother disappeared and a few minutes later came back with a broom and a dustpan—I remember thinking that they looked so unlikely in her hand—and swept the shards into a bag that she then spirited away. My grandmother never came into the bedroom that Christmas (she avoided us altogether, for the most part) and so as far as I know she never noticed that the birds were missing. Benny and I spent most of the rest of the trip outside with our cousins and our nannies, building igloos until we were pink with cold and our snow pants were soaked through, but at least there we were safe from the dangers that lurked inside the house.

  So yes, I hated Stonehaven. I hated everything that it represented to me: honor and expectation, all that formality, the noose of history dangling just over my neck. I hated it when my grandmother made a grand gesture over Christmas dinner, as she peered down the table at the children, and murmured, “Someday all this will be yours, children. Someday you will be the caretakers of the Liebling family name.” It didn’t make me feel big at all, this legacy that had been handed to me; instead, it made me feel tiny under its looming shadow, as if I was insignificant in comparison to its sprawl, as if I could never possibly live up.

  * * *

  —

  I was never supposed to be Stonehaven’s caretaker and yet somehow here I am anyway. Hooray. Life is ironic, no? (Or maybe I should say bittersweet, unfair, or just plain old fucked-up.) Some days, as I wander these rooms, I feel the echoes of my ancestors inside myself: as if I am another in a line of elegant hostesses, keeping the clocks wound while I await my callers.

  More often, though, I wonder if I am Jack Torrance, and this is my Overlook Hotel.

  * * *

  —

  A few months back, not long after I moved in, I came across an appraisal document for those parrots. They were valued at $30,000 for the pair. Reading this, I thought of Maman gently tipping her hand: Did she know that she was throwing $15,000 in the trash? But of course she did, I realized, and she didn’t care. Because nothing was truly valuable to her except for me. Benny and I—we were her Meissen birds, precious objects she wanted to guard behind glass. She spent her life protecting my brother and me from spankings, until the moment when she died. And sometimes I feel like life has been beating us both senseless ever since.

  10.

  I KNOW WHAT YOU’RE probably thinking: Look at the spoiled rich girl, all alone in the great big house, trolling for our sympathy when she doesn’t deserve any of it. You feel so smug, looking at me! And yet you also can’t seem to look away from me. You follow me on my social media accounts, you swipe up to study my links, you watch my YouTube fashion tutorials and like my travelogues and read every Page Six mention you can find. You can’t stop yourself from clicking on my name even though you tell everyone that you hate me. I fascinate you.

  You need me to be the monster so that you can position yourself in opposition to me and feel superior. Your ego requires me.

  And there’s another thing, though you would never admit this out loud: When you look at me, you also think, I want what she has. Her life should be mine. And if I were given the resources at her disposal, I would do it all so much better.

  Maybe you’re not so wrong.

  11.

  I SIT AT THE WINDOW of Stonehaven’s front parlor, waiting to greet the couple that’s making their way through the twilight toward me. The torrential rains of the morning have slowed to a light drizzle that sparkles like glitter in the lights along the drive. I’m as wired as a teenager on Ritalin, wound up by the prospect of human interaction. (Giddy! Practically buoyant!) I’m pretty sure I haven’t spoken to another human being in two weeks, other than to tell the housekeeper, in broken Spanish, that she can’t keep ignoring the dust on the windowsills.

  When I woke up this morning, I could feel that the black funk that had weighed on me for most of the year had lifted. In its place, a familiar fizz and pop, as if something inside me had been set on fire and was crackling back to life. I could see everything so clearly again.

  I spent the morning washing my hair and dyeing the roots back to blond with a bottle of Clairol that I found in the grubby grocery store in town (beggars can’t be choosers). I gave myself a mani-pedi (ditto), applied a trio of Korean face masks, and then spent an hour digging through boxes until I unearthed the perfect Lounging in the Manor outfit: jeans and a black designer tee, a blazer in garnet velvet with a gray hoodie underneath. Chic, yet approachable. I snapped a selfie and uploaded it for my Instagram followers. This is what “dressing up” looks like in the mountains! #lakelife #mountainstyle #miumiu

  I tore through the rooms of Stonehaven, cleaning up abandoned wineglasses and plates sticky with crumbs; hid the piles of laundry in the bedroom, straightened the fashion magazines strewn across the tables in the parlor (and then re
assessed, and tossed them altogether). I arranged, and then rearranged, a little tableau of snacks in the kitchen, until I thought I might cry from the stress of it all. (To calm my nerves, I reread that day’s inspo from my own Instagram feed, a Maya Angelou quote I’d found online: Nothing can dim the light which shines from within.)

