“Hey,” Daddy said, smiling from ear to ear. He was wearing his blue sports jacket and dark blue slacks with a sporty pair of blue and black loafers. He was also wearing a dark blue tie with his light blue shirt. My mother had told him blue was his best color, and he often went out of his way to find something blue to buy.
He held up my mother’s best pearl necklace. In his other hand, he had her matching earrings. I stared, amazed. Those were the pearls she wore in her portrait. I glanced up at it. She seemed to be glaring down at me angrily.
“Mommy left those?”
“Yes, in her haste, she forgot she had them hidden in a drawer. She was paranoid, remember? She never kept her best things in her jewelry box. Too obvious and easy for a burglar. I was surprised it was there myself. I saw it last night and thought someday it would be yours anyway. Well, tonight it is,” he said.
I rose slowly. First he gave me her dress, and now her pearls. My inheritance had been sped up. Was that the silver lining? Would it ever compensate? Instinctively, I glanced back at the sofa as if I thought my mother was sitting there, watching. I would always look for her approval, probably until the day I died, whether she had left us for good or not.
Daddy put the pearl necklace around my neck and fastened it. Then he handed me the earrings.
“Go in the powder room and put them on,” he said.
I took them, gazed at them in my palm, and then went to do what he had asked. When I looked at myself in the mirror, having put on her dress, fixing my makeup like she would fix hers, wearing her pearl necklace and earrings, with my hair done like her hair, my heart began to pound. I didn’t want to look good in her things, I didn’t want to be happy wearing them, but I couldn’t help feeling that yes, I could be as beautiful as she was. Nevertheless, it made me feel mean. There was a part of me that either I had ignored or that had just been born, the part that was willing to be happy she was gone, even if that was only for tonight.
“Truly beautiful. The jewelry looks like it was made for you,” Daddy said when I stepped out. He held out his hand. “Let’s go enjoy a wonderful meal and talk only about you.”
I took his hand, and we went to the door to the garage. He hurried around to do something he only did for my mother, opening her door. After he got in and backed out, he looked at me and smiled. Was he acting this way for me? He was happy or really doing a good job pretending.
“So really, how was your day at school?” he asked as we drove off.
He nodded as I described it, even including the nasty way Janice Lyn had come over to me to ask about my mother. Once again, he found that deep expression of rage.
“It’s one thing to disregard my feelings,” he said, “but to do something like this to you, knowing how hard it was going to be, is unforgivable. Scarletta, I swear, I wouldn’t take her back if she came begging at the door.”
I didn’t want to say I wouldn’t, either, because I would. It would be like an Etch A Sketch. I’d lift the sad and ugly days away and start another as if nothing ugly and sad had happened. Everything would be as it was. Daddy wouldn’t even mention it, either, because he’d want us to be happy together. How could any man love his wife more than Daddy did? He’d get over his rage quickly, just the way he often did. Those flashes of anger would see that they had no place in his heart and flutter off like unwelcome birds.
We parked at the restaurant, and Daddy came around the car as I stepped out. He took my hand, but not like he had when I was a little girl. This time, he wanted to draw me closer and walk like he had with my mother.
“Come here,” he said, first putting his arm around my shoulders and then taking my hand. “I’m not going to let a woman as pretty as this trail along as if she didn’t belong to me.”
Was I really as pretty as he was saying, or was he telling himself all this to keep himself from crying again? My father was always proud to be with my mother. More times than I could count, he would tell people, “She makes me look good.”
When we entered the restaurant, I did feel everyone’s eyes on us. I could also sense I was blushing under their scrutinizing gazes, some of the men smiling conspiratorially as if Daddy had walked in with his secret lover. My mother would say that was something they wished they could do.
“Looking at some of their wives, who’d blame them?” she’d mutter loud enough for me to hear.
Daddy knew the maître d’, Sergio, who, if he could fly over to us, would have. He cut short his conversation with another couple and rushed across the room to greet us.
“Mr. Barnaby, welcome. I have your favorite table.”
“Thank you, Sergio. You remember my daughter, Scarletta?”
“Oh, yes, but to see her now so grown-up and beautiful, I thought for a moment she was your wife.”
“Not an unexplainable mistake,” Daddy said proudly.
Sergio led us to the table in the right corner that was just up enough on a small rise to give it the look of someplace special. It was visible from every angle in the rest of the room, and most of the other people were looking at us. I wondered how many Daddy knew and how many knew about my mother’s leaving. I saw no one from my school. Actually, I never heard any of my classmates talk about Dante’s. Either their parents never took them here or they went here only by themselves or with adult friends.
I wondered why Sergio hadn’t asked after my mother after he had referred to her. Had the news spread so quickly far and wide? What news compared in speed to bad news? Some headline about an international incident didn’t have a chance against local gossip.
“A martini, Sergio, and then a bottle of our favorite chianti, please,” Daddy said. “And one glass, of course.”
“I’ll see to it,” Sergio said, handing us the menus.
Daddy didn’t open his. “Long ago memorized,” he said, tapping it. “I’m pretty sure you liked the veal scampi. When you were younger, you shared it with your mother. Remember?”
