“I only came to tell you about the appointment,” I said.
“Come on. You’ve wanted to come up here since you got to Asherley. You even tried the door a few times.” Her tone was confusing, both seductive and accusatory. She gave me a self-congratulatory shrug. “I baby-powdered the knob.”
This proved I wasn’t paranoid. She was not only watching me, she was setting traps.
“Yes, well, I was probably looking for you,” I stammered.
“Sure. I get it. I understand a lot about a lot of things, you know.”
She sauntered over to the dressing table and stabbed out what was left of her joint into an open jar of face cream, then gulped back what was in the coffee mug—wine, likely, from the fermented smell in the air. The dressing table was covered in makeup, the tops missing from lipsticks, broken clamshell compacts strewn about, potion bottles of varying heights and purposes like a tiny crowded cemetery. This was old makeup, dusty, probably Rebekah’s, some of the colors nearly used up. Her hand hovered over a clutch of lip colors, their tips glistening. She plucked a red shade from the crowd.
“Dior named this one after my mother. It’s called Rebekah’s Red,” she said, dramatically rolling her r’s.
She pressed it to her lips, smearing it over a pinker color, then handed it to me. “Go ahead. I want to see what it looks like on you.”
“I don’t think so.”
“Pleeease. I’m just trying to get to know you. We’re just hanging out. Like girlfriends.” She took my hand and placed the lipstick firmly in my palm and lifted the stick to my lips. “Go on.”
I was sickened by her strange prompt, but I gave my lips a few weak dabs with the flattened tip so as not to set her off.
“Oh my God, like this!” she said, losing patience. She grabbed the lipstick and clutched my chin in the claw of her hand, gathered my lips in a loose pucker, her mouth so close I could smell the wine on her breath. She was fifteen, I kept telling myself. This is a fifteen-year-old girl. Fifteen-year-olds shouldn’t be smoking pot and drinking alone in their dead mother’s bedroom. As she drew on my lips with a color I knew would be lurid, I thought frantically what I could say to stop this game. She let go of my face.
“Wow, yeah,” she said, squinting at her own work. “That is really not your shade.”
She turned my face to the mirror. My mouth was clownishly stained and her grip had left my cheeks dotted white. She picked out a different color.
“Don’t bother, Dani, you won’t find a flattering shade. I don’t normally wear lipstick.”
I couldn’t go back to our room with my mouth like this. Max might be home by now. There was a door ajar. The bathroom. I crossed to it, continuing to talk to her as though nothing about this episode was abnormal, as though she wasn’t a wasted teenager putting her dead mother’s lipstick on her future stepmother’s mouth.
“So, as I was saying, we’d have to leave here by noon, but I totally understand if you’re busy . . .” I felt inside the room for the switch and flicked on the light.
It wasn’t the bathroom. This was what I could only describe as a sunken oasis, not a closet so much as an exclusive boutique, with an island in the middle that was larger than the Aquarama. On the island were the pictures of Rebekah that had disappeared from the gallery, most of them now freed from their frames and spread out in seemingly organized piles, as though Dani were in the middle of an elaborate art project. The backgrounds of some of the larger headshots had been cut away and layered over one another, dozens of Rebekah faces in various emotional states. I felt my knees wobble and I turned to leave, but Dani, now close behind me, gave me a slight shove inside.
“I know, right?” she said with glee. “Isn’t it sick? Check this out.”
She hit another switch, and a set of large doors slid sideways into their wall pockets, exposing a collection of gowns, organized by color, from white sequins on the left all the way to black satin on the right, with every conceivable shade in between. Dani began to flick through the dresses methodically, conducting a sartorial show-and-tell, like a bored instructor.
“Met Ball, Tonys, second Bush inauguration, first Obama.” She paused, catching her breath. “Dior runway, Met Ball, Oscar de la Renta sample, Emmys, her last Met Ball. Oh my God, my fave.” She pulled out a strapless white poufy cocktail dress embroidered at the hem and waist with black flowers. “Givenchy. Vintage Audrey Hepburn . . .” She intently scanned the remainder of the dresses at the darker end of the scale. “I’m going to try . . . this one on, and you . . .”
