My Dark Knight

by Virgini Bellarica

  Kevin was right. I feel like Kate Middleton must have felt preparing for her big day. The thought of Jenny spending $63,000 on my wedding gown brings goose-bumps to my flesh. She’s an old client of fashion designer, Mark Finn – a star who dresses stars and who’s been based in New York for the last thirty years or so. I was nervous at first, but then I met him and knew straight away that he was special. He’s adorable with an infectious laugh and a sense of humor that brings out the child in you. He looks way younger than his fifty-one years. The first time I saw a photo of him, he was wearing a kilt. Now he usually goes about in a black suit.

  Today, I’m off for my first fitting at his showroom, an atelier on Fifty Seventh Street, just a few blocks over from Finders Keepers Enterprises. He has already promised me that I’ll look like a princess on my wedding day. When I saw some of his designs, both vintage and new, I knew that he was right. He’s a genius.

  I take the elevator up to his floor and am greeted by one of his assistants, a sweet, unassuming girl who could be a teenager but no doubt isn’t. She ushers me into his showroom where there are floor to ceiling windows overlooking Fifty Seventh Street below, and rows of to-die-for gowns and outfits draped from hangers. There is a large desk in the center of the room where he is sitting, his black glossy head bent, busy and in deep concentration. I’ve heard that he’s a shrewd businessman as well as an artist – he learned from a young age, helping out in his parents’ grocery store when he was just a boy. He is the seventh child and his lucky number, Jenny told me, is thirteen.

  He looks up from his task, rakes his eyes over me quickly and smiles, saying, “You’re making my life very easy, Arielle, you’re perfect sample size, so no snacking before your wedding!”

  I laugh but know he’s probably serious. This is not going to be the type of dress to favor a last-minute nip and tuck at the seams. “Tell me, Mark, what do you envision for me?” I ask, kissing him on both cheeks. Somehow a handshake seems too formal for such a friendly person.

  “I’ve planned for you a floor length ivory, silk velvet cape with a dramatic train and ice crystal beaded blossoms cascading down from the shoulder, and a matching strapless gown with ice crystal beaded blossoms cascading up the dramatic flared hem.”

  “Wow, it sounds beautiful.”

  “You’ll be the perfect ice-princess for your handsome English prince,” he says with a giggle.

  We spend the afternoon discussing the design and all the different options for shoes. He has me there like a manikin, being draped with muslin cloth, pins going here and there – the fabric itself, the silk velvet, will not be touched until later. He loves the idea of a winter wedding in Lapland and asks me a hundred questions about what food and drink will be served – but even I’m not sure about that yet – this is all stuff I have to decide with the wedding planner.

  Sylvie, of course, will be my maid of honor – she has yet to come in for her fitting, but slim as a pencil, I’m sure Mark will love her – no chance of her pigging out before December; she’s like a little waif. With her long brown hair styled with crystal beads, Mark is confident he can transform her into a character from a fairy tale.

  I leave late, bubbling with excitement and hope – Mark’s giggly demeanor is catching and I’m in the highest of spirits.

  That’s until the elevator door to his showroom opens, and Jenny is standing there with a fixed grin on her face.

  My heart sinks.

  She looks ravishing, impeccable – but then Jenny is always impeccable. She’s wearing her thick dark hair loose, the cut chic with Parisian perfection. Her pinstripe pantsuit is tailored. I instantly feel straggly and unkempt next to her mature sophisticated demeanor.

  “Arielle, darling,” she says in her posh English accent and air-kisses me on both cheeks.

  “Jenny, what a lovely surprise, how long are you in town for?”

  “Didn’t Max tell you I was coming?”

  “He must have, but I guess I lost track of time,” I lie. I don’t want to give her the satisfaction of knowing I fear her, and that Max is keeping anything from me. No, he did not let me know she was coming to New York.

  I smile sweetly. I feel like the two of us are in that scene from Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest – two women’s saccharine smiles and sweet-talk hiding dagger-like intentions. Although, my only intention is to avoid her as much as possible. What her plans are for me, I still cannot begin to guess. Except I’m sure they include ousting me from her brother’s life in whatever way possible.

  She says excitedly, “I thought I’d pop by and see what Mark has designed for Sylvie.”

