Roxy’s Story (17 page)

He ignored that. “Many of the men you will escort will be much older. They won’t be
into hip-hop or Lady Gaga. They’ll be pleased if you know Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett,
Dean Martin, and Sammy Davis, Jr. Do you know anything about any of them?”

“My father’s favorite in that group is Tony Bennett, but he listens to all of them.
My mother loves Edith Piaf.”

“Oh,” he said, taken aback. “Well, that’s good exposure.”

“Do you know Patachou?” I asked.

He bristled a bit. “I’m not here for you to interrogate,” he said.

I shrugged. “I just thought you might know something about French music, since you
seem to know Edith Piaf.”

“Of course I know about French music, and I know about Edith Piaf. That’s not the
point. The point is what you know and what you have to learn, not what I know and
what I have to learn.”

I hid my smile behind one of the books he had shoved my way.

He then leaped across topics to deliberately make me feel inferior, I thought. He
was on to geography, asking me questions like Alex Trebek on
Jeopardy!
There was no way I was going to do well identifying world rivers and capitals of
countries other than the U.K., France, Germany, Russia, Spain, and Italy. I did remember
Athens, but I was lost when it came to the Middle East and the Far East.

Before what had become four times worse than any of the classes I hated at school
ended, he tossed mathematical concepts at me. I was practically silent. Finally, even
he had endured enough. Ten minutes before our time was up, he decided to end it with
a deep sigh.

“We’ll meet tomorrow, the same time—only on time, please.”

“You don’t expect me to learn all this by then,” I said, indicating the pile of material
he had shoved my way.

“Not all of it, but enough to let me know you’re serious and I’m not wasting my time
and Mrs. Brittany’s money,” he replied.

“You won’t be,” I said, rising. Then I smiled at him. “You really ought to look up
and listen to Patachou. My mother remembers her parents playing her records constantly
when she lived in Paris. If you like Piaf, you’ll enjoy her.”

He just stared at me. I nodded and left the library, struggling to carry everything
he had assigned me to read. Just as I entered the hallway, however, Randy appeared
and came rushing over.

“Oh, you poor thing, turned into a beast of burden. Here, let me help you,” he said,
taking the pile out of my arms. “I’ll bring this to your room. Where do you go next?”
he asked as we started toward the stairway.

“I’m supposed to be at the salon in fifteen minutes. The only thing this place is
missing is bells to signal the end of one class and the start of another,” I said,
and he laughed. I followed him.

“The first few days are always the hardest.” He paused to turn back to me. “With anything,”
he added.

“Was that the way it was for you?” I asked when we reached the top of the stairway.

“Oh, yes, but for different reasons. When Mrs. Brittany found me, I had just broken
up with someone. I had a shattered heart, but she knew how to help put me together
again. That’s her real talent, you know,” he said in a whisper.

“What’s her real talent?”

“Matchmaking. That’s why she’s so successful at this escort business. She knows exactly
which one of her girls will be most successful with this one or that one.”

“If she’s so good at matchmaking, why didn’t she ever remarry?” I asked.

“Oh,” he said, smiling, “I can’t imagine any one man with whom she would be satisfied
for a long period of time. She’s too . . .”

“Bossy?”

“Let’s just say independent. It’s a kinder term,” he told me, and winked.

We paused at my door, and I opened it. He brought in my books and magazines and put
them on the vanity table.

“This all right?”

“No. I’d rather they were locked in the closet, but I have no choice,” I said. “That’s
my homework. I thought I had escaped all that.”

He laughed. “You never escape all that.” He looked around. “This is my favorite suite
and I think
Mrs. Brittany’s, too. She must think you have great potential if she’s favoring you.
One thing she hates most of all is wasting her time. She has a wonderful head for
business, as does Mrs. Pratt. Between the two of them, with the special inside information
they get,” he added sotto voce, “they’ve built quite a little financial empire. She
doesn’t have to work another day of her life, but that woman loves what she does.
I think she believes she is a female Cupid or something, destined to provide opportunities
for pleasure and happiness, even love, as I can attest to.”

“How is that?”

