One of Us (11 page)

“I don’t know,” she says.

“I think you do.”

“No, I don’t. I don’t want to make any trouble for anybody. Really. But if this is true there’s some people that’s been badly hurt and some people who should pay for their crime.”

I swing the bronze rainbow, two-fisted like a baseball bat, at the back of her head where it connects with a dull, wet crunch. She’s propelled forward onto the coffee table then topples onto the floor where she lands faceup with an enormous thud that shakes the house enough to make her dozens of little treasures shiver and tinkle against each other on their shelves.

I probably could have trusted her to keep her mouth shut. That’s not the point. I didn’t like the idea of her knowing. I don’t want anyone else knowing until I find out for certain that it’s true and then I’ll decide what to do with the information. Until then, I don’t want to be bothered by thoughts of Marcella Greger. I can’t stand it when people bother me.

eleven

M
Y MOTHER CAME FROM
South African diamond money and my father came from Pennsylvania coal money. It was a perfectly conceived carbon-based romance. Not exactly a match made in heaven; more a match made in the black bowels of the earth, but one that’s managed to survive for more than forty years.

In her youth, Mom was a striking platinum blonde with killer cheekbones and a long slim body with a neck like a swan; beautiful but not desirable, an ice princess, the kind of woman people never tired of looking at because she was so perfectly pretty, but the kind no one could ever imagine doing something as savage and sticky as having sex.

My dad was striking, too, back then and almost as pretty as my mom. He had doelike dark eyes, long lashes, full lips, and a luxurious head of wheaten hair he wore shoulder length and combed straight back from his face like a lion’s mane. He would have been called effeminate except for his square jaw and a nose that was anything but delicate.

The combination of the two of them should have produced an Adonis of a son, but two attractive people do not necessarily make attractive offspring, just as two homely people can occasionally startle the world with a beautiful child. It’s the way the genes mix, not the genes themselves, that matters.

Wes is not bad looking; he’s just not anything great. He’s a coarser,
bulkier, duller version of my dad. They resemble each other yet somehow manage to not look anything alike.

Wes was the kind of son most men long for. He never rebelled in his youth and would have done anything Dad told him to do, anything to win his approval and stay in his good graces, but Dad had no interest in having one more fawning toady hanging around him. He’d spent his whole life telling people what to do and being instantly obeyed. Among his own kind he wanted initiative, spirit, original thought, and even a bit of recklessness. I gave him all this and more and I think he enjoyed what he considered my “antics” (except for hanging Mom’s cat in a tree), but nothing I ever did impressed him for the simple reason that I didn’t have a penis.

The birth of Scarlet Dawes broke the string of male-only offspring in the Dawes family stretching back for as many generations as anyone could remember. The disappointment Walker felt when he heard the news must have been crushing.

I doubt he had much patience for the tales of his wife’s heroic seventy-two-hour struggle to expel me before finally succumbing to the C-section that would scar her perfect pale middle for life. Her postpartum depression was easily blamed on the difficult labor, but I always assumed some of it came from her inability to make a boy. Now I know this failure may have affected her in ways that even someone as perceptive as me could never have imagined.

The first Walker was a pretentious peacock who appreciated aesthetics, but at his core was a grasping, driven man who wanted people not only to be in awe but to cower. The result of this philosophy when it came to building his home was a fifty-five-room, turreted, Gothic edifice, but one made of a rare ashen rose stone he had imported from New Mexico. On sunny days, the hundreds of diamond-shaped window panes sparkle fiercely, but I never found this to be a pretty sight. To me the entire house seemed to be on fire.

Clarence opens the front door on my second ring. He hasn’t changed a bit. He always seemed old to me, even when I was a kid. I rarely noticed him. He went about his job with the stealth of a spy, occasionally appearing in some random room where he’d stand silent and
still like a piece of human furniture, but I never doubted his control of the household. Even Anna seemed intimidated by him, but I think this was because he didn’t come from around here so there was no way for her to gather up every piece of gossip about him and his family. She regarded him as a loose cannon because she didn’t know anything about him and therefore didn’t know what he was capable of doing.