  Then I sat in the front window with a bottle of wine, and waited.

  * * *

  —

  By the time I see their lights coming up the drive, I’ve nearly finished the bottle of wine. When I jump up I realize that I’m actually quite tipsy. (Déclassé, as Maman always said, while she primly poured herself an exact half glass at dinner.) I am quite skilled at deception, though. Four years of documenting my every move online has trained me in the art of looking sober (insert: happy/thoughtful/excited/contemplative) when in fact I am very much not.

  So I dash to the door, take a breath to chase away the dizziness, slap my face once—hard—and then step out onto the front portico to greet them, my cheek still burning.

  There’s a winter chill in the air, a layer of damp that clings to the stones of the house. I’ve grown so thin that even my size 0s feel loose on me—cooking for one is just too depressing, and besides the grocery store is so far away—so it feels like the cold is penetrating straight into my bones. I stand shivering in the shadows as their car picks its way carefully along the slick drive. It’s a vintage BMW with Oregon plates that are splattered with mud from the highway. The car slows down a hundred yards out. It’s hard to make out their faces through the mist and the evening shadows, but I just know that they’re craning their heads to take it all in. Of course they are. The pines, the lake, the mansion—it is so much, so much that it sometimes hurts me to even look out the window. (Those are the days that I just climb back in bed and take three Ambien and pull the covers over my head. But that’s neither here nor there.)

  Then their car pulls forward and parks, and I can suddenly see them clearly through the windshield. They’re taking their time, laughing about something, which stirs up a nest of longing inside me. Even after a whole day of driving together, they’re in absolutely no rush to escape each other’s company. Then she leans across the car and kisses him, long and hard. It goes on and on. They must not see that I’m there, and suddenly it’s rather awkward that I’m spying on them like some sort of Hitchcock voyeur.

  I step backward into the shadows of the overhang, thinking I’ll slip back inside and just wait for them to ring the bell. But then the passenger door flies open, and she steps out.

  Ashley.

  It’s like the chilly forest has come to life around her. The silence to which I’ve grown so accustomed is shattered with a blast of music from the car stereo. (The climactic aria of some opera that Maman surely would have recognized.) Even from twenty feet away, I can almost feel the close, car-heated air still clinging to Ashley’s skin, as if she’s brought her own personal ecosystem with her. She stands with her back to me and flexes, a smooth little yoga stretch with palms to the sky, then turns and catches me standing there watching her. If this bothers her, she doesn’t show it. Instead, she smiles at me with mild pleasure, as if she’s used to being observed. (And of course she is: She’s a yoga instructor! Her body is her raison d’être. Something we share, I suppose.)

  There is something feline about her, something poised and watching: Her dark eyes scan the space around her, as if measuring the distance necessary to leap. Her hair is a glossy pelt, pulled back into a long tail, and her skin is a smooth olive that absorbs the light. (Perhaps Latina? Or Jewish?) She is unsettlingly pretty. Most of the beautiful women I’ve known over the years would flaunt this—the hair, the face, the body would all be enhanced, amplified, and exposed—but Ashley wears her looks as casually as the faded jeans that grip her curves. It’s as if she couldn’t care less about being stared at.

  So of course I’m staring. (“Stop staring,” I hear Maman in my head. “You look like a trout when you gawk like that.”)

  “You must be Vanessa!” She’s halfway toward me, extending her hands to grip mine. And then suddenly I am being pulled into a hug, and my face is buried in her hair, which smells of vanilla and orange blossom. The heat of her, pressed against me, is disarming. Something blooms inside me: When was the last time I was hugged? (For that matter, when was the last time I was even touched? I’ve barely even masturbated in months.) The embrace goes on for a half second longer than I expect—Am I supposed to pull away? My God, what’s the protocol here?—and when she finally draws back, I feel flushed and hot and a little bit dizzy.

  “Ashley, right? Oh wonderful. Oh thrilling! You made it!” My voice is shrill, almost squeaky, and far too gushy. “Was the drive just awful? All this rain. It’s been relentless.” I hold up a hand above us, ineffectively shielding her from the drizzle.

