She practically tugged me through the hallway to the stairs. We could hear Celisse singing to Garson in his cradle. Ava was in the formal living room by herself, sipping a martini and just staring at the wall like someone in deep thought. I wondered where my father was.
“Mother, look at Saffron. I just made up her face,” Karen declared.
Ava turned slowly, looked, and then nearly burst blood vessels in her eyes.
“She looks like a clown. That’s all too heavy, and that’s definitely the wrong shade of lipstick. Are you an idiot? Get that off your face immediately,” she ordered me. “Or I won’t let either of you out of this house.”
“I thought it looked good,” Karen moaned.
Ava smiled coolly. “Did you? Go on,” she told me. “You don’t need more than the right lipstick, Saffron. I’ll bring you the tube after you’re dressed.”
“But… she can use what I have,” Karen said. Apparently, her mother giving me something of her own disturbed her.
Ava turned away. The conversation was apparently over.
“Where’s Daddy?” Karen demanded, obviously hoping he would contradict Ava’s orders.
She turned slowly again, that same cool smile. “He’s been summoned to Saddlebrook,” she said. “The king calls. Don’t forget, we’re all going to dinner there tomorrow night, so don’t sleep late tomorrow. I want your homework done by early afternoon. Well,” she said, turning again to me. “Go wash your face. You look ridiculous.”
I turned and hurried away, Karen walking slowly behind me, mumbling how wrong her mother was and how good I looked.
But all I could think about was Daddy being summoned to Saddlebrook soon after the police chief was here. Surely the chief was more indebted to Amos Saddlebrook than to Daddy.
Once again, I wondered, was all this about to explode?
But in a strange, almost self-destructive way, I secretly hoped it would, no matter what the outcome. Being someone else was truly exhausting.
CHAPTER NINE
Sulking, Karen went to her room and remained there with her door shut tightly until it was nearly time for us to go to the party. I was afraid to knock. One look at her after Ava’s tirade, and I knew she was casting most of the blame on me. With her being so bitter now, I wondered if I even should attend the party to meet her friends. If anyone gave me a compliment, I expected she would complain about her mother, claiming she could have done more for me. I could easily see her turn to me and say, You should have said you wanted to look like I helped you to look. I felt like such an idiot after spending so much of my time on you.
Eyes would widen and turn to me, and even though they might not come right out and say it, they would blame Karen’s bitterness on me. I was already inciting discord in the community’s most perfect family. Her doting friends would have it written large on their faces: When you bring someone who is practically a stranger into your house, and your mother seems more protective and concerned for her than for you, trouble surely is starting, like mold behind a wall.
Just before my grandmother Mazy had died and I had begun public school, I experienced what it was like to be singled out and held responsible for something really terrible, which in this case was the death of a boy in a car accident. I supposedly had put a curse on him, done something “witchy” that Mazy had taught me how to do. When your classmates isolate you, whisper about you behind your back, and follow you every moment with eyes of accusation, you’re lonelier than someone alone on the moon. I saw how that could easily happen to me here. Karen was the Saddlebrook. If she breathed fire in my direction, I’d have to walk through fire at home and practically anywhere else in this community, especially the school. Why would anyone side with me?
Of course, this was a precarious way to begin the journey through a new life anyway. This would be the first party with kids my age and hers that I had ever attended. I was unsure of myself as it was, not only worrying that I might say something to contradict the story Daddy and I, reluctantly, had concocted but also worrying that anyone who looked or listened to me would realize how long I had been isolated and how limited my contact with kids my age had been. Everyone at this party would surround me and likely rain down a storm of pelting questions. I was under some suspicion as it was, simply by being someone new, especially with the background they believed I had. Should I act very shy or simply troubled and sad? I could get away with that. After all, as far as Karen’s friends knew, I had recently lost my mother and came here out of desperation.
From the first day here, Daddy had given me advice that was really a map to how to safely lie. “When you’re asked a question, ask yourself the same question before you answer. I find that to be a very helpful technique.”
But how was I going to do that at a party where everyone would be interested in the new girl? Even if I repeated the questions in my head, that would not guarantee a safe response. And my hesitation would surely telegraph that I had something terrible to hide. Maybe I needed more time to emerge slowly, like some creature crawling out of a cocoon, in this case a cocoon not of my own making, I thought. Was this party worth the risk? I could go to Ava and say I was feeling too sad to go to a party after all. Her answer could be, In that case, getting your mind off it might be the best way to help yourself. How hard could I protest?
I did want to do here what I had failed to do back at Hurley, make friends, be invited to parties, and enjoy hanging out with girls my age. The conflicts inside me felt like they were tugging on both sides of my heart. Leap in and become the teenager I used to dream about being from the window of Mazy’s house, or withdraw like some creature and bury myself in sadness? I wanted to do the former very much.
But Karen had pounced on me the first day for not knowing who Ed Sheeran was. What other faux pas would I commit? What other questions would I stir up with my vague replies? I could easily find myself once again the big topic in a school. I’d even be more dependent on Karen than I was now, and she wasn’t exactly worried about my happiness at the moment. Her promise to be my ally seemed thin and forgotten, a bubble Ava had popped with a single harsh breath.
