Stone Cold Fox, page 10
I fucking did it!
Gale didn’t say anything in response to the information, leaving the scene to return to the guest room she shared with her employee. Hopefully whatever she paid “Luke Dunne” included intercourse of some kind because she’d be in dire need to shake off the embarrassment of the evening.
We didn’t see Gale or Luke for the rest of the weekend. Collin never told me what had gone on between the two of them that night. He said that Gale and her beau probably had other plans in town, but that we’d all see each other back in the city soon enough. Collin did indeed propose to me that Sunday night. We were out on the lawn at the romantic restaurant of the Castle Hill Inn. Fellow diners applauded, genuine smiles across their faces; it’s always fun to see someone get engaged. The best champagne was sent to the table and popped with delight. The bubbles were crisp and festive. And the sparkler in that red velvet Cartier box was so enormous, so positively gargantuan, that the white diamond solitaire covered the entire area of my ring finger below the knuckle.
Well, Mother, I must have done something right.
DEAN
SAUSALITO, CALIFORNIA
MY BEDROOM AT Dean’s house feels like it was given to me by mistake. I perch every night in an ivory canopy bed, the room itself taking up the whole of the turret, accessible only by a single winding staircase from the end of the hallway, away from the rest of the house, away from her, with views of the whole city and the Golden Gate Bridge from the bay window, stacked with fluffy pillows atop a built-in bookshelf of young adult books. And The Runaway Bunny, but I tuck it away, spine facing in, not out. I want to throw it out the window, but I can’t. She told me she loved it so I keep it for her sake.
I don’t understand how I can be so lucky, not that I would ever share such a thing out loud. I don’t want to jinx anything, but I’m already sad to leave and it isn’t even time to go yet.
I read constantly, anything I can get my hands on in the library at school, now that I’m in school again, but I let Dean read to me because he seems to enjoy it so much. He’ll read anything I ask him to, even Sweet Valley High, my latest discovery from a bygone era that makes me wish I had a twin of my own. Dean does their voices to make me laugh out loud and it works every time. Elizabeth’s is prim, Jessica’s is wild, both hilariously too deep because Dean is a grown man, enormous really, with puffy hair, big cheeks and a broad smile. Tall and wide. He could be mistaken for a football player even though he’s in tech finance or something; I don’t know the specifics of his work, that’s Mother’s job. To me, he’s an in-house comedian who’s nice to me and lives for getting our laughs. Even Mother laughs at Dean’s jokes and over-the-top theatrics, with this crazy snort I’ve never heard before, so I think it might be genuine. I don’t think Mother would snort otherwise; the behavior is unbecoming.
Maybe she really likes Dean, too. I don’t want to jinx that either, but everything is just better when Mother’s married.
The only thing Dean loves more than cracking jokes is eating rich food. Though he’s a self-proclaimed master of the grill, he doesn’t bother cooking much, since he has the private chef come in pretty regularly. Her name is Beth and she wears pearls and talks to Dean about the Giants. Sometimes she cooks for some of the players. Mother doesn’t cook. She eats like a little bird, tasting everything, only swallowing the smallest amounts of the decadence on the table, and I follow suit, mimicking her every bite, but I always want more. So much more.
“Go on then. Another scoop. Boys like a little meat on a girl’s bones,” Dean booms at me, and he winks at Beth the Chef to put a little more food on my plate. Mother clears her throat, objecting as passively as possible. “Come on, Denise, lighten up,” Dean says. “She’s still growing. You don’t want to give her a complex.”
Dean has just told Mother to lighten up and I slink down in my chair, making myself smaller, excited to see what might happen next. The look on Mother’s face can’t possibly match how she feels inside. She pretends to take it in stride, forcing a thin-lipped smile in Dean’s direction as he chews with a grin of his own, completely unaware of who he married. I’m jealous of how Dean can be himself around Mother. While he still can, anyway.
“But she’s not that hungry.” Mother makes her stance known once more.
She’s talking to Dean, but the message is for me.
I am actually starving, but my body’s used to it by now. Dean doesn’t see that I already have the complex in question, by virtue of being her daughter.
“Oh, knock it off.” Dean chuckles. “There’s truffle in this. Get your money’s worth, kid.” Dean winks at me and I want to please him, so I take a few more luxurious bites of Beth’s truffled potatoes. I don’t even know what truffle is, but I like it.
Mother grimaces at the sight.
“Attagirl, Dani,” Dean praises me.
* * *
• • •
“DON’T DO THAT again. You’ll get as big as a house and then what? We’re a team, aren’t we? Or must I do everything myself forever?” Mother calls to me later, watching me head down the hallway to my winding staircase. She’s never said anything to me like that before and I feel my cheeks get really hot. I don’t dare say anything back. I wish Dean heard it, but he’s in his office. I imagine him scolding her like he did at dinner. So free to speak his mind in front of Mother. He stands up for me. Like he wants to protect me.