  “Jenny, I can’t thank you enough for this generous gift. I mean, you’re really pulling out all the stops.”

  “Arielle, you’re going to be my sister-in-law. Part of my life. If you make Max happy, that’s all I care about.” She wrinkles her nose cutely and I wonder, for a second, if she can twitch it like Samantha on Bewitched – something I practiced as a child watching endless re-runs on TV (another of Mom’s favorites) – but never mastered. I wouldn’t put it past Jenny to be able to come up with a few sorceress tricks, or to cast some sort of wicked spell on me.

  Or am I being unjust? Maybe her intentions are good and I’m just a jaded, unforgiving bitch.

  Time will tell.

  I GO BACK TO THE OFFICE to work and when I get home I find Max on the roof terrace with Prince.

  “Hi Arielle, darling,” he says, “come and sit on my knee. I’m just finishing up a couple of things.” He’s tapping away distractedly on his tablet, making lists.

  I run my fingers through his thick dark hair and tell him, “I bumped into Jenny at Mark’s showroom. You never told me she was coming to New York.”

  “Jenny’s here, in Manhattan?”

  “Yes, didn’t you know? She said you knew.”

  “I can’t remember her telling me, no.”

  “Oh,” I say, wondering which one of them is fibbing. Jenny, no doubt.

  As if the Devil herself were listening in on our conversation, Max’s cell rings. I can tell it’s Jenny by the way he talks –the easy expression on his face; the relaxed way you speak to an old friend. They’re discussing dinner. Great. Just when I was feeling more at ease than ever, our lives perfect, Jenny has to nuzzle in on us. I tense. Is Max now telling her, that yes, I will make dinner tonight. Me, cook? Please, God, no. He knows cooking is not my forte. He ends the conversation and looks at me, his slightly crooked smile showing a hint of irony.

  “Did I hear right?” I ask him. “Did you just tell Jenny that I’d cook supper?”

  “She asked especially. She wants to taste typical, homemade, American food.”

  “Well, there are a lot of restaurants that do it way better than I do.”

  “Nonsense, your cooking is great.”

  Little does Max know that it’s Dean & DeLuca’s and Zabar’s cooking which is great, or our local delicatessen. Not me.

  He brushes a lock of hair from my face. “Make your hamburgers, they’re delicious.”

  “Really? You like them?”

  “I love them. Or you could do your BLTs – the best this side of New York.”

  “But Jenny will be expecting something fancy.”

  “No, she won’t. She gets gourmet food in Paris. Give her BLTs.” He presses his mouth on mine and whispers through his kiss, “You’re my Star-Spangled girl, remember? I don’t care if you don’t cook flashy, haute cuisine. I love you just the way you are. Don’t ever change.”

  JENNY AND SYLVIE ARRIVE at eight o’clock sharp. Needless to say, every second has been spent by me preparing for their dreaded arrival. Patricia helped me lay the table with the best silver and crystal champagne glasses – BLTs in style, with matchstick French fries and Bollinger Champagne. Jenny has ways of looking as if she’s the most charming person in the world while quietly stabbing me simultaneously. Max doesn’t seem to notice, and Sylvie is so busy stuffing her face with the BLTs that she is
blissfully unaware.

  “So Arielle,” Jenny begins. “How is everything going in the Enterprise department?”

  “Great,” I reply sweetly.

  “She’s just made a deal with Billy Gold,” Max interjects proudly. “He’s a tough nut to crack, and Arielle got what she wanted, namely a woman for one of the leads in Fighting the Wind.”

  Jenny smoothes her manicured hand over her sleek, chignon. “No! You’re kidding me? She’s very talented that actress, Valentina Gimenez.”

  The way she says that makes me wonder if she knew about this already. Although I remember telling her I wanted women for the lead roles, I don’t remember mentioning Valentina Gimenez. I wish Max hadn’t let her in on my business but answer simply, “Yes, I’m very pleased with the way things are going.”

  “I’m sure you’ll be even more delighted as things develop,” she says ominously – although the ominous vibe could just be my imagination. Her emphasis on ‘develop’ is eerie.

  Max puts his hand on mine. “Arielle’s going to do some re-writing of the script, aren’t you, darling? She always wanted to be a script writer and now’s her chance.”

