Child of Darkness (12 page)

Ami shook her head and turned to me.
"See," she said, "see why I need you to help me liven up this dreary place? Billy's Hideaway. If you ever go there, you'll understand why it's a hideaway. All he cares about are the prices on the menu."
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask her about the pajama bottom and about her whimpering, but I thought if something had made her sad, she wouldn't want to talk about it. I never liked to do that at the orphanage, no matter how the nuns pleaded for me to reveal what had darkened my eyes and brought tears to my cheeks. I was more comfortable with silence, so I just assumed she would be.
Ami sipped her coffee. As suddenly as the depressing note had come into her voice, it was gone, and she was excited again.
"First, we'll go to my beautician and do your hair. I've got that all arranged. Then we'll go to my boutiques and get some fun clothes for you. We'll have lunch at an expensive restaurant, too."
She slapped the coffee cup down so hard, I was surprised it didn't shatter.
"Mrs. McAlister!" she shouted.
The cook appeared instantly.
"Forget about my toast. I don't have time. Come on," she told me as she rose. "Get ready to leave. We have too much to do to waste time here."
She squealed with delight and hurried out of the dining room. I felt funny leaving dirty dishes and glasses on the table. All my life, it seemed, I'd helped clean up, especially after myself. I looked back at Mrs. McAlister. She was shaking her head in those small jerky motions that reminded me of a
weathercock.
As soon as she was dressed, Ami appeared at my door and held out a pair of designer sunglasses.
"Take them. I have two pair," she said. "Don't lose them either. They're five hundred apiece."
"Five hundred?" I hesitated, my hand frozen in midair.
"I'm just kidding." She pushed them into my hand. "If you lose them, we'll get them replaced instantly. Put them on," she urged, and I did so. Then she put hers on. They were exactly the same. "We're killers," she said. "Let's go hunt."
I hurried after her out of the house and into her sports car. As we pulled out of the garage, I looked to the left and saw Mrs. Cukor standing in the field, a shovel gripped in her hand. She looked like someone holding a flag on a field of battle. She watched us leave before returning to her task. Ami hadn't seen her. She was talking quickly, describing her boutiques and the great relationships she had with all the sales personnel. With the money she spent at each shop, that didn't surprise me.
All day Ami moved me from one place to another as if she didn't want me to stop and think about any-thing. If that was her intention, she was right. I was caught up in a whirlwind of her
excitement. At times I thought what I looked like was more important to her than it was to me.
First, we went to her beauty salon.
"I see where you got the idea for the tint," her beautician, Dawn, said when she set eyes on me. And just nodded and then went into a discussion of my hair. Dawn wanted to do something different from what And wanted to do, but she gave in when she saw how determined Ann was. When Dawn had
completed the cut and style, it looked like I had a carbon copy of Ami's hairdo. She stood beside me checking out what looked to me like every single strand to be sure we matched.
"I can't take you to lunch at Mario's dressed like that and wearing those ugly shoes," she said and drove quickly to Ooh-La-La, a boutique in the mall.
What surprised me was that the salesgirl had the dress all set out for me. Ami had apparently called ahead and picked out a charmeuse and chiffon kneelength spaghetti-strap dress. It had tan charmeuse ties at the Empire bustline and was ruffled at the hem. When I put it on, it felt like tissue paper against my body.
The shoes that matched were natural wood wedge slides with buckles. Ami said I had to have a handbag to go along with it and bought me a distressed handbag with whipstitching. I felt like such a nerd; I knew practically nothing about style and the latest fashions.
"It all looks as good on her as it does on you," the salesgirl, Deirdre, said, and I realized Ami had the exact same dress and shoes, as well as the handbag. Why was she duplicating her own wardrobe for me? I wondered.
"I'm starved!" Ami suddenly exclaimed. Of course, considering how little she had eaten for breakfast, that didn't surprise me. "We need fuel before we can continue. Buying the right things is work. Few people realize how hard it is, especially Wade. Which reminds me. Deirdre, put it all on my bill," she cried with a wave of her hand while she hooked my arm and rushed me out the door.
"I left my clothes and shoes in the changing room!" I screamed.