It makes me want to protect him, too.
* * *
• • •
DEAN’S FUN AND he likes to go out on the weekends, “go on adventures” he calls it and, when appropriate, he insists on taking me with the two of them all over the Bay Area. I’m sure he adores having Mother on his arm, to show her off, but I believe he’s just as tickled to be in my company, too. I can tell that he likes that I’m precocious, in the same way that my teachers seem to appreciate it, using that word specifically.
I’m a novelty to them and I don’t mind the role.
“You’re a real hoot, Danielle,” Dean says. “I get a kick out of you.” He sings the last part because, well, he’s Dean. “Get two scoops of the chocolate,” he urges me at the ice cream parlor. “It’s the best. You’re still a kid, you know,” he reminds me. “Enjoy yourself.” He grins, but I shake my head at him politely. Mother waits outside to see what decision I’ll make without her physically looking over my shoulder, but it doesn’t matter where she is because she’s always in my head. Yes, I want the chocolate ice cream with hot fudge and rainbow sprinkles, like a normal girl, but I want Mother’s approval more. I want her to want me on her team.
“I’ll have the lemon sorbet,” I tell Dean, because I ache to pass her tests, every single one.
* * *
• • •
THE LONGER WE live with Dean, the guiltier I feel, which helps with my hunger level. I have a hard time eating when I feel like we’re getting to the end. I think about telling Dean the truth about who we are all the time, but I can’t.
If he believes me, what would happen to Mother? Nothing good. And if Dean doesn’t believe what I tell him about Mother, then what happens to me? I don’t even want to think about how Mother would react. Betrayal by her own daughter? And even if Dean promises not to tell Mother about our conversation, I know she’ll find out anyway. She knows everything.
What would I even say to him?
Dean, my mother is not Denise.
Dean, I am not Danielle.
Dean, you are in serious danger.
Dean, I do not think I am like her, as much as she wants me to be.
Dean, maybe we can help each other.
Honestly, I just want to stay with him. Mother can go on without me and I think I can go on without her. Then it’ll just be me and Dean, eating ice cream together in Sausalito, no sorbet. Mother will find a new family, and another one after that, and another one forever, wouldn’t she? But would she find another teammate?
I hate the thought so I make myself stop even thinking about telling Dean the truth. I decide to be grateful for a second school year ahead in the same place, sort of in disbelief that it’s really happening. I’ve never had more than one school year in the same place before. Mother’s snort-laughs continue, making me wonder, does she really like Dean, too? I can never ask her; I’ll just have to wait and see.
She keeps up the snort-laughs for a while longer.
But then I hear Dean tell her that he likes them, thinks they’re cute, those snort-laughs, those ugly snort-laughs, and I realize it must not be the first time he’s said that to her. The snort-laughs aren’t real after all, they’re just to keep it all going, she needs more time, but I don’t know how much more. She never tells me.
Dean gives Mother a sports car for their first wedding anniversary, a big red bow atop the hood, like a commercial coming to life in our driveway.
“It’ll be your turn when you get to be sixteen, Dani,” he whispers to me. “Don’t you worry. Dean’s always gonna take care of his girls.”
I believe that he believes such a thing, so I just smile at Dean, receiving his arm around my shoulder, a gentle, paternal squeeze on my arm.
* * *
• • •
MOTHER IS BECOMING more irritable with me than usual, picking at me more aggressively, right in front of Dean. She never does that in front of men. Constantly poking and prodding me about my weight, even though I hardly indulge in anything, even when Dean insists. I don’t want to eat at all in front of her anymore, not even a salad. When we all eat together, instead of matching her bite for bite, I alternate, to get her off my back. I see her notice my efforts. Dean doesn’t like any of it. A chill between them is growing. The warmth is leaving the house.
“You’re still thick in the middle,” she says to me after dinner, entering my bedroom while I put on my nightgown. I race to get the silky fabric over my body, fully taken by surprise. “I just don’t understand why you haven’t had your period yet.”
She’s right. I’m the right age.
“I don’t know,” I mumble, feeling like I’ve failed her.
“I was eleven when I got mine. I figured you’d be around the same time,” she says, not realizing what she’s just given me. She offers so little of her past that a casual drop about her first period is irresistible. I hardly ask her questions anymore, but I’m dying for more details about my mother’s youth.
“Eleven,” I whisper. “Did your mother help you?”
“I didn’t tell her anything,” Mother scoffs. I’m stunned she even acknowledges she has a mother of her own.
After a moment, when I realize she won’t give me any more, I ask, “Does it hurt?”
“Don’t be such a baby,” she says, rolling her eyes at me. “You’ll be fine. You’re growing up, but this in-between stage isn’t ideal for us. You’re not young-looking