I took a few steps back. So many dresses, so many occasions for them to appear together as a couple, and Max had yet to take me anywhere fancier than a French bistro in Southampton.
“I’m not in the mood to try on clothes, Dani. It’s very late—”
“I know! This!” She yanked out something black and long, thrust it towards me. “This’ll fit. It’s stretchy,” she said. Her smile was wide, genuine. “Please?”
The second I took the velvet thing from her hands, Dani stripped, tossing her nightie in the corner. I averted my eyes from her nakedness, but not before noticing she already waxed off most of whatever pubic hair she might have at her age. Everything felt wrong about this.
“I should go. We can talk at breakfast.”
“Come on. We never do anything together. Just this one time?” She wriggled the Givenchy over her hips, turned around, and lifted her hair. “Zipper, please and thank you.”
I placed the velvet dress on the island and did up the zipper, the bodice swallowing up her spine. She turned to face me, dropping her hair back around her shoulders.
“Now you.” She reached for the hem of my nightshirt and lifted it over my head with such force it caught on my nose.
“Dani!”
I covered my breasts, the dire facts of the moment closing in on me. I was now naked in front of a teenage girl.
She snorted. “Of course you wear granny panties,” she said, bending to form a funnel with the black dress, lowering it in front of my legs. “Step in, step in! Use my shoulder,” she commanded.
If only to cover my body, I stepped into the dress. Dani shimmied it over my hips. I gathered the rest of it over my breasts, quickly surmising that it was strapless. She spun me around and zipped the back. Then she took one look at me and bent over laughing. The bodice, once filled with Rebekah’s ample breasts, now wilted hollowly over mine.
“Oh my God, you’re so shy,” she teased, pinching the breast pockets, accidentally clamping one of my nipples. “Have you and my dad even had sex yet? Or are you waiting for your wedding night? Oh wait—I know the answer to that!”
“Dani, stop. I feel ridiculous.”
“I know what this needs!”
She yanked open the top drawer of the island and pulled out two fleshy disks. When I reached around back to unzip myself out of the dress, she shoved the disks down the front, roughly handling my breasts until they were perfectly in place.
“So much better.” She spun me around to face the mirror, and placed her chin on my shoulder as though she was regarding her best work yet. “Gorge, right?”
I could barely meet my own eyes in the mirror.
“Don’t you love it? Here, put these on, too.” She wrapped a string of pearls around my neck, gathered up my hair in her fist.
I flung the necklace away from me. “No, Dani. I don’t love it. I really have to go to bed now.” I ripped the disks out and threw them to the ground. I could hardly believe I had let her game go this far.
“Just one more thing, pleasepleaseplease. Hold this.” She slapped a stick in my hand. I looked down. It seemed to be attached to a stop sign. It happened fast. She raised the hand holding the sign until it covered my face and she snapped a picture. I flipped the sign around, bracing myself to read something rude. But on the front was a neatly trimmed picture of Rebeka
h’s face, life-size.
“Isn’t it hilarious?”
“No, Dani,” I said quietly. “This is not hilarious. I find this all very frightening.”
I reached behind me, gripped the tiny zipper clasp and pulled hard, not caring if I ripped the dress right off of me. It slid down my body and I stomped out of it, then scrambled to put my nightshirt back on.
“Good night, Dani. I imagine you won’t be up to a long trip into the city tomorrow. I think it might be best if you just rested.”
She looked at me and blinked hard a couple of times.
“Oh shit. I’m so sorry. I was only trying to have some fun with you. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Her voice was like a child’s. She put her fingers to her cheeks. “Are you going to tell Daddy I’m doing bad things up here? Oh, please don’t tell him.”
“I won’t. But maybe you should talk to your father. I’m worried about you.”
