Dawn (17 page)

"Mrs. Cutler runs a very tight ship," Mrs. Boston said. "No excess, no waste. Whoever don't pull his load goes. She got just as many chambermaids as she needs, just as many waiters and busboys, just as many kitchen help and service people. Not a single one more. That's why this hotel goes on and on while other places have peeled off over the years."

"Well, I'm sorry," I repeated.

"Um," she said, still without much sympathy. "I'll be back in a while," she added and left.

I sat down on the bed. The mattress was old and had lost any firmness it might have had and the springs squeaked with complaint. Even my little weight was too much. I took a deep breath and opened my suitcase. The sight of my simple belongings brought back a flood of memories and feelings. How my heart ached. The tears started to flow. I sat there and let them run down my cheeks and drip off my chin. Then I saw something white peeking out of the cloth pocket inside my suitcase. I reached inside and pulled out Momma's wonderful string of pearls. They had been in my dresser drawer at home—because of the confusion after the concert and Momma's death, I had never given them back to Daddy to put away. The policeman who had packed my bag must have thought they were mine. Now I hugged them to me, crying ten oceans of tears as memories came crashing over me, dragging me down to drown within their depths. How I longed for Momma now to hold me and stroke my hair, to see Jimmy's face full of pride and anger, to have Fern's eyes light up at the sight of me and her little arms reach up to be held. The pearls brought back all of this and more till my heart was an aching ruin.

Daddy, how could you do this? How could you do this? I screamed inside.

Suddenly there was a knock on my door. I quickly hid the pearls in a drawer, wiped my face with the back of my hands, and turned.

"Who is it?"

The door opened slowly and a handsome man dressed in a tan sport jacket and matching slacks peered in. His light brown hair was brushed back neatly at the sides, but he had a small, soft wave in the front. There was a tinge of gray at his temples. His rich, dark tan emphasized the blue in his eyes. I thought he looked as debonair and as elegant as a movie star.

"Hello," he said, gazing in at me. I didn't respond. "I'm your father," he said as if I should have known. He stepped in. "Randolph Boyse Cutler." He held out his hand for me to shake. I couldn't imagine ever being introduced to Daddy and shaking his hand like a stranger. Daddies were supposed to hug their daughters, not shake their hands.

I gazed up at him. He was tall, at least six feet two or three, but he was slim. He had Philip's gentle smile and soft mouth. Everyone was telling me that the man standing before me was my real father, so I searched for resemblances to myself. Had I inherited his eyes? His smile?

"Welcome to Cutler's Cove," he said squeezing my fingers gently. "How was your trip?"

"My trip?" He was acting as though I had been away for a holiday or something. I was about to say, "Horrible," when he spoke.

"Philip has already told me a lot about you," he said.

"Philip?" Just pronouncing his name brought tears to my eyes. It took me back to the world I had been ripped from, a world that had begun to be friendly and wonderful before Momma's death, a world full of stars and hope and kisses that carried promises of love.

"He told me about your beautiful singing voice. I can't wait to hear you sing," he said.

I couldn't see myself ever singing again, for my singing came from my heart, and my heart had been shattered into so many pieces, it would never be strong again and certainly it would never be filled with music.

"I'm glad to see you're such a pretty girl, too. Something else Philip warned me about. Your mother's going to be pleased," he said and looked at his watch as if he had a train to catch.

"Naturally, this has all been something of an emotional shock for her, so I'll have to take you to see her tomorrow sometime. She's under some medication, in her doctor's care, and he advises us to go slowly. You can imagine what it was like for her to learn that the baby she had lost fifteen years ago had been found, but I'm sure she's as excited about finally seeing you as I have been," he added quickly.

"Where is she now?" I asked, thinking she might be in a hospital. Even though I hated being here, I couldn't help but be curious about her and what she looked like.

"In her room, resting."

She was in her room? I thought. Why wasn't she excited about seeing me? How could she put it off?

"In a day or so, when I get some free time, I would like to spend some of it with you and let you tell me what your life has been like up until now, okay?"

I looked down so he wouldn't see the way my eyes had filled with tears.

"I imagine all this must have come as a terrible shock, but in time we'll make it all up to you," he said. Make it up to me? How could anyone do that?

"I want to find out what happened to my baby sister and my brother," I heard myself say before I even realized I was going to say the words. He pressed his lips in and shook his head.

"That's out of our hands. They're not really your brother and sister, so we don't have any right to demand information about them. I'm afraid you will have to forget them."

"I'll never forget them! Never!" I cried. "And I don't want to be here. I don't, I don't . . ." I started to sob. I couldn't help it. The tears overflowed my lids and my shoulders shook.

"There, there. Everything will be fine," he said, touching my shoulder tentatively and then pulling back as if he had done something forbidden.

This man, my real father, was suave and handsome, but he was still a stranger. There was a wall between us, a thick wall, not only built out of time and distance, but built out of two entirely different ways of life. I felt like a visitor in a foreign land with no one to trust and no -one to help me understand the strange new customs and ways.

I took a deep breath and fumbled through my purse for a tissue.