His face registers a moment of surprise at the sight of me, but he’s too good at his job to allow any sign of unpreparedness to show for long.

His eyes flicker away from me.

“Miss Dawes, what a pleasant surprise. Are your parents expecting you?” he says while fixing his gaze firmly over my shoulder like a new recruit addressing his drill sergeant.

After Anna’s death, he was never able to make eye contact with me again. He looked around me but never at me, his eyes straining in all directions like a blind man who knew he wasn’t alone in a room but wasn’t able to find the other person he sensed was near him. Sometimes I wanted to grab his hand and place it on my shoulder just for fun and call out, “Here I am,” but I was always afraid once he found me he’d start screaming and my feelings would get hurt.

“I don’t think so,” I answer him. “Are they here?”

“Your mother is. Your father is in New York on business but expected home later tonight.”

I bob my head to try and put myself back in his line of vision but he glances beyond me at my car.

“Do you have any bags?” he asks.

“No, not now.”

I walk past him into the house.

“I won’t be staying tonight. Where is Mom?”

“I saw her in the kitchen a moment ago.”

I hand him my coat and walk quickly through the house, not bothering to glance in any of the magnificent rooms. I know the contents by heart and I’ll have plenty of time for reminiscing later.

Mom’s in the kitchen, like Clarence said. She’s just leaving it carrying a cut-crystal pitcher full of gin and tonic.

She looks good for an old lady. She’s still thin, still fashionable
in a pale gold lounging outfit of loose silky pants, a sleeveless turtleneck shell, and matching cardigan. Her hair’s white now but the shade isn’t all that different from the shade of blond it used to be. She’s kept it long and has it piled on her head in a silvery smooth chignon. She has wrinkles, but they don’t take away from her excellent bone structure.

When she sees me, she lets out a small shriek and drops the pitcher on the floor. It shatters on the ceramic tiles into a million glass shards.

The liquid seeps toward me. I pick up my foot so my boot won’t get wet.

“Hello, Mother,” I say.

“Scarlet, you almost gave me a heart attack.”

“Did you think you saw a ghost?”

“What on earth are you doing here?”

“Visiting my parents.”

“Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?”

“I wanted to surprise you.”

“Well, you succeeded.”

To my amazement, she drops to the floor, ruining the knees of her satin pajama pants with the spilled booze, and begins scraping the glass shards into the palm of her hand.

“Mom, you’ve got servants to do this.”

“Clarence!” I call.

He’s already in the room. He must have heard the glass break.

“Mrs. Dawes had a little accident,” I explain. “Could you clean this up and bring her a fresh pitcher of drinks into the sunroom? And I’ll have a Jameson on ice.”

“Of course.”

Clarence gets down on the floor beside Mom.

“Mrs. Dawes, are you okay?”

“Yes, yes, I’m fine.”

“You cut yourself.”

“It’s nothing.”

There’s an awkward moment where Clarence can’t figure out if he should get up first and assist my mom because he’s a servant and his job
is to be helpful, or if this will offend my mom because it will remind her that she’s old.

My mom solves the problem by getting up first. She’s not as spry as she used to be, but it doesn’t take her too long.

“I’m a mess,” she announces once she’s back on her feet. “Excuse me. I’m going to change and I’ll meet you in the sunroom.”

Mom has changed the décor since the last time I was home. The sunroom used to be filled with tons of plants, bright pink wicker furniture with plump floral-patterned cushions, and soft chenille rugs. It was always warm like a jungle.

Now everything is modular and white. Armless chairs. Lacquer cubes for tables. Sectional leather sofas with chrome legs. Vanilla shag rugs. It’s the kind of room that screams out for a muddy footprint or a blood trail.

Mom reappears. She’s changed her entire outfit even though her pants were the only thing that got wet. Now she’s wearing drapey wide-legged coral pants and an even drapier sheer blouse over a camisole.

She has a million of these kinds of outfits, but I guess it makes sense: loungewear is the uniform of the professional lounger.

She stands in the doorway and attempts a smile. I notice she’s bandaged her hand.

I walk toward her with my arms open.