  Jenny’s hand envelops both of ours, her eagle talons cupping us, her nails long and sharp. “Let’s have a look at your engagement ring. Beeeootiful,” she coos, gawking at it, her eyes wide.

  “Thank you.”

  Max looks pleased. “It belonged to a Russian princess, a lady in waiting, so to speak, to Catherine the Great.”

  Jenny cackles. “Catherine the Great – isn’t she the Empress who used to fuck horses?”

  Sylvie almost chokes on her champagne. “Maman!”

  “No, seriously, rumor has it that they had to lower the horse on top of her as no man’s penis was big enough nor insatiable enough for her. They said she was a ‘beastite’ – I think that’s the correct term. She died, in fact, trying to have sexual intercourse with a horse – she got crushed to death in the act.”

  Max bursts out laughing. “Nonsense. That was a myth, gossip spread by French aristocracy and her Polish enemies at the time to belittle her.”

  “Well, she certainly had a voracious sexual appetite, which contributed to her downfall.” Jenny turns to me and stares, her last sentence directed at me, for sure. I think of the Freudian dream I had about a black horse at the hotel in Cap d’Antibes, after Max had been talking about getting me to ‘ride’ him. Can Jenny read my frigging dreams? She knows that I can’t keep my hands off her brother. She knows my sexual appetite has been awakened. I look down at my empty glass awkwardly. Max doesn’t seem to notice what she has said, and Sylvie looks hazily at the Tromp l’Oeil of the dining room, settling her gaze onto the painted lake with swans and the fake view beyond that looks so disconcertingly real, obviously choosing not to follow the conversation.

  “Well, I love your ring, Arielle,” Jenny continues with a syrupy smile. “But why didn’t you want a new piece of jewelry?”

  “Arielle and I didn’t want a blood diamond,” Max breaks in.

  “A blood diamond?”

  “A conflict diamond,” I clarify. “A war diamond. A lot of top-grade diamonds are mined in war zones, particularly Africa. We didn’t want to contribute to that in any way, so Max chose a vintage piece instead, and I’m glad he did.”

  Sylvie pipes up, her pretty eyes wide, her interest piqued. “It’s true, Natalie Portman doesn’t wear real diamonds to ze Oscars or red carpet – she wears fake knock offs for five bucks for ze same reason.”

  I’m marveling at Sylvie’s colloquial English, using words like ‘knock-offs’ and ‘bucks’, and add, “It used to be a pendant, and Max had it made into a ring.”

  Jenny lets me know in a soft voice, “Well, I don’t think wearing someone’s old jewelry is very lucky, is it? Bad karma you know, it could be extremely unlucky. Bad vibes, I’d imagine.”

  For the first time ever, Max looks angry. His mouth tenses, as he says quietly between his teeth, “Actually, Jenny, I had the ring cleansed by a priest. By two different priests, in fact. Blessed with holy water. The ring is as pure as snow.”

  I look down at my achingly beautiful ring and wish Jenny hadn’t laid her hands on it. As if her touch could pollute it in some way.

  Swallowing a mouthful and then smiling sweetly, she says, “These BLTs are so delicious, Arielle, you must tell me the recipe.”

  Recipe. The recipe is in the title of the sandwich. BLT – bacon, lettuce and tomato. Of course, Jenny’s irony is not lost on me but does seem to go over Max’s head. Men are so clueless when it comes to women’s sharp claws disguised in white kid gloves. I tell Jenny, “The secret’s in the bacon itself, Jenny. It’s from a small farm Upstate where the pigs roam free in fields, eat organic food and lead a happy life.”

  Max gets up from the table to get another bottle of champagne, and Jenny whispers to me out of his earshot:

  “Arielle, make sure you don’t wear that opal choker my brother gave you on your wedding day itself. Opals are unlucky for some, you know.”

  “Not for me,” I reply with a saccharin smile. “Opals are my birthstone.”

  I COULDN’T EVEN REMEMBER how we got there. I guess it was by his car – what was his name? Later, I blanked that name out. Later, when it was all too...

  Late.

