Authors: V.C. Andrews
“Maybe. I certainly understand the expression and can understand why you might say
that.” I knew that answer surprised him, but I wasn’t down on myself enough to believe
that I wasn’t special. Besides, modesty always struck me as a weakness in this world.
He sipped his cappuccino and continued to study me.
“Okay, I’ll bite,” I said when he remained silent. “What is it you see in me—besides
my French heritage, that is?”
“There’s a wisdom about you that one wouldn’t expect of someone your age, yet you
don’t look that street-smart, either. In short, you have me intrigued.”
He continued to sip his cappuccino, and I sipped mine, neither of us shifting our
eyes from the other. All sorts of suspicions, like sleeping snakes, began to raise
their heads in my mind.
“You’re not going to show me some kind of badge any minute, are you?”
That brought real laughter from him. “Hardly,”
he said, “although I have a badge to flash if I’m ever in trouble. It was a gift from
a high-level government employee. You have nothing to fear about me on that score.
In fact, you have nothing whatsoever to fear about talking to me.”
“Right. It’s very common for a man your age, dressed like you, to start a conversation
with someone my age because she has a certain
je ne sais quoi
. I see it happening all over the city every day.”
He held his smile. It seemed that neither my sarcasm nor my indifference could discourage
him. I noticed the expensive-looking diamond pinkie ring on his left hand, but I saw
no wedding ring. I knew what a Rolex was, and what he was wearing did not look like
a cheap imitation. Mama always told me to look at a man’s shoes first when assessing
if he was authentic. Well-to-do men always had expensive shoes, and those shoes were
always maintained well. His shoes didn’t exactly have the military shine, but they
looked well cared for. He was exactly the sort of man I could imagine sitting in the
shoe shiner’s chair in some subway station reading the
Wall Street Journal
.
“You are something else,” he said. “I knew it. Please, tell me about yourself.”
I finished my cappuccino but held the cup as I pondered whether I should stay or simply
get up and leave without another word.
“I’m not a tourist. I’m not in college. I don’t work anywhere in the city. This isn’t
really my neighborhood, okay? Satisfied? Did I earn my cappuccino?”
“Hardly satisfied,” he said. He tilted his head a
bit as he took another long look at me. “Don’t tell me you’re in high school?”
“Okay, I won’t tell you.”
His eyes brightened and his lips softened. “You are, aren’t you?”
“Not at the moment and not in the immediate future.”
“Now I am intrigued. You either cut school or quit, right? Are you on your own?”
“Aren’t we all?”
“We don’t have to be,” he said.
“Oh.” I put my cup down. I thought I knew what that line meant, what he was leading
up to. He had just taken a more circuitous route to get there. “Now I understand.
I think it’s time for me to go.”
“No, no, you’re misunderstanding me. I’m not here to pick you up or anything like
that.”
“No? You’re just here to buy me a cappuccino because I have an intriguing face and
speak French?”
“Maybe. Maybe all I will do is buy you a cappuccino. It’s up to you.”
I was locked in my motion to get up and leave, but I hesitated. What did he mean?
What could be up to me? What was he offering?
“So what’s your story?” he asked when I relaxed in my chair again.
I thought a moment and decided to test him with the truth. “My father threw me out
of our house the other day. I’ve been excommunicated from my family for committing
a series of somewhat unforgivable sins. My father was brought up in a military family,
so after
just so much KP duty, there was nothing left to do but give me a dishonorable discharge.”
He didn’t laugh or smile. “How serious were the sins?”
“A little pilfering here and there, insubordination in school, unmotivated in my schoolwork,
failing some classes, caught smoking some weed in the girls’ room, violating curfews.
Things like that. I was working up to first-degree murder when I was kicked off the
base.”
He smiled again. “You don’t look like the average dropout,” he said, “and your French
is perfect. I spent quite a long time in Paris and return often. And I have visited
most of the Riviera. Places like Cannes, Monaco, Èze. Have you been?”
“My mother is French. Her family is there. We’ve visited them in and outside of Paris
but not for some time. No, I’ve never been to the Riviera.”