"Here," he said, obviously anxious to do something. He handed me his soft silk handkerchief. I wiped my eyes quickly.

"Mother has told me about your first meeting and how she intends to take a special interest in you. With all she has to do around here, you should be flattered," he added. "When Mother takes personal interest in someone, he or she usually succeeds."

He paused, maybe to hear me say how grateful I was, but I wasn't and I wouldn't lie.

"My mother was the first to learn about you, but she's usually the first to learn about anything around here," he continued. Perhaps he's as nervous as I am, I thought, and has to keep talking. He shook his head and widened his smile. "She never thought she would have to pay out the reward money and, like the rest of us, had given up all hope long ago."

"Well," he said, looking at his watch again. "I've got to return to the dining room. Mother and I visit with the guests at dinner. Most of our guests are regulars who return year after year. Mother knows them all by name. She has a wonderful memory for faces and names. I can't keep up with her."

Whenever he spoke about his mother, his face brightened. Was this the same elderly woman who had greeted me with eyes of ice and words of fire?

There was a knock on the door, and Mrs. Boston appeared.

"Oh," she said, "I didn't know you was here, Mr. Cutler."

"That's all right, Mrs. Boston. I was just leaving."

"I come to see if Eugenia wanted something to eat yet."

"Eugenia? Oh, right. I had forgotten your real name for a moment," he said, smiling.

"I hate it!" I cried. "I don't want to change my name."

"Of course you don't," he said. I breathed relief until he added, "Right now. But after a while I'm sure Mother will convince you. One way or another she usually gets people to see what would be best."

"I won't change my name," I insisted.

"We'll see," he replied, obviously unconvinced. He looked around the room. "Do you need anything?"

Need anything? I thought. Yes. I need my old family back. I need people who really love me and really care about me and who don't look at me as if I were some unwashed and polluted person who could contaminate them and their precious world. I need to sleep where my family sleeps, and if the woman upstairs is my real mother, I need her to treat me like her real daughter and not have to have doctors and medicine before she can face me.

I need to go back to the way things were, as bad as they seemed. I need to hear Jimmy's voice and be able to call him through the darkness and share my fears and my hopes with him. I need my little sister calling for me, and I need a daddy who comes to greet me with a hug and a kiss—not one who stands in the doorway and tells me I have to change my name.

But there was no point in telling my real father any of this. I didn't think he would understand.

"No," I said.

"Okay, then, you should go with Mrs. Boston and eat something. Take her right along, Mrs. Boston," he said, heading out. He turned back to me. "I'll speak to you again soon," he said and left.

"I'm not hungry," I repeated as soon as he was gone.

"You got to eat something, child," she said. "And you got to do it now. We have a schedule to meet. Mrs. Cutler, she cracks a whip around here."

I saw she wasn't going to leave me alone, so I stood up and followed her back to the hotel and to the kitchen. When we reached the stairway, I looked up. My real mother was up there somewhere, in her room, unable to face seeing me yet. The very idea made it sound like I was a monster with fangs and claws. What would she be like when we finally did meet? Would she be more loving and thoughtful than my grandmother? Would she insist I be moved upstairs immediately so I could be near her?

"Come along," Mrs. Boston said, seeing I had paused.

"Mrs. Boston," I said, still gazing up the stairs, "if you call my grandmother Mrs. Cutler, what do you call my mother? Doesn't everyone get confused?"

"No one gets confused."

"Why not?"

She gazed upstairs to be sure no one was near us and could overhear. Then she leaned toward me and whispered.

"They call your mother little Mrs. Cutler," she said. "Now, let's go. We got lots to do."

The kitchen seemed like bedlam to me. The waiters and waitresses who served the guests in the dining room were lined up in front of a long table to pick up their trays of food.

The food was delicious, but Mrs. Boston stood behind me waiting impatiently for me to finish. As soon as I rose from the table, we were off to see Mr. Stanley.

He was a slim man about fifty with thin brown hair and a narrow face with small eyes and a long mouth. There was something birdlike about him and the way he moved in short, jerky motions. He stood back with his arms folded and considered me after Mrs. Boston had introduced us.

"Hmm," he said, his head bobbing. "She could fit into Agatha's old uniform."

I wanted Agatha's old uniform even less than I wanted her job, but Mr. Stanley was very efficient and didn't wish to carry on any conversation. He chose the uniform, found me some white shoes my size with white socks, and distributed it all to me as though I were entering the army. I even had to sign for it.

"Whatever anyone breaks here, they pay for," he said. "What they lose, they pay for, too. Things don't walk away from this hotel as easily as they do from the others. That's for sure," he said proudly.

"When you get here in the morning, you'll go to the east wing with Sissy."

"You know how to get back to your room?" Mrs. Boston asked as we left. I nodded. "Okay, then, I'll see you in the morning," she said. I watched her walk off and then I started back.

After I reached the old wing, I paused at the living room and entered so I could look at the family pictures on the mantel. There was Clara Sue when she was a little girl, and there was Philip, standing together in front of one of the small gazebos. I found the picture of Philip and our mother I had only glimpsed before, but just as I reached up to bring it closer to me, my grandmother appeared in the doorway. I jumped when she spoke.