  My friend, Julia, had somehow slipped out of the equation. I was left with both boys, lascivious, like hungry dogs drooling for their dinner. But I was lapping up the attention, thinking of Brad studying with his new girlfriend – well I, too, could have some fun – kiss two guys at once. Not lose my virginity or anything, but have a little fun.

  “Baby, what’s wrong?”

  My breath is short, my back drenched with sweat. My eyes fly open and Max is there beside me in bed. I heave a sigh of relief.

  “You were having a bad dream, Arielle.” He holds me close to him and kisses the lids of my wet eyes. “It’s okay, everything’s okay, baby. You can go back to sleep.”

  MAX BRINGS ME BREAKFAST in bed the next morning. He sets down the tray and pours me coffee, adding steaming hot milk – a change from just the usual black caffeine fix that I always drink at work – he thinks the calcium is good for me. He knows just how I like it, and it’s always more delicious when he makes it than when I do it for myself. In every way he is the most sensitive man to my needs and desires, except in one aspect:

  Jenny.

  She is like the cliché Italian mother-in-law who wants to protect her son from the wicked influence of his wife or girlfriend. He is the eternal baby. Forever suspicious, she will always be jealous, no matter what you do or how you prove yourself. Jenny may be just his sister but because these siblings are so embroiled in Finders Keepers together, this is a tough battle. She’s a sister who is unfortunately embedded in my life, whether I like it or not. I am doing all I can not to nag. I have to be smart about this. My long game plan is to get her out of our lives.

  “Max,” I begin, wondering how to broach the subject. “No, never mind.”

  “You want to tell me about these bad dreams you’ve been having, my darling?” he asks, sitting beside me on the bed. He’s already dressed, ready for work.

  I look at my watch and see I overslept. That dream has turned me upside down. “Actually,” I venture, “I wanted to ask you if you noticed how...how spiky Jenny was being yesterday evening. I mean, she covered it up well with smiles, but her intention was to make me look small.”

  He holds my hand. “Yes, I did notice. But the best thing to do with Jenny is ignore her when she’s being like that. She wants to get a rise out of you – if you react, it’ll just feed her desire to overrun you even more. It’s her way of getting your attention. Be flattered she’s investing so much of her energy in you.”

  “Flattered? I’d like you to stop her behaving that way.”

  Max shakes his head. “I can’t stop her.”

  “Max, why do you weaken when it comes to Jenny? If she’s going to be like that, I don’t want
to see her. Period.”

  “Look, Jenny loves you.”

  “What?” I say incredulous. “Are you serious? She hates everything about me!”

  “She was saying only yesterday how good you are for me. Singing your praises. That you’re beautiful and have the face of an angel. She thinks your eyes are...what was the word she used? Yes, that’s right...’soulful’. She loves you, Arielle. Believe me, if Jenny didn’t like you, you’d soon realize. It’s just her manner. Plus, her tone comes out a bit snappy sometimes... and things sound critical or odd, but she doesn’t mean it that way.”

  “She’s playing us both, Max.” I sigh, exasperated. We are going nowhere with this conversation. “I wish I’d never agreed to the wedding gown gift.”

  But he just kisses me on the forehead as if I’m his little daughter who hasn’t had her rest and is cranky from lack of sleep. “She adores you, Arielle. Now, I’ve got meetings all day, so I’ll see you later this evening. I’m taking you to the opera tonight.”

  “Wonderful,” I mumble grumpily but then realize how spoiled that sounds, so I ask with more energy, “What are we going to see?”

  “Surprise.”

  I walk to work with Prince and decide to spend the day with Cecile. For some reason, I thought that working on feature films would be more exciting, but I’m finding that I miss the detail of documentaries. There is something satisfying about delving into a world you would never normally encounter and unveiling truths and horrors that the normal public would never find out about. Sharing real life stories rather than selling fantasies – that is fulfilling.

  Cecile’s latest venture is into the dark cavern of modern slavery and human trafficking. This is something she feels passionate about, as her ancestors were African slaves shipped to America. She’s horrified that with all our education, this travesty is still happening all over the globe; the difference being that it is undercover and illegal, but nevertheless rife. I agree with her and think this project is crucial.

  I FIND HER IN THE EDITING room. The light is low, and I study her concentrated hazel eyes set amidst her smooth café-au-lait-toned face. She is staring at the screen in the semi-darkness.