“She introduced me to Ron Carter. He’s the house manager, in charge of overseeing
just about everything here. At the time, he was going through a bad breakup, too.
I’m sure you’ll meet him soon. We stay in the west end of the mansion, as do most
of the staff.”

We started out of the suite.

“I saw a young woman today for a moment,” I said. “She went out to the pool to sun
herself and read. I noticed she needed a cane and had a maid carry out her things
for her. When I went to speak with her, I saw she had a prosthetic leg. Is she another
one of Mrs. Brittany’s girls? Maybe to satisfy some weird fetish one or more of her
clients have?”

“Oh, goodness, no. Heaven forbid. She’s Mrs. Brittany’s granddaughter.”

“Granddaughter? No one mentioned a granddaughter. All I was told was that Mrs. Brittany
married a man, a count or something, who was much older, and he had died.”

“Yes, but they had a daughter, and she had a daughter, the girl you saw. Her name
is Sheena. Mrs. Brittany disapproved of her parents naming her that, but she disapproved
of most everything they did.” He shook his head. “Sheena. What a tragedy there.”

“What happened to her?” I asked as we started down the stairs.

“When she was only twelve, she contracted bone cancer. The hope was that surgery to
remove the tumor would end it, but it didn’t, and as a last resort, her leg was amputated.”

“Oh. That explains it. How sad.”

“Mrs. Brittany is arranging for her to have the most up-to-date prosthesis.”

“So is she just visiting now?”

“No, no, she’s lives here. She’s in Mrs. Brittany’s wing of the mansion. She’s a very
sweet girl.”

“How old is she?”

“A little more than eighteen. Mrs. Brittany always blamed her daughter for what happened.
Apparently, Sheena had been complaining for some time about pain, but her mother was
not only a selfish bitch, she was a heavy drinker. She neglected her so long that
the options were limited when she finally did get to treatment. Mrs. Brittany’s daughter
became a severe alcoholic, left her husband—or he left her—and basically neglected
Sheena while she was recuperating.”

“What happened then?”

“Mrs. Brittany had her daughter committed to the Betty Ford Clinic in California,
but she ran away from
there and went off with some man she had met. If she’s still alive, she’s somewhere
in Asia. So Mrs. Brittany took on the upbringing of her granddaughter.”

“What about the husband, Sheena’s father?”

“He remarried and has a new family. Mrs. Brittany blames him, too. Sheena is a very
bright young woman and otherwise, as you saw, very attractive. She was basically home-schooled,
however,” he said softly, “and I’m afraid she’s a bit socially retarded. She lives
vicariously through the novels she reads and the movies she watches. Mrs. Brittany
is overly protective of her. We rarely see her on this side of the mansion. She’s
never at dinner here. She’s very shy and withdrawn. I’m practically the only one who
has much to do with her.

“I’m telling you all this so you won’t make the mistake of trying to have any more
contact with her. That could be . . . fatal.”

“Fatal?”

“To your ambitions,” he said. “Oh, look at the time. I don’t want to be blamed for
causing you to be late. Enjoy your session with Madame Laffette.”

I watched him walk off quickly, and then I headed for the salon, thinking after I
had heard all he had told me that no amount of money, no position of power, nothing
guarantees happiness, but this wasn’t the time to become philosophical. I had things
to do.

I was hesitant, even timid, about meeting Madame Laffette. I was afraid she would
remind me too much of Mama, being that they were both Parisians. However, I had nothing
to fear. Claudine was probably not
more than ten years older than I was, if that much. She wore a turquoise cowgirl hat
with sequins, a baggy white blouse, and a pair of very tight designer jeans. Spilling
out from under her hat were slightly curled medium-length strands of blond hair. Her
lips were too thin, but she had beautiful, even striking gray-blue eyes and a nose
as small and perfect as mine. She shook her head the moment she saw me enter.

“Who has been doing your hair,
ma chère
?”

“No one,” I said.

“It shows.”

“I was already told that. What, is everyone given the same script?”

She laughed. “I know who told you.
S’il vous plaît
,” she said, indicating the chair. “We have a lot to do.” She looked at her watch.
“
Mon Dieu
.”