She dropped her pleading expression, her lips now curling into a sneer. “Aww. She cares. Oh, that’s so nice. I don’t give a shit if you tell my dad because he doesn’t give a shit about me, or if I do bad things, as long as I don’t do them anywhere else but at Asherley.”
“Dani, that’s not true. If he knew you were up here smoking pot and drinking alone and messing around with your mother’s things, he’d be very worried.”
“He told you that?”
“He doesn’t have to. Come on, Dani. He loves you very much.”
“You know that? How do you know that?”
“Now you’re being ridiculous.” I wanted to scream, Don’t you remember? It was your mother who was hard on you, not your father!
Dani shut her eyes for a second in contemplation. When she opened them, her demeanor was calm, her voice steady. “I know you think he loves me, because that’s what he wants you to believe. I mean, what father doesn’t love his own daughter? But you know and I know that I’m not his real daughter.”
We stood facing each other. She looked calm, sober, her expression resigned, as though she’d long ago come to terms with this terrible fact and had learned to live with it.
“Good night, Dani. You’re wrong about your father. He loves you very much.” I wiped the lipstick off my mouth with the back of my quivering hand and left the room, shutting the door behind me.
EIGHTEEN
I didn’t debate about whether to tell Max the next morning. I couldn’t keep this secret. I’d tell him as soon as possible, not only what she was doing up there but what she had said to me about him. All teenagers feel unloved and unseen by their parents at some point, I knew that. But of course he loved her, and he’d take it upon himself to demonstrate to Dani just how much, in ways that would be indisputable. At first, she’d be mad at me for breaking my promise. But soon she’d see it as the result of my growing affection for her.
I threw on sweats and splashed cold water on my face, then peered at my mouth in the bathroom mirror. My lips were still stained with Rebekah’s Red. I gave my mouth a final scrub with a hot cloth. Then I took a nailbrush to my stained fingers until they were pink. I pulled at the skin on my cheeks, noting my pores, the dusting of freckles. Should I start wearing makeup? My eyebrows did need plucking. Had they always been so unruly? All these years, while other girls and women were cultivating their vanity, my gaze had been elsewhere, on other people, on a horizon line, or on the dashboard of whatever boat I was piloting, not on my face and its flaws. Now suddenly they were all I could see. Even our rooms, once my cozy, dark oasis, now felt stuffy compared with Rebekah’s, my one closet a sad home for the few things I owned before yesterday’s spree. They were delivering the new clothes today. Maybe once I started wearing nicer outfits, Max would want to invite me to events.
From the top of the stairs, I was surprised to hear Dani, already up and laughing in the kitchen. How she was not incapacitated by a hangover was a testament to her youth—or the quality of the wine and pot.
When I entered the kitchen the two of them were positioned exactly as they had been my first night at Asherley, knees together, heads bowed towards each other, this time a kitten on Dani’s lap. When she saw me, her whole face lit up. Even Maggie came to attention, her ears perched high on her head.
“Good morning,” Dani said in a cheery voice. “I was just telling Daddy about our night.”
My gut sunk. “Oh?”
“Sounds like you guys had fun,” Max said, a hint of hope in his voice. I took a seat beside Dani and leaned over to scratch Maggie’s head. She’d gone from being a dirty little creampuff to a sleek, muscular kitten, with a gleaming, well-cared-for coat.
“What time did you get in?” I asked Max, entering the conversation cautiously.
“After two, I think,” he said. “I slept in the den so I wouldn’t wake you. I made scrambled eggs. I’ll heat some up for you.”
“No, they’re fine like this,” I said, spooning some onto a plate. “What else did you tell your dad?”
Dani shrugged. “That we hung out. Did each other’s makeup. Just girl stuff.” Then she lowered her voice and cupped a hand at her mouth. “I might have been a little stoned, Daddy.”
Savvy move. I’ll tell my father before you do.
Max exhaled, less angry than exasperated. “Dani, I told you, no smoking pot. Where did you get it? Claire?”