“How is she taking this excommunication?”
“She’s my father’s wife.”
“So?”
“My mother is old-fashioned. She’s the obedient sort,” I said. “I don’t think she’s
happy about what’s happened, but I don’t think she’s going to do anything dramatic
about it, either.”
“Do you plan on going home soon?”
I looked away and then turned back to him. “I don’t want to, but I don’t seem to have
much of a choice in the matter.”
“Maybe you do.”
“What are we back to, an invitation to come home with you?”
“No. Not that I wouldn’t like that. It’s just not what I do.”
“So what do you do, Mr. Bob? I think I’ve been honest with you. How about a little
quid pro quo?”
He raised his eyebrows. “ ‘Quid pro quo’? You’re a bad student?”
“I didn’t say bad. I said unmotivated, but I read.”
He nodded. “You might be just the perfect candidate.”
“Candidate? For what? Congress?”
“No,” he said, laughing. Then he leaned over the table to whisper. “How would you
like to be really independent? Live in a beautiful place, be able to buy the most
expensive clothes . . .”
“And marry a prince?”
“Seriously?”
I tilted my head, looking at him askance. “I try to keep up with the newest approaches.
Older men have hit on me, but this is definitely a first for me.”
“I told you. I’m not making a pass at you,” he said, now with his first note of annoyance.
“Then what are you doing?”
“I’m simply asking you if you want to get into something that will make you not only
independent, but also very well off. As I said, I’m just a scout.”
“You’re not a Boy Scout. That’s for sure.”
He smirked. I thought he was finally going to get up and walk away, but he just stared
at me.
“All right. I’ll bite again,” I said. “How do I do all this?”
He leaned forward and spoke again in a voice just
above a whisper. “You meet someone first, someone who will be much more scrutinizing
than I am. She might even bring you to tears before throwing you out, but I haven’t
been wrong that often, and I’ve never felt as confident about someone as I do about
you. I have good instincts.”
“Meet who?”
“Whom.”
“Yeah, I forgot the difference between objective and subjective. I can see that disturbs
you.”
“Not me, but this person I want you to meet, maybe. She looks for very special candidates.”
“Really. So when do I meet this person and where?”
“Tonight. You come with me. It’s on Long Island.”
I smirked. “Don’t you know my mother told me never to talk to strangers, much less
go for a ride with one?”
“Tell you what,” he said, and reached into his inside jacket pocket to produce his
wallet. He opened it and took out his driver’s license. “Here’s my driver’s license.
See?” He turned it toward me. “My picture is on it and my name. Robert Diamant. Leave
it with anyone you trust, and tell them this is the man you are going to take a ride
with. Tell them to call the police if you’re not back by eleven. Anything happens
to you, I’m toast. Go on, keep my license,” he insisted.
I looked at it. How could I tell him I knew no one I could trust now? I took it from
him and studied it. It could be a phony license with a phony name, I
thought, but it wasn’t a phony picture. It was clearly Mr. Bob.
“And if I do this?”
“We go for the ride, visit with this person. She’ll decide about you, and then we’ll
return to wherever you’re staying. Safely back, you return my license. Okay?”
I stared at it. For one thing, I was too embarrassed to tell him where I was staying.
He would think I was a complete loser, and I didn’t want that, even though I still
didn’t know what he was offering.
“I don’t know,” I said, putting the license down on the table.
“Listen, you have to take some risks to get anywhere or do anything. I think you’ve
already learned that. You just haven’t gotten anywhere yet.”
“Maybe I’m just starting out.”
“Oh, no question that you are, but that’s why I wanted to approach you, to get to
you before you were spoiled.”
“Spoiled?”
“Life on your own, especially in a city like New York, is very hard on anyone, let
alone a young, beautiful girl like yourself. No matter how smart you think you are,
someone will get to you and drag you down in the gutter. A year from now, your parents
won’t recognize you, anyway.”
“Thanks for the encouragement.”
“But none of that will matter once you come with me. I’m confident,” he added.
I looked at his license again. I guessed I would take
it. How would he know I had no one to trust? “When exactly do I meet with this person?”