That was only earlier this year, I thought. What did he mean by “When you were younger”? I nodded, remembering to sit up straight and not look around the room like some “curious busybody.” I could feel Mother sitting beside me, telling me that you let people come to you in places like this. “You don’t go running about as if you are desperate for friends. It diminishes you, Scarletta.”
My father, however, was usually not like that. He would tell her that it was important for his business to network with people. “Many a good sale came from a casual conversation,” he told her, actually the last time we were here. He had gotten up to go to someone else’s table.
“How desperate you look,” my mother remarked when he returned, but he smiled as if she simply didn’t understand the world of commerce.
“I stamp my personality on everything I do,” he said.
She looked at me, raised her eyes toward the ceiling, and shook her head.
Daddy smiled at other people now. He would show no one an iota of sadness.
“When something terrible happens to you,” he said, more like he was convincing himself than me, because he wasn’t looking at me as he spoke, “especially something personal like family disappointments, it’s better to get out in public as soon as possible and illustrate to the world that you are still standing. We’re still standing, I mean,” he added, turning to me.
The waiter brought Daddy his martini.
“Would you like a Sprite or something, Scarletta?” Daddy asked.
“Water’s fine,” I said.
Daddy raised his eyebrows and looked at the waiter, a dark-haired young man who was staring at me, trying, I imagined, to determine my age.
“Women. Always thinking of their figures,” Daddy said. “That is, pretty women.”
“Absolutely, sir,” the waiter said. He poured me a glass of water.
“Give us a moment,” Daddy told him.
After he walked away, Daddy lifted his martini. “Let’s toast, Scarletta, to us, to survivors,” he said.
I d
idn’t like to think of myself that way or him, either, for that matter. It made it sound like we had gone through a war or a shipwreck. But maybe it was accurate to describe our ship as being badly damaged. We were both in a lifeboat together now. Where it would take us I did not know, but I tapped my water glass against his martini, and he drank it all in one long swallow. The surprise on my face brought a smile to his.
“Your toast means more if you drink it all in one gulp,” he said. “A friend of my father’s told me that. He was from Hungary, a good businessman. But don’t you ever drink like that,” he warned.
“I’m like Mother. I’m not fond of hard liquor, Daddy. Not that I’m any sort of expert about it.”
“Some stupidity is good,” he muttered.
I didn’t think he liked my saying “I’m like Mother.” He had winced when I said it.
He signaled the waiter, who came instantly.
“We’ll share a Dante’s salad and both have the veal scampi,” Daddy said.
“Very good, sir.”
“You can bring the wine with our salad, but in the meantime, another one of these,” he said, giving him his empty martini glass.
“Very good, sir.”
“I really can’t believe how grown-up you look, Scarletta. I feel like I’ve been away or something. Funny how things in life get you to look harder at what you look at every day.”
“I don’t get dressed up like this often, Daddy.”
“No, I guess not,” he said sadly. Then he smiled again. “Maybe you will now, more often.”
I wasn’t sure why I would, but I nodded.
The waiter brought my father his second martini. He drank it almost as fast as the first.
Just as he finished, the waiter brought the wine Daddy had ordered and opened it, pouring a little in the wineglass for my father to taste. Whenever I was with my mother and him and they ordered wine, he usually had her taste it. She was more particular, I thought, and he was always concerned about her being pleased with what they had ordered.
“Good,” he said, and the waiter poured him a glass.
“Let’s toast each other again, Scarletta,” he said, raising his glass. “One of my favorite quotes is quite apt. ‘What doesn’t destroy us makes us stronger.’ You and I will get stronger. I promise.”
I didn’t smile this time, but I tapped his glass with mine again. To me, he was making it worse for us by continually referring to what had happened and what would have to happen now. Although I wouldn’t pretend my mother hadn’t deserted us, there was still a little hope that she would realize what she had done and return. Surely if she did, Daddy wouldn’t want me to mention any of his quotes and toasts.
I could almost feel other people watching us, wondering what we were celebrating. Daddy was surely trying to show them very clearly that he wasn’t destroyed. I imagined some of the women were already thinking of someone to introduce him to at some social event or another. His cheerfulness wasn’t unexpected. How could a man so handsome and successful be destroyed by one woman? He could snap his fingers and get half the eligible women in this community coming after him.
During dinner, Daddy didn’t ask me another question about school, the track team, or any of my classmates. Even his tone was different. He talked to me as if he was truly out with my mother, telling me about some business decisions he had made and his plans for expanding the factory. He talked constantly and drank the wine quickly, ordering another martini after he had finished the bottle. He was finishing his food quickly, too.
“Are you going to change anything in our house?” I asked, really to bring us both back to reality.
“What? No. Why would I change anything?” He studied me a moment. “Is there something you’d like to change?”
How confusing, I thought. He acted like he believed my mother would never return, but he wanted to keep everything she had done.
I was tempted to talk about my room, but seeing how he wasn’t changing anything and the way he had reacted to the suggestion, I thought perhaps he didn’t want to admit or show me that he still believed my mother would return.
