The Winters(47)

I could barely meet my own eyes in the mirror.

“Don’t you love it? Here, put these on, too.” She wrapped a string of pearls around my neck, gathered up my hair in her fist.

I flung the necklace away from me. “No, Dani. I don’t love it. I really have to go to bed now.” I ripped the disks out and threw them to the ground. I could hardly believe I had let her game go this far.

“Just one more thing, pleasepleaseplease. Hold this.” She slapped a stick in my hand. I looked down. It seemed to be attached to a stop sign. It happened fast. She raised the hand holding the sign until it covered my face and she snapped a picture. I flipped the sign around, bracing myself to read something rude. But on the front was a neatly trimmed picture of Rebekah’s face, life-size.

“Isn’t it hilarious?”

“No, Dani,” I said quietly. “This is not hilarious. I find this all very frightening.”

I reached behind me, gripped the tiny zipper clasp and pulled hard, not caring if I ripped the dress right off of me. It slid down my body and I stomped out of it, then scrambled to put my nightshirt back on.

“Good night, Dani. I imagine you won’t be up to a long trip into the city tomorrow. I think it might be best if you just rested.”

She looked at me and blinked hard a couple of times.

“Oh shit. I’m so sorry. I was only trying to have some fun with you. I didn’t mean to scare you.” Her voice was like a child’s. She put her fingers to her cheeks. “Are you going to tell Daddy I’m doing bad things up here? Oh, please don’t tell him.”

“I won’t. But maybe you should talk to your father. I’m worried about you.”

She dropped her pleading expression, her lips now curling into a sneer. “Aww. She cares. Oh, that’s so nice. I don’t give a shit if you tell my dad because he doesn’t give a shit about me, or if I do bad things, as long as I don’t do them anywhere else but at Asherley.”

“Dani, that’s not true. If he knew you were up here smoking pot and drinking alone and messing around with your mother’s things, he’d be very worried.”

“He told you that?”

“He doesn’t have to. Come on, Dani. He loves you very much.”

“You know that? How do you know that?”

“Now you’re being ridiculous.” I wanted to scream, Don’t you remember? It was your mother who was hard on you, not your father!

Dani shut her eyes for a second in contemplation. When she opened them, her demeanor was calm, her voice steady. “I know you think he loves me, because that’s what he wants you to believe. I mean, what father doesn’t love his own daughter? But you know and I know that I’m not his real daughter.”

We stood facing each other. She looked calm, sober, her expression resigned, as though she’d long ago come to terms with this terrible fact and had learned to live with it.

“Good night, Dani. You’re wrong about your father. He loves you very much.” I wiped the lipstick off my mouth with the back of my quivering hand and left the room, shutting the door behind me.





EIGHTEEN


I didn’t debate about whether to tell Max the next morning. I couldn’t keep this secret. I’d tell him as soon as possible, not only what she was doing up there but what she had said to me about him. All teenagers feel unloved and unseen by their parents at some point, I knew that. But of course he loved her, and he’d take it upon himself to demonstrate to Dani just how much, in ways that would be indisputable. At first, she’d be mad at me for breaking my promise. But soon she’d see it as the result of my growing affection for her.

I threw on sweats and splashed cold water on my face, then peered at my mouth in the bathroom mirror. My lips were still stained with Rebekah’s Red. I gave my mouth a final scrub with a hot cloth. Then I took a nailbrush to my stained fingers until they were pink. I pulled at the skin on my cheeks, noting my pores, the dusting of freckles. Should I start wearing makeup? My eyebrows did need plucking. Had they always been so unruly? All these years, while other girls and women were cultivating their vanity, my gaze had been elsewhere, on other people, on a horizon line, or on the dashboard of whatever boat I was piloting, not on my face and its flaws. Now suddenly they were all I could see. Even our rooms, once my cozy, dark oasis, now felt stuffy compared with Rebekah’s, my one closet a sad home for the few things I owned before yesterday’s spree. They were delivering the new clothes today. Maybe once I started wearing nicer outfits, Max would want to invite me to events.

From the top of the stairs, I was surprised to hear Dani, already up and laughing in the kitchen. How she was not incapacitated by a hangover was a testament to her youth—or the quality of the wine and pot.

When I entered the kitchen the two of them were positioned exactly as they had been my first night at Asherley, knees together, heads bowed towards each other, this time a kitten on Dani’s lap. When she saw me, her whole face lit up. Even Maggie came to attention, her ears perched high on her head.

“Good morning,” Dani said in a cheery voice. “I was just telling Daddy about our night.”

My gut sunk. “Oh?”

“Sounds like you guys had fun,” Max said, a hint of hope in his voice. I took a seat beside Dani and leaned over to scratch Maggie’s head. She’d gone from being a dirty little creampuff to a sleek, muscular kitten, with a gleaming, well-cared-for coat.