  “Oh, I love the rain,” she says with a smile. She closes her eyes and inhales, her nostrils flaring. “It smells so fresh here. I’ve been sitting in a car for nine hours, I honestly could use a bit of cleansing.”

  “Haha!” I trill. (Oh for God’s sake, stop it, I tell myself.) “Well you’ll get lots of that here. Rain, I mean. Not cleansing. Though why not both, I suppose?!”

  She looks a little baffled by this. I’m not quite sure what I mean, either.

  There’s a clatter in the driveway, the sound of suitcases being dragged across paving stones and then bumping up the stairs of the portico. I look over Ashley’s shoulder and suddenly I am gazing straight into the eyes of her boyfriend.

  Michael.

  It’s startling, the way he’s looking at me. His eyes are a pellucid blue, so pale and transparent that it feels like I’m seeing clear into the center of his mind, where something glints and shines. I flush: Am I staring again? Yes. But he’s also staring intently back at me as if he can see inside me, too, and is seeing things that I didn’t intend to reveal. (Did he know I was just thinking of masturbating?) I feel the blush rising up through my neck, and I know that I must be the color of lobster bisque. I wish I’d worn a turtleneck.

  I recover, extend a formal hand. “And you’re Michael?” He takes it, responding with a little bow of his own and a funny wry smile.

  “Vanessa.” It’s a statement, not a question, and once again I have that strange feeling that I have just been identified, that he knows something about me that hasn’t been spoken at all. Do I know him? It seems unlikely—isn’t he an English professor, from Portland?

  But then—does he know me? It’s quite possible. I am, after all, a little bit famous, and being Internet-famous is the opposite of traditional fame: Instead of being put on a pedestal, like a rock star or movie star, being an Internet star means that you must always be just within reach of your fans. Special, yes, but approachable; giving the illusion that your life is within clawing distance if one is just ambitious enough. That’s half the appeal. In New York, strangers would often come up to me at restaurants and speak to me as if we were old friends, as if a few liked photos and a handful of comments meant we were besties. (Of course I was always gracious and friendly no matter how unnerving the encounter, because: approachable.)

  But Michael, in jeans and flannel, hair a little unkempt, doesn’t strike me as someone who would follow fashion social media. In fact, when I looked him up online, I couldn’t find his Instagram account at all. He’s an academic, that’s what Ashley’s email had said; so, perhaps not surprising. Academics don’t go in for that thing so much. In person, too, he gives off an air of sober intellect; and so I feel the need to check myself. I don’t want to come off as frivolous.

  (Maybe I’ll tell him I’m reading Anna Karenina?)

  And yet. I’ve learned over the years to reserve judgment about what goes on underneath the surface of other human beings. How many times have I stood and chirped giddily for the camera, flipping my hair around like I’m in front of an industrial fan and grinning li
ke a circus emcee, when inside all I wanted to do was drink a bottle of Drano? The ability to convincingly perform authenticity is perhaps the most necessary skill set for my generation. And the image you exude must be compelling, it must be brand-positive, it must be cohesive no matter how fractured your internal dialogue might be, because otherwise your fans will sniff you out as a fraud. I gave a lecture about this at a social media conference called FreshX last year and 250 aspiring influencers (who all looked like variations of me) dutifully wrote it down; and as they did, I felt like I was witnessing my own doom.

  Michael and Ashley are standing in front of me on the steps, looking expectant. I return to myself—to elegant hostess—and smile.

  “Come on in,” I say. “You’re probably starving. I have a little snack in the kitchen, and then I’ll show you to the cottage.”

  And I throw open the doors to Stonehaven, and welcome my guests inside.

  * * *

  —

  I can tell immediately that they are taken aback by Stonehaven: the way they stop, just inside the door, and stare up to the ceiling twenty feet above us (hand-stenciled with an old family crest, as Grandmother Katherine used to point out to her visitors). The grand staircase unrolls its scarlet carpet like a feverish tongue, the crystal chandelier trembles overhead, my Liebling ancestors gaze coolly from the oil portraits that line the hall. Michael drops the suitcases on the inlaid mahogany floor with a little thunk and I wince at the thought of the divots this will leave in the wood.

  “Your house…” Ashley says, emotion naked on her face. She gestures with a finger as if drawing a circle around the foyer. “You didn’t mention this in the rental listing. Wow.”

  I turn and follow her gaze up the stairs, as if seeing it all for the first time. “Well. You know. I didn’t want to advertise it. Might attract the wrong kind of people.”