“No, nothing.”
He smiled, looking relieved. Then he looked around and nodded at someone. People leaving did stop by to say hello to him. He introduced me as Scarletta and never added “my daughter.” I think he wanted me to feel more grown-up. One man, Preston Forest, a business attorney who had done work for Daddy, held his incredulous smile and asked, “Isn’t this your daughter?”
“Is it?” Daddy joked. “I thought she looked familiar.”
“I’m not surprised she’s become so beautiful,” Preston said.
“She’s mature for her age, in every way,” Daddy practically snapped back at him.
“Right. I’ll call you on Tuesday about the Farmington deal. They are very interested,” he said, turned back to me, and told me how pleased he was to have met me.
I gave him my hand the way Mother had taught me. “Not like a man about to shake,” she had warned. “Keep your hand dainty, feminine. Don’t squeeze his fingers. You’re permitting him to touch you. That’s all.”
Preston smiled even more brightly, glanced at Daddy, gave him a little nod, and then left us to join two other men with whom he had been eating. Whatever he told them got them to look our way and smile to each other the way boys do when they’re whispering something X-rated.
Daddy didn’t notice.
“Farmington wants to furnish all their offices with my furniture,” he said, leaning toward me. “Custom made. Mucho dinero. We’ll build that pool in the back I was thinking about last year. And fill it with money,” he added.
My mother would tell him not to sound so coarse about money. I just nodded. Maybe it was because of how much he had drunk, but he was even more animated than when we had first arrived at the restaurant and was intent on proving we were just fine.
I never thought we weren’t rich. We bought or didn’t buy things based on what my mother wanted or didn’t want. Never once did I ever hear Daddy say, “We can’t afford that now,” or, “You’re spending money too fast, faster than I can make it.”
I hadn’t noticed, but whether it was assumed or not, the waiter brought my father a glass of sambuca. It had the coffee beans in it. It was actually more my mother’s favorite after-dinner drink than his. He sipped it immediately and leaned toward me again like someone about to whisper.
“I think we can do this,” he said. “We have a right to celebrate a bit despite what’s happened, meaning you, too, should taste a bit of success. I’m already planning for the car I’m going to buy you when you get your driver’s license.”
He poured a tiny bit of his sambuca into my empty water glass.
“I know you like this, too.”
I drank it, but I didn’t like it and had never told him I did. If anyone from the restaurant saw him give some of his sambuca to me, he didn’t complain. Daddy seemed to grow happier by the minute, and truthfully, I wasn’t feeling as sad as I had before we had left the house. I had come with him expecting to feel guilty when I enjoyed myself, but those feelings had quickly faded. Also, I sensed that one sad or gloomy expression would ruin it all for him, so whether my smiles looked artificial or not, I kept them going.
We had tiramisu for dessert. Daddy ordered an espresso with vodka, drank it quickly, and then ordered another. He let me taste it, and I did think it was good. I might tell some of my friends, I thought, just to show them I was sophisticated. I was sure few, if any, even Jackie, had ever drunk one.
Daddy flagged the waiter for our check. Without even looking at what we had spent, he gave the waiter his credit card. My mother would have snapped at him. “At least pretend to care,” she would say.
When we started out, practically everyone working there made a point of nodding or saying good night. Funny, I thought, how a really sad thing had suddenly turned us into celebrities. It was as if they all were hoping we’d say something they could spread like inside news
, a scoop of local gossip that would make them seem more important.
Outside, Daddy held my hand tighter and quickly opened the car door. He was strangely silent now. Again, I thought it was probably the effect of all that alcohol. Actually, I was afraid we’d be stopped. If it was a local policeman, he might feel sorry for us. Still, pity would be pouring gasoline on a fire.
He drove out, not looking at me. I couldn’t tell if he was content because we had enjoyed our dinner and dealt with the curiosity of strangers or if he was raging with anger inside. Finally, he gave me a compliment, a reluctant compliment.
“Your mother brought you up well, Scarletta. I meant what I told Preston. You’re heads and shoulders above girls your age, thanks to her. Everyone in the restaurant was impressed with you. I could see it on their faces. You must be frustrated with how immature your friends are.”
“Sometimes,” I confessed. And then I thought about Jackie. “I was invited to a party Friday at Jackie Hansford’s house.”
He spun around so abruptly that I thought we’d go off the road.
“Someone invited you to a party now?” Before I could reply, he calmed and added, “They probably feel sorry for you. You don’t let them pity you, Scarletta. I won’t have it. Stay home instead.”
“No, that’s not the reason I was invited, Daddy. There’s a senior boy who likes me, and Jackie likes a boy he’s friends with. She’s plotting, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be part of it. If you don’t want me to go now . . .”
He stared ahead without talking. Almost a full minute went by.
“When I was your age, girls from broken homes were thought to be easy.”
“Easy? What do you mean?”
“One or the other of their parents had committed adultery or was a hopeless alcoholic or drug addict, so it was just assumed their children, especially a daughter, would have less morals. Easy,” he said.
The Silhouette Girl Page 12