She ran her fingers through my hair.

“Dry, dirty, split ends. You American girls,” she added, shaking her head.

“Not everyone has been through what I’ve been through these past days, and I haven’t
had time to do much more than run a brush through it since I arrived here.”

I could have washed my hair the night before, but I was too lazy, exhausted, and overwhelmed.
I didn’t tell her that.

“Whatever. We will work a miracle, will we not?” she said, and turned on the water
in her sink. “So, your mother, she is Parisian?”

“
Oui
.”

She gave me a look of disapproval. “A Parisian,
and she didn’t bring you up to take better care of your hair?”

“No, she did. She would never let me go out of the house looking like this. I always
took better care of myself before I left home, mainly because of her, but I have been
on my own and not under good circumstances,
comprenez?
” I surprised myself at how vehemently I defended my mother.

“Ah,
mais oui
. Well, then, we will fix you up, make you the daughter of a Parisian again.”

I didn’t want to say how good it felt to have my hair washed, but it brought back
the memories of all the times Mama would do it and, while she did it, talk about her
own youth and her mother and the way she had taken care of herself, too. Claudine
talked while she worked, but I barely heard anything she said. My eyes were tearing
over, but I fought it back, hoping she wouldn’t see. When she was finished, she stood
back and looked at me a moment and then nodded to herself.

“You are perfect for this new hairstyle,” she said.

“What new hairstyle?”

“What I have in mind for you,” she said. I could see I had no choice in the matter.
Mrs. Brittany obviously had full faith in her.

She began to cut, telling me she was cutting a foundation layer at the base of my
neck, explaining as she went along. She cut it layer by layer, using a razor to provide
texture and a softer modern edge. After that, she used a paddle brush with thick bristles
to avoid a round, helmet look and instead make my hair look
flat and shiny. She put in the mousse and brushed my hair down. When she finished
blow-drying, she worked meticulously with her scissors to perfect the cut. She finished
off by working some pomade into my hair. When I looked at myself from all sides, I
was astounded by the change.

“You worked your miracle, Madame Laffette.
Merci beaucoup
.”

“I think Mrs. Brittany will approve,” she said. “Now, sit at the vanity table, and
we’ll work on your makeup.”

Mrs. Pratt came in just when we were close to finishing.

“Your dinner dress is on your bed,” she told me. “The shoes are beside the bed. Mrs.
Brittany has returned, and she also brought you some perfume to try. Dinner will be
served in the main dining room in two hours. Mrs. Brittany will see you first in an
hour and a half in her office. Besides Portia and Mr. Whitehouse at dinner, there
will be a gentleman guest. He’s an old friend, and Mrs. Brittany relies on his opinion
about a great many things, not least of all her new girls.”

“Am I supposed to be nervous?”

“Of course. How you behave when you are nervous is very important,” she replied. She
looked at Claudine. “
N’est-ce pas?
”

Claudine laughed. I looked up at her and then smiled myself. It seemed that even my
breathing was being examined and judged here. I began to wonder if candidates for
the CIA were more analyzed. Mrs. Brittany was one careful businesswoman, but looking
around at what she had, I couldn’t think of how to criticize her for it.

“By the way,” Mrs. Pratt said, looking at me now, “you’re very beautiful.”

I didn’t blush. It was more like something that took my breath away. Mrs. Pratt certainly
had seen very attractive women around here. To find myself now included in that category
filled me with more pride and happiness than I could ever have imagined for myself
since I had left home.

“
Merci, madame
.”

“
De rien
,” she said, and left us.

“Well. If Madame Pratt approves of you, Mrs. Brittany usually will as well. Felicitations.”

“I’m not there yet, Claudine, but
merci
.”

I rose, gazed at myself in the mirror again, and smiled at her.

Whenever anyone gave me a compliment in front of my father, he would always check
his own happiness and tell me not to get a swelled head. Sometimes he would come back
with something inane, like “Beauty is only skin deep.” Once, a friend of his at work,
Morty Kasner, retorted with, “Right, but who wants to go any deeper, anyway?”