He looked at his watch. “I’ll pick you up in two hours. Are those the best clothes
you have to wear right now?”
“Yes.”
He looked at his watch again. “Would you mind if I bought you something to wear? It’s
important.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or make for the door. “You want to buy me something
to wear?”
“There’s a boutique just two blocks east, Ooh La La. They have what you need. We’ll
go right now. It’s a five-minute walk.” He waved to the waitress. “Add all this to
my monthly bill, Paula,” he said, “and add a twenty-percent tip.”
She smiled and nodded.
“You have a bill here?”
“I have a running account at a few of my favorite places,” he said, standing. “Shall
we go?”
I got up. He nodded toward the table. I had forgotten to take his license. I picked
it up and put it into my purse and then followed him out. All the while, I was thinking,
This is insane. He’s going to turn out to be some sort of nutcase for sure, but then
why would the restaurant trust him?
I looked back at the waitress as we left. She smiled at me and gave me a thumbs-up.
Huh?
What did she know?
“So, tell me more about yourself,” he said as we started toward the corner of the
street. “Where exactly does your family live?”
“The East Side,” I said. I didn’t want to give him the exact address.
“Any brothers or sisters?”
“A much younger sister. My mother wasn’t supposed to have either of us.”
“Oh. My mother always used to tell me that,” he said. “I was brought up in Philadelphia.
My father was a very successful dentist. I have an older sister. She lives in California.
So what subject did you like the best at school?”
“English, I guess.”
“Yes, that’s right. You read. Any boyfriends you’ve left behind?”
“All of them,” I told him, and he laughed. “I wasn’t ever attached to anyone too long.”
“I bet they regretted it,” he said.
“Yes, but I didn’t.”
He laughed harder, and we crossed a street, turned, and stopped halfway down the block
at the store he had described. He opened the door for me, and as soon as we stepped
in, the young woman attending a customer turned and immediately smiled. She said something
to her customer and approached us quickly.
“Mr. Bob, how are you?”
“I’m a hundred and five percent, Clea. This is . . .” He suddenly realized he didn’t
know my name, and that made him blush. For a moment, I thought I would let him dangle
and look foolish, but then I smiled and came to his rescue.
“Roxy,” I told the salesgirl.
“Yes, Roxy. We need an elegant black cocktail
dress, and I know you have the right shoes and purse to go with it,” he added.
Clea looked me over. “I have the exact dress for her, Mr. Bob. Please, follow me.”
She led me to the changing room in the rear.
I was anticipating that she would ask me questions to find out who I was and why I
was with Mr. Bob, but she said nothing. She opened the changing room and went to get
the dress she was proposing. She returned quickly, as if she did know exactly what
I should wear. She held it up, and the label dangled. It read “Emilio Pucci,” and
the price was $1,500. I looked at her as if she was crazy.
“Believe me, this is your dress,” she said. It was a figure-fitting, lightweight jersey
knit with a bold butterfly print in a modern one-shoulder design. I took it from her
slowly. She smiled and closed the door. For a moment, I just gazed at myself in the
mirror.
Is this nuts?
I asked my image. I took off my clothes and put on the dress. It fit me as if it
had been custom-made for me. The beauty of the dress and the way I looked seemed to
wash away the sadness and defeats of the day. I saw the flush flow through my neck
and into my face.
Many times I had looked at myself and thought,
I’m not bad
, but at this moment, I suddenly realized I was far more than that. I really was very
beautiful. I didn’t have to convince myself of it. I had spent so much time being
angry and resentful that I hadn’t permitted what could flower and blossom in me to
do so. Right now, it was doing just that. I heard
a knock on the door. The salesgirl smiled when she saw me and then handed me a pair
of platform pumps in shiny pink patent leather. These, too, had been made in Italy.
The price tag read “$700.” I slipped them on. They were also a perfect fit. The four-inch
heels made me statuesque. I stood staring at myself in the mirror.
“How are we doing?” I heard Mr. Bob ask.
“I think
magnifique
,” the salesgirl said.