"Good, and good riddance to it all. Who wants to take that ugly stuff back to our house anyway?" She laughed, and we drove off to have lunch at her favorite upscale restaurant.
I couldn't believe the prices on the menu. Every-thing was so expensive. Ami ordered a fancy chicken salad, but for someone who said she was starving, she ate very little. I didn't eat much either. I was very nervous. My sexy dress made me so selfconscious, I was sure everyone's eyes were on me, especially the men, who were all dressed in sport jackets with ties or suits. Many knew Ami and stopped by to say hello, and when they did, I could feel their eyes moving over my breasts. She introduced me as her young companion. Just as with Mrs.
Stone at the hotel, she made me sound like some sort of exchange student.
I hadn't had all that much experience being with an older, pretty woman who was married, but I couldn't help noticing how Ami flirted with every man, no matter what he looked like. Some took her hand and kissed her cheek, but no matter what, she teased with her eyes, held on to their hands practically until they walked away, and said many things that were suggestive, turning even the most innocent words into something sexual. When one man, Chris O'Connor, said he hadn't seen her for a while, Ami replied, "You're just not looking hard enough, Chris. It's important that it's hard enough."
He turned crimson, right to the tip of his nose, stuttered and stammered, and hurried away to join his group. Ami followed his retreat with a laugh and winked at me.
"See how men are so easy to manipulate? They could be made of putty, for all I know."
Why did she take so much pleasure in teasing them? What if her behavior got back to Wade? I thought. Wouldn't he be very upset? Why didn't that concern her? It was on the tip of my tongue to ask when suddenly Basil walked in with a woman who looked half his age holding onto his arm.
"Well, isn't this a co-inky-dink," Ami muttered, and gave Basil a big smile.
He nodded at her, but walked on to a table in the far corner of the room.
"You think he's embarrassed?" Ann whispered, leaning toward me. "He's not embarrassed. That's not why he's not coming over to us. He just doesn't want the girl to know he has a daughter-in-law older than she is."
She glared at him, her eyes narrowing darkly.
"Why does it upset you so much? I thought you told me you knew he was like that," I said, and she looked at me sharply for a moment before smiling.
"Oh, it doesn't upset me. Not really. Well, maybe a little. He is family, and what he does can bring embarrassment to us all," she explained.
But what about what she did? I thought. No. There was something else. It was like a message coming from somewhere, a message growing louder, louder. I looked about the room. Was that Noble by the kitchen doorway?
He turned, and I saw it was just another waiter.
"Oh, let's get out of here," Ami declared. "We have a lot more important shopping to do, and I want to get home early enough to have a massage. We're going out tonight, remember. Wade's splurging on an elegant dinner, whether he likes it or not."
She signaled for the check.
The food she was leaving on her plate would feed two young orphans lunch, I thought. I couldn't help thinking about it. After spending so much of my life counting pennies, saving old ribbons and paper bags, mending socks, and washing clothing until it all faded, it was hard to witness someone spending dollars un-wisely or too loosely. I suppose it would always be that way for me.
At every boutique and department store we visited afterward, the salesgirls immediately knew what Ami wanted for me. They brought us directly to the garments, the shoes, the blouses and skirts, and in every case, what we were buying was either very close to something Ami had or exactly the same. Before we left the last department store, she took me to the jewelry counter, where she picked out what she called an inexpensive dress watch.
"You gave me one already," I reminded her.
"Did I? That doesn't matter. You need more than one dress watch, Celeste."
I thought the one she had chosen resembled the one she was wearing. It had tiny diamonds at the 12, 3, 6, and 9, and was shaped like an almond.
"There," she said, "you're almost complete."
She moved us down to the window case housing earrings and chose three pairs, each with matching necklaces, and each set meant to fit a particular one of the outfits we had bought previously.
"You're spending so much money on me," I finally gasped. "Wade will be so angry."
"What of it? I've been so angry, too," she snapped, and then smiled. "It's nothing. I told you. We're rich. Money is not any concern. I can't send you to the Dickinson School underdressed. I won't have anyone referring to you as some poor waif, which is exactly what those snobby girls would do once they looked at you in ordinary clothing without any decent jewelry on you."
"If they're such snobs, perhaps I should attend the regular public school."
