Stone Cold Fox (52)

My body feels like ice, but I cannot crack in front of him.

Or anyone.



* * *



? ? ?

I TELL MOTHER what happened with Francis later and she laughs at me. She shrugs and shakes her head. She knows this will get a rise out of me.

“But you knew that, didn’t you? You’re not an idiot.”

“I thought I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to do!”

“Sure. But then you won’t get very far, will you?”

“I thought I didn’t have to be like those other girls.”

“Bunny. We all have to be like those other girls. We just have to do it better.”

I don’t say anything in response. Do what?

“I don’t want to leave yet,” Mother adds. “Why don’t you think about me instead of yourself for once. Isn’t it my turn?”

Mother leaves me alone and I sit with that.

How could she say that when I’m always thinking of her?

But she never thought about me when I didn’t want to leave all those times. Richard or Dean or Mike. Did she ever think about me at all or what I wanted? I always think about what she wants. What is she even talking about? Her turn? It was my turn, wasn’t it? She could stay here with Francis, but I didn’t have to. Maybe it would be good for us to figure it all out apart for a while. I don’t know life without her, but I’m intrigued.

Sometimes the only team I want to be on is my own. At least I know who I can trust.

It’s not like she would come find me.

I don’t think so.

But I’ve never tried to leave her before.



* * *



? ? ?

I HAVE $1,000 in cash in my hand from Francis after I ask him for it. After he bargains for it; I do what I have to do. Be like those other girls, but better. I am better. I think he knows I’m leaving. I think he’s amused. I want to keep amusing him because I might need him later. I’ve been here for years now and I don’t want him to be mad at me. What if I need his help one day? Especially without her.

I’ll leave town. For a month, maybe a little more, maybe a little less. I take a train upstate. Everything gets smaller. I can do this, I tell myself. I can do this. I check into a small inn. Like something I’ve seen on TV. Like a regular girl. I pay in cash. I brainstorm in my notebook about what to do next, where I could go, what I can be. In the morning I apply to jobs in town. Like a regular girl, getting a regular job. Jobs that pay cash. I need more cash. I don’t have identification. I’ll figure that out when I go back. Francis will help me. Someone will help me. Look at me. I’m a star. Someone will always help a girl like me.

I’ll fall asleep tonight dreaming about the future that will finally be mine.



* * *



? ? ?

BUT THE KNOCK on the door.

Fast and hard and full of rage.

I know who it is.

She found me.

Her bunny.

It sounds like she’ll tear the door off the hinge if I don’t answer it.

More knocks. No pauses. She doesn’t stop.

Why wait?

Part of me is happy she came to find me.

Happy that I actually matter to her.

See, Francis? She actually cares about me.

Maybe we can go away together, Mother and me. Maybe she sees that I’m right. Maybe this is all I needed to do to get her attention.

I answer the door. I’ve never seen her look so angry with me in my life.

She cusses and screams and says we cannot go back to Francis’s after this selfish stunt I’ve pulled.

We’re in danger now and we have to leave New York immediately.

We’ve lost everything because of me.

She smacks me with full force across the face, more violently than she’s ever hit me before, the crack of her hand echoing in my ears as I fall to the floor.

Mother bends down to look me in the eye.

She pushes the hair out of my face, hard, with the heel of her hand, not her fingertips, my head going right along with it. She tugs at my scalp.

“If you want to be a whore, if you really want to be an ungrateful little whore, so be it,” Mother whispered to me.

A little incantation.

A little curse.

A little promise.





CHAPTER


    11



THE BRIDESMAIDS HOSTED my shower at Ladurée Soho. Yes, a French-themed bridal shower, truly the most cliché of selections, complete with a pastel macaron tower in my honor. Useless little things. Aesthetically pleasing to the eye but mediocre on the palate, and that’s being generous. A waste of calories if you ask me, but no one ever questions the bride’s refusal of dessert, as we’re supposed to be watching our figure at all times leading up to the big day.

About seventy-five women I hardly knew were there for the intimate occasion. Haven absolutely refused Calliope’s contemporary suggestion of a coed shower, bucking the latest trend. That was something we both agreed on, because a “couple’s shower” should be the fucking wedding.

It was Wren’s bright idea to have everyone wear shades of pink and red, in the spirit of love, so that all photos would have me, in white, at the center of them. A beaming ray of bridal light amidst a sea of adoration and support from the women in my life. I could just imagine Gale nodding along with the idea during their planning session, wanting to kill herself in the process, and definitely murder me first. I pretended to be excited about the shower, but the truth was that no one has ever been excited to attend a bridal shower. Including brides. Everything is little. Little sandwiches, little sweets, little favors, little brides—if they know what’s good for them. And the bride must be constantly on and in a genuine state of surprise as she opens each gift, gifts that she literally selected and requested on a public registry that every guest has already viewed and passed judgment on, especially the chosen china pattern. And a bridal shower is not even an occasion where heavy drinking is encouraged to get through the two to three hours. See? Just a little party. Little sips of champagne only. Maybe Grandma gets a sherry. It’s a stale tradition, but it was still tradition, something very important to Mrs. Haven Case.