“How about a hug?”

She embraces me with all the maternal enthusiasm of a stop sign.

“You look good, Mom.”

“So do you.”

Her eyes run expertly over my midthigh length dove-gray sheath with a fine silver thread running through the tweed. I changed after visiting with Marcella.

“Nina Ricci?” she inquires.

I smile and nod.

“Did you end up getting that Galliano we looked at? The blue tattered silk?”

“Of course.”

She takes a seat on one of the sofas and I sit on a cube. I openly stare at her, but she avoids looking at me. I think she may have some idea why I’m here.

“Those Dior peep-toe booties are adorable, too,” she tells me. “You have the legs to wear them.”

“So do you, Mom.”

“I’m too old for that now. Women my age shouldn’t wear miniskirts and stiletto heels.”

“Some do. What about Beebee?”

Her wounded hand flutters in the air in a gesture of annoyance.

“Oh, don’t get me started on Beebee. Did you see them, by the way, when they were passing through Paris last month?”

“I did everything possible to avoid them. They’re pigs.”

Now she finally looks at me. Her eyes are as blue as they’ve always been. Age hasn’t faded their intensity. I used to wish I might see some fondness or kindness in them or even mild interest, but any stores of soft emotions she ever possessed were gone by the time I knew her. Whether she lost them during her own childhood or if her years with Dad did it, I’ll never know.

To her credit, she’s the only person I know who can make a heated, vulgar feeling like disgust look cleanly, coldly lovely.

“Why do you have to be so hateful?” she asks, tilting her head to one side like an elegant well-fed shorebird calmly contemplating a fish she has no need to eat.

“I’m not hateful,” I tell her. “I don’t hate anyone. In order to hate, you have to care first. You know I don’t care what people do just as long as they don’t bother me.” I pause.

“Is Dad here?” I ask her.

“He’s in New York.”

“You didn’t go with him?”

“He was only going overnight.”

“How’s Wes? The girls? I brought them gifts.”

This piques her interest. I almost detect a twinge of panic on her face. Does she think I’ll tell Wes what I know if it turns out I know what she thinks I might know?

She’s always been closer to Wes than she is to me. He’s more important to her. Again, it’s a penis thing.

“Are you planning to see them?” she asks.

“I don’t know what my plans are.”

Clarence finally shows up with the drinks and the tension level drops dramatically.

I sip at my whiskey while Mom practically gulps at her gin and tonic. It can’t possibly be her first drink of the day. I chalk up her eagerness to nerves.

“Do you remember that awful prison of a boarding school you sent me to when I was thirteen?”

I expect a frown or a pout of disappointment but she gives me a strained smile.

“Where did that come from? You always say things so abruptly.”

“It’s called honesty.”

“No, I think it’s called abruptness.”

“Well?”

“You were out of control,” she says, relaxing back into the soft white leather. “We had to send you somewhere. And even if you’d been a model child, you still would’ve been sent to a private school in your teens. You know that. Wes went to a private school, too.”

“It was a nuthouse. We had to see a shrink twice a week.”

“It most definitely was not a nuthouse. It was a private school with an agenda. No different than a Catholic school. If we had sent you to one of those, you would’ve had religion classes instead of psychoanalysis. It’s the same thing.”

“Religion is a form of therapy?”

“Whatever gets you through the night, dear, as the saying goes.”

She holds her drink out to me and smiles again.

“Cheers.”

We clink glasses.

“Any particular reason you brought this up?”

“I don’t know. I guess I’m feeling nostalgic. The year I was sent away was really the end of my living here. After that school there was another one and then college and then real life.”

“You’ve always been welcome to come back anytime.”

“That’s big of you, Mom. Actually, the main reason I came back was to talk to Anna’s cousin, Marcella. Have you ever met her?”

“It’s idiotic,” she says, her fine features puckering prettily again in disgust. “I can’t believe you’d be taken in by something like this.”

I don’t say anything. I just watch her and drink.

“It did occur to me that she might try to get money out of you after she couldn’t get it out of me, but frankly I didn’t think she’d have the nerve or the resourcefulness to be able to track you down.”