It was as if sibling rivalry had found its way through a keyhole into this house, even though Ava and Karen did not know it could exist because they didn’t know who I really was. But right now, Karen was suffering just as any sister might. How was I supposed to blend into this family if Ava continued to use me as a tool to teach Karen? I practically could feel Karen’s gloom across the hall and through the walls. She was probably wishing I had never appeared.
Certainly, now there would be none of the preparation Karen had promised, the social chatter and rundown of the girls and boys I’d meet. What if I liked someone she hated, or vice versa? All this walking on thin ice was already churning me up inside. If I was ever concerned about being a stranger in a strange land, I was surely that now. But before I could plan something, Ava came bursting into my room with a tube of lipstick as she had promised, holding it up like the torch held by the Statue of Liberty.
“Here. This is the proper lipstick for your complexion, your hair, and what you’re going to wear.”
I took it and thanked her.
“Now, let me see your new phone,” she demanded.
I hurriedly gave it to her. What did she expect to find? I had yet to use it. Was she going to take it back? Had Karen said something about me calling someone nefarious from back home? How could I continue in this house, sitting on a time bomb, anticipating disaster with every new look and every new word? I actually glanced at the door, thinking that any moment I might just run out of this house and this world. I wouldn’t even say goodbye to the father who had not said goodbye to me.
Ava pressed some numbers and letters and then handed it to me.
“My number is now in your phone under Aunt Ava. Your uncle will be taking you and Karen to the party,” she said. “I’m telling Karen that you’ll both be picked up at eleven thirty. If something disturbs you, don’t hesitate to
call me, even if Karen disapproves.”
Disturbs me? Even if Karen disapproves? Was she appointing me as someone to spy on her daughter?
“What would disturb me?”
She ignored me, looked at her watch, and then changed her expression completely from concern to annoyance when she looked at me again.
“What are you doing? You should have started to dress. I specifically bought you what you wanted for tonight, but you don’t simply throw everything on. I bet you haven’t even cut off the tags. On more than one occasion, Karen left home for an event with tags still dangling from her new clothes and embarrassed me.”
“I’ll make sure they’re off,” I said, almost too low for her to hear.
“You don’t sound too grateful about it. Don’t you want to go to this party?”
“I don’t know anyone well enough yet to party with her or him, so I’m nervous.”
“Really?” She shook her head. “Yes, I believe you. Something is really missing in this generation, especially when it comes to socializing. Having a conversation without a phone between you and someone is almost like being in a foreign country where no one speaks your language.”
“I didn’t have a phone before now,” I reminded her. “I never had a personal cell phone.”
“I know. I was thinking how odd that is, especially since you were on your own so often.”
“It’s not odd. It was expensive for us, and I wasn’t into gossiping and small talk.”
“Um,” she said, still looking suspicious. “Your mother was a little too aloof, perhaps.”
“She wasn’t aloof, Aunt Ava. She was overwhelmed. This is not an easy world for a woman alone, especially one with a child.”
She stared at me, her eyes shifting from annoyance and anger to a softer, more sympathetic look. It occurred to me instantly that at one time, for years, in fact, she was the same sort of woman. The difference between her and my fictional mother, of course, was money. Perhaps that didn’t make it all right after all. Maybe it never did. Could I ask? Would I dare? Daddy would surely be very upset.
“Well, still, how do you expect you will make new friends if you don’t socialize? Karen thinks she’s a social butterfly, Miss Sandburg Creek. Just float alongside her and try not to drown in her ego. However, try to be a little more particular about those you choose to confide in than Karen is. And don’t let Karen’s judgment sway your own about what to do or whom to like. Her judgment about people isn’t exactly stellar, unfortunately.”
It was on the tip of my tongue again to ask why she was so critical of her own daughter. What else should I know? But I didn’t have the courage, and maybe Ava’s telling me those things would only drive a wider wedge between Karen and me.
“Considering what you’ve been through these last few days, being bubbly, chatty, and silly might make you uncomfortable, I know. It’s understandable, but I don’t want to discourage you from going. Distraction is sometimes the best cure for unhappiness. It doesn’t cure it, but it puts it on a back shelf for a while.”
Just what I had anticipated her saying, I thought.
“Okay,” I said.
I could see that prolonging this conversation only skirted the border of Daddy’s and my deception. I shouldn’t have told her I never had a phone. What teenager didn’t? Even poor people in India, the Middle East, and Africa managed to have cell phones. I could have simply forgotten it in my haste to leave or accidentally left it on the plane or the bus. But I certainly didn’t want to keep talking about it and my fictionalized past. Right now, fortunately, she was more interested in fashion and appearance than truth.
“Go look in the mirror and put on the lipstick. I want to see if I chose right for you.”
I did it exactly the way Karen had instructed and then faced Ava. She nodded.
“I was right. Put it in your purse,” she said.
I hesitated
“What? You don’t like how you look?”
“No, I like it. I…”
“What?”