"Of course not. I know they're snobs, but they have the best teachers and the best facilities, and why shouldn't you have the best as well? You're living with me, and I won't hear of your attending some inferior school. You don't have to like the snobs, but you can learn things from them. Someday, just like me, you'll attract the attention of a wealthy man, and you'll want him to think you're someone with class, someone elegant and sophisticated, won't you?"
I shrugged.
"I don't think about my getting married so much," I admitted.
"Of course you do. You're like me. You go to sleep dreaming about handsome princes and castles, wonderful dances, and a storm of jewels forever falling about you. We're--royalty--and it's not from any bloodline, either. We're royalty because we're beautiful," she declared, laughing and hugging me.
Then she turned serious and held me out at arm's length.
"Just enjoy every moment of all this, Celeste. You've waited too long, and you deserve it. Don't you think you deserve it after what you've been through in your life?"
Why did I deserve it any more than the other orphans in all the orphanages in the world? I wondered, but smiled and nodded anyway.
"Of course," she said.
She fluttered her eyelids, smiled, and sighed.
"Let's do one more thing," she said, gazing at her watch. "I'll sacrifice my massage. I want to take you to my makeup adviser. We have to be sure I'm showing you the right things to do and giving you the makeup that fits you. I'm not really as much of the expert I pretend to be, and I don't want to make any mistakes."
Before I could agree or disagree, she grasped my hand, ordered the boxes of clothing we had bought sent to her house immediately, and pulled me out. Ami's makeup adviser was at a different department store. Once again, I had the distinct impression he had been told we were coming. His name was Richard Dunn. Ami said he had worked on television shows and for runway models.
He immediately went to work on my eyebrows and then began to experiment a bit with some makeup shades before concluding that what Ann was using was perfect for my complexion after all. The same went for the shades of lipstick, eye shadow, and liner. Just as she had done with the clothing she had bought for me, Ami duplicated much of her own makeup and bought that for me as well. When we left the department store, I felt like a clone. I was wearing the same outfit, had the same hairstyle, wore similar makeup, and had the same watch and similar earrings, necklaces, and rings.
I had no idea how much she had spent on me, but I knew it was a great deal of money, and she had taken all this time as well. How could I ever complain or question any of it? She was obviously so pleased.
"I just knew you were a truly beautiful girl, Celeste. The moment I set eyes on you that first day I saw you walking up the street, I knew and told myself, this is a deprived young woman who could rise to great heights if she had only the opportunity, and that's what I am going to give you, opportunity. And don't feel you have to thank me all the time. I feel so good doing it. I love to defeat evil fate. That's what happened to you, you know," she said. "Evil fate made you a victim. Mrs. Cukor would agree, I'm sure. I don't usually place much value in those things, but I do like having an influence on someone's future, helping her, I mean. You understand, don't you?" she asked quickly.
"I think so," I said.
"Good, good. Because if you weren't happy with everything I was doing, I'd be simply devastated, Celeste, and very disappointed. You're happy, aren't you?"
"Yes," I said.
"Good."
She looked relieved. Was I happy? How could I not be? Yet there was something, that old sense of my being followed, that sense of foreboding, that something dreadful was following me, stalking me.
As we sped along to home, I saw a young man leaning back against a parked car. He raised his head as we passed, and I was sure it was Noble. He was shaking his head slowly. I turned around quickly to look back.
"What is it?" Ami asked.
"Nothing. I mean, I thought I saw someone I knew."
"Really? How could you know someone here?"
"Right," I said. "How could I?"
She looked at me with a confused smile on her face. "Don't start pulling Mrs. Cookie stuff on me, Celeste. Not now, not after our wonderful beginning."
"Mrs. Cookie stuff?"
"Never mind," she said, and a moment later she began to talk about what we should wear on our first evening out with Wade. She wanted me to wear the red tube dress we had bought at Le Monde, one of the boutiques. It had a slit skirt and rhinestone trim on the top.
When we returned to the house, we learned Wade hadn't returned home yet. Ami was annoyed.
"He better not appear and tell me he forgot to make our reservation at Hunters," she warned. "Not that it would matter," she added. "I know the owner too well. He'd go out and buy another table if he had to, to please me. To dress!" she shouted like a battle cry, and charged into her bedroom.