Glitter Baby (Wynette, Texas #3)(30)

Belinda gradually got rid of the antiques in their apartment and decorated it in a starkly contemporary style, as different from the house on the Rue de la Bienfaisance as she could make it. Buff suede covered the living room walls. A chrome and glass Mies van der Rohe table sat in front of the pit sofa, which had black and brown graphic pillows. Fleur didn’t tell Belinda she liked the antiques better. She especially hated the long living room wall decorated with window-sized enlargements of her own face. Looking at them made her feel creepy. It was as if someone else had taken up residence in her body, and the makeup and clothes formed a thick shell hiding the real person beneath. Except she didn’t know who that person was.

Alexi promised he’d come to New York in February. He’d canceled two other trips to the city, but this time he swore nothing would keep him away. As the day approached, she struggled to hide her excitement from Belinda, but just hours before his plane was supposed to land, the phone rang in the apartment.

“Chérie,” Alexi said, as foreboding curled in her stomach. “I’ve had an emergency. It’s impossible for me to leave Paris now.”

“But you promised! It’s been more than a year.”

“Once again I have failed you. If only…” She knew what he was going to say. “If only your mother would let you come to Paris. But we both know she will forbid it, and I won’t go against her wishes. Hélas, she uses you to hurt me.”

Fleur wouldn’t betray Belinda by agreeing. As she tried to swallow her disappointment, she heard high heels tapping down the hallway. A moment later, Belinda’s bedroom door clicked shut.



Belinda settled on the edge of her bed and closed her eyes. He was canceling on Fleur again, just as he’d done twice before. Fleur would be heartbroken and resentful, not at Alexi but at her. His strategy was brilliant. Make it Belinda’s fault that father and daughter couldn’t be together.

Fleur had held out against Alexi’s charms longer than Belinda had expected, and even now, she maintained at least a trace of reserve with him. Alexi didn’t like that, which was why he called her several times a week, why he sent lavish gifts calculated to make her feel his presence, and why he’d stayed away for the past year. Any moment now, Fleur would knock on her bedroom door and beg for permission to fly to Paris to see him. Belinda would refuse. Fleur would be resentful and withdraw into herself. Although she wouldn’t say it out loud, she saw her mother as neurotic and jealous. But Belinda had to keep Fleur in New York where she could protect her. If only she could explain why it was so necessary without offering up the truth.

Your father—who, by the way, isn’t your father—is seducing you.

Fleur would never believe it.



“Further to the right, sweetheart.”

Fleur tipped her head and smiled into the camera. Her neck hurt, and she had cramps, but Cinderella hadn’t whined at the ball just because her glass slippers pinched.

“That’s beautiful, honey. Perfect. A little more teeth. Amazing.”

She sat on a stool in front of a small table with a mirrored top, which was elevated like an easel to reflect the light. The open neck of her champagne silk blouse revealed a magnificent string of square-cut emeralds. Summer had arrived, and it was a blistering hot New York afternoon. Out of camera range, she wore cutoffs and pink rubber shower thongs.

“Fix her eyebrows,” the photographer said.

The makeup man handed her a tiny comb, then dabbed at her nose with a small, clean sponge. She leaned over her reflection and combed her thick brows back into place. She used to regard things like eyebrow combs as weird, but she no longer thought about it.

Out of the corner of her eye, she watched Chris Malino, the photographer’s assistant. With his shaggy, sandy hair and open, friendly face, he wasn’t nearly as good-looking as the male models she worked with, but she liked him a lot better. He was taking filmmaking classes at NYU, and the last time they’d worked together, he’d talked to her about Russian films. She wished he’d ask her out, but none of the guys she liked ever got up the nerve. Her only dates were with older men, celebrities in their twenties that Belinda and Gretchen wanted her to be seen with at some important event. She was eighteen years old, and she’d never had a real date.

Nancy, the stylist on the shoot, adjusted one of the clothespins on the back of Fleur’s blouse so it better fit her smaller breasts. Then she checked the piece of Scotch Tape she’d stuck to Fleur’s neck to raise the height of the emerald necklace. Fleur had come to think of the beautiful clothes on magazine pages as false-fronted buildings on a movie set.

“I’ve got three rolls on the emeralds,” the photographer said not long after. “Let’s take a break.”

Fleur stepped around Nancy’s ironing board and changed into her own open-necked gauze shirt. Chris was shifting the backdrop. She poured a cup of coffee and wandered over to Belinda, who was studying a magazine ad.

Her mother had changed so much since they’d come to New York a little over two and a half years ago. The quiet, nervous gestures had disappeared. She was more confident. Prettier, too—tan and healthy from weekends at the Long Island beach house they rented. Today she wore a Gatsby white tank top and matching skirt with mulberry kid sandals and a slim gold ankle bracelet.

“Look at her skin.” Belinda tapped her fingernail against the page. “She doesn’t have pores. Photos like this make me feel forty breathing hard down my neck.”