"If I were you, Eugenia, I would get a good night's rest," she said, her eyes moving from me to the pictures. "You have to get yourself into the daily schedule."

I put the picture back quickly.

"I told you," I said defiantly, "my name is Dawn." I didn't wait for her response. I hurried away and to my little room, shutting the door after I entered. I stood there listening to see if she had followed me, but I heard no footsteps. Then I let out the breath I was holding and turned to my little suitcase.

I took out the picture of Momma as a young girl and placed it on the little table. As I looked at her, I recalled her final words to me.

"You must never think badly of us. We love you. Always remember that."

"Oh, Momma!" I cried. "Look what has happened to us! Why did you and Daddy do this?"

I reached into the drawer where I had hidden the pearls and removed them. Holding them made me feel closer to Momma, but I couldn't wear them. I just couldn't. Not here. Not in this horrible place that was my new home. The pearls had been meant to be worn on happy occasions, and my current situation certainly didn't qualify. I looked at the pearls one last time and then hid them away again. No one at Cutler's Cove would know about their existence. The pearls were my last link to my family. They were the only thing that gave me some feeling of comfort, and they would be my secret. If I ever felt lonely or needed to remember happier times, I'd just take them out of their drawer and hold them. Maybe one day I'd wear them again.

Finally, exhausted from what had to be one of the worst days of my life, I put away the rest of my things and dressed for bed. I crawled under the cover that smelled clean, but felt rough, and the pillow was too soft. I hated this room more than any of the awful apartments we had lived in.

I stared up at the cracked white ceiling. The cracks zigzagged across, looking like threads pasted up there. Then I turned over and switched off the light. With the night sky now overcast and no lights outside my window, it was pitch dark in my room. Even after my eyes grew used to it, I could barely make out the dresser and the window.

It was always hard to get used to a new place when we were traveling and moving from one town to another. First nights were scary, only then Jimmy and I had each other to comfort each other. Now, alone, couldn't help but listen to every creak in the antique wing of the old hotel and shudder. I had to get used to every sound until nothing surprised me.

Suddenly, though, I thought I heard someone crying. It was muffled, but it was clearly the sound of a woman crying. I listened hard and heard my grandmother's voice, too, although I couldn't make out any words. The crying stopped as suddenly as it had started.

Then the silence and the darkness became heavy and ominous. I strained to hear the sounds of the hotel, just so I would have the comfort that came from hearing other people's voices. I could hear them, but they seemed so distant, like voices on a radio far, far away, and they didn't make me feel any safer or any more comfortable. But after a while my exhaustion overcame my fear, and I fell asleep.

I had arrived at what was my real home, only I didn't feel any sense of belonging. How long, I wondered, would I be a stranger in my own house and to my own family?

My eyes snapped open when I heard someone at the door. For a moment I forgot where I was and what had happened. I expected to hear Fern cry out and see her bounce up and down impatiently in her crib. But instead, when I sat up, I confronted my grandmother. Her hair was brushed back as perfectly as it had been when I had first met her, and she was wearing a dark gray cotton skirt with a matching blouse and jacket. Pearl earrings dangled from her lobes, and she wore the same rings and watch. She smirked with disapproval.

"What is it?" I asked. The look on her face and the way she had burst in my room jumped my heart right up against my throat.

"I had a suspicion you were still in bed. Didn't I make clear what time you were to get up and dressed?" she asked sharply.

"I was very tired, but I didn't fall right asleep because I heard someone crying," I told her. She drew her shoulders up and made her eyes small.

"Nonsense. No one was crying. You were probably already asleep and dreaming."

"It wasn't a dream. I heard someone crying," I insisted.

"Must you always contradict me?" she snapped. "A young girl your age should learn when to speak and when to be quiet."

I bit down on my lower lip. I wanted to snap back at her. I wanted to demand she stop treating me this way, but fate had pulled me through a knothole and stretched me out thin and flat. I trembled. It was as if I had lost my voice and everything would be trapped forever inside me, even tears. She glanced at her watch.

"It’s seven," she said. "You must get dressed and go to the kitchen immediately if you want any breakfast. If any member of the staff wants breakfast, he or she has to eat it earlier than the guests. See to it that you get yourself up in the morning from now on," she commanded. "At your age, you shouldn't be dependent upon others to fulfill your responsibilities."

"I always get up early, and I always fulfill my responsibilities," I shot back at her. My anger finally exploded like a balloon filled with too much air. She stared a moment. I remained in bed, holding my blanket against my chest to keep down the pounding of my broken heart.

She studied me for a moment, and then her glance went to my little nightstand. Suddenly her face grew fiery red.

"Whose picture is that?" she demanded stepping forward.

"It's Momma," I said.

"You brought Sally Jean Longchamp's picture into my hotel and put it out for anyone to see?"

In a flash, far faster than I ever imagined someone as old as she could move, she seized my precious photograph.