“She was also drinking,” I blurted out.
“Is that true?”
“I might have had a little sip of something.”
“Do I have to change the lock on the wine cellar again?”
“No, Daddy. I won’t do it again.”
Dani shot me a look, not a vicious one, more like the way you’d silently congratulate your poker partner on a clever move. “I didn’t peg you for a tattletale,” she said. “I know I’m no snitch.”
“I’m not tattling, Dani. Last night I told you I was worried about you. And I am.” Then I pulled out my trump card. “And while I’m not your mother, I don’t think even she would have been very pleased with your behavior.”
She closed her eyes and tilted her head back. When she opened them to reply, her response came out like a pent-up roar.
“What the fuck do you know about what my mother would or wouldn’t have liked? You don’t know a fucking thing about her. Or me. Or my father, for that matter—”
“Dani, Dani,” Max said quietly.
“Who do you think you are?” she continued, pointing a finger at me. “Coming here and thinking you can move in and—”
“Dani, I mean it.”
“—just insert yourself into my life, into our lives, telling me how to live my life—”
“I’m not trying to do anything—”
“What have you even done with your life? I’m amazed you lasted this long, to be honest.”
“Jesus Christ, Dani! Would you just shut the fuck up!”
We both fell silent. I had never seen Max so red or heard him yell so loud. Judging from the way Dani’s anger instantly dissolved into anguish, neither had she.
“Daddy,” she said, her chin trembling, her voice small. She lowered her head into her chest and began to cry.
Max put his arms around her, murmuring, over and over, “I’m so sorry, sweetie.”
She leaned her head into his chest, arms flaccid around Maggie. Between sobs she said, “I was just . . . trying . . . to be . . . nice to her.”
Now I was the one rolling my eyes.
“I know, honey,” Max said, and mouthed “I’m sorry” at me over her shoulder. “But you know I hate it when you use drugs. You’re too young. It’s worrisome. To both of us. That’s all she was saying.”
Dani pulled away from him. “I don’t need her to worry about me, Daddy. I need you to.” Clutching Maggie tightly, she stepped off the stool and wiped her face with the back of a hand. “Just you.”
As she p
assed by me, she shot me a small triumphant smile, one that announced the end of an excellent performance. The door swung behind her.
Max exhaled. “I’m sorry about that. And I’m sorry I yelled like that.”
“You don’t need to apologize to me. I wonder if you don’t yell often enough,” I said, in a way that surprised me with its bite.
“I know. I let her get away with a lot.” He buried his face in his hands and gave it a hard rub. “Argh! This isn’t getting any easier for you, is it?”
I shook my head. That was the simple truth. It was getting harder.
“What can I do to help?” he asked.
“I don’t know. More rules? More boundaries? I mean, she’s doing drugs. She’s drinking alone, at fifteen. She says you don’t love her. That doesn’t bode well for her, or for us.”
“I know. I know. Her problems aren’t new to this house. I really thought the worst of it was over. Lately, though—” He stopped. Was he going to suggest this new round of bad behavior coincided with my arrival? “Maybe she needs to go back to rehab.”
“Rehab? When did she go to rehab?”
“Last year. She wasn’t eating enough, she was partying a lot. I was worried she was heading for a breakdown. I even tried to take control of her money so she couldn’t buy anything I didn’t know about, drugs in particular. But she rallied. Pushed back. Went to a therapist in town for a while, then stopped going around the time she stopped going to school. Since then I haven’t had much luck making her do anything she doesn’t want to do.”
“Well, tell her it’s back to therapy. I don’t know. You only have a few more years with her, and then she’s on her own.”
“We. We only have a few more years with her,” he said. He reached for my hand. “We are a team. And with any luck, we’ll have our own spoiled brats to tame soon enough.”
I smiled. We had only discussed the matter of children once, casually, over our last dinner at that fish shack. “Well, our brats won’t be spoiled,” I said, “if I have anything to do with it.”
The Winters Page 15