“Really don’t have a proper purse to take to a party.”
“Why didn’t you mention that when we went shopping?”
“I didn’t think of it. Sorry.”
She sighed deeply. “Follow me. I’ll give you one of my own,” she said. “Well. Come along. I have other things to do,” she snapped from the doorway.
I hurried to follow her. Celisse was still here with Garson downstairs. I could hear her singing something in French to him. We walked past Karen’s closed door and into Ava and my father’s bedroom. It was my first time seeing it, and the perfection in the decor was almost breathtaking.
The Victorian-style king-size bed had an upholstered headboard with a blue tufted look in the pink frame. There was the same tufted design on each side of the bed, framed and set in the wall. The large area rug matched the designs on the comforter and the blue bench at the foot of the bed, along with the nightstands that coordinated with the bedframe and the dresser, framed mirror, and curtains at the large window to the right. One of the nightstands had been moved to make room for Garson’s cradle, which was also the same color blue. I wondered if that was Ava’s side of the bed or Daddy’s. Somehow I believed that he would have to be the one to get up in the middle of the night and not her.
“Your room is beautiful,” I said.
“I designed it myself. Your uncle is like all men, color-blind when it comes to furniture.”
Yes, he told me what you thought of his taste, I thought. I vaguely remembered my mother saying something like that about Daddy. She believed that everything would be stark, white, ghostlike to him.
“It all seems brand-new, not even used once,” I said, thinking of their formal living room. I thought it wasn’t an obsession with cleanliness so much as it was with perfection. I never recalled this being so important to Daddy. It was almost a military dedication to Ava and how her house would be viewed. I suspected it might have something to do with what her father would think. So many currents of emotion and rage ran under the floors of this family home.
Careful, Saffron, I thought, or you’ll be swept away.
There was a nook on the right that encompassed the large vanity table, which boasted shelves neatly stocked with what looked like anything and everything a woman would desire for her hair and makeup. All of it lined up perfectly. The chair was the same light blue. To the right of the nook was a door that I could see opened to a marble floor and counter in the large bathroom.
“Let’s get what you need.”
Ava turned left to the practically wall-to-wall walk-in closet. I followed slowly, not sure she wanted me to go in with her. At the door, I nearly gasped aloud at all the clothes and the shelves of shoes. It looked like enough to be a store’s inventory. At the end of the closet, there was another full-length mirror, table, and chair. The closet ceiling had a skylight, and the same dark-brown wood floor ran the length of the closet. She plucked a purse off a shelf and handed it to me.
“I don’t think I’ve used it more than twice,” she said.
“It looks quite expensive.”
“It isn’t. It’s a little overstated, but it will complement what you’re wearing,” she said. The denim blue purse had a knitted top handle and shiny rhinestones. “These are called butterfly buckled flaps, easy to close and open, so keep your eye on it. You can put your phone and wallet inside and…”
“My wallet is kind of…”
“What?”
“Manly and beat-up,” I said. “My real father left it behind but with nothing in it.”
It had been Mazy’s father’s wallet, actually.
“Your mother never bought you a wallet of your own?”
I didn’t answer. Another drop of suspicion trickled out of her eyes like invisible tears.
She sighed. “You sound more like you were a homeless person. You have to speak up when we’re shopping and you need things,” she said in a tone suggesting I was exhausting her with my needs. He
r expression grew stern again. “I know you’ve been here only a short time, but you’re part of the Saddlebrook family now. Despite Karen’s disinterest from time to time in her appearance, we do not look raggedy and disheveled, especially in public. People here actually look to me to make decisions about their own fashions and other important things. Presentation is at least half of the impression you will make, on strangers especially. I don’t know why your generation is so unaware of that.”
She paused, aware of how harshly she was lecturing me. I was a little terrified. Someday she surely would tear the wrapping off the fictional life Daddy had created for me.
Her face softened. “I realize all this was not a priority for you and your mother.”
“No. Our priority was more like survival,” I said, maybe too sharply, but I didn’t like standing in a pool of purple fear. Almost every other minute since I had arrived, I wanted to run.
Her eyes seemed to snap with ire and fury at my defiance. They calmed slowly like the flames on a stove being gradually reduced and turned off.
“Well, thankfully, that no longer need be your priority here,” she said. “Your uncle should have made that clearer to you. You’ll realize it all soon enough,” she said softly. “I hope.”
“What are you giving her now?” we heard.
I turned to see Karen in the bedroom doorway, her hands on her hips.
“Why didn’t you see that she had a proper purse?” Ava demanded.
“Well, I didn’t check through everything she brought,” Karen whined. “And she didn’t tell me. How was I supposed to know?”
“You make it your business to know. You’re presenting your cousin to your friends. She’s part of your family now,” Ava reminded her, and then reached down to produce a zippy wallet.
“That’s one of your Louis Vuittons!” Karen cried. I looked from her amazed expression to Ava. I didn’t know exactly who Louis Vuitton was, but from the tone of her voice, I knew it was something very expensive.
“Well, make sure she doesn’t lose it, Karen.”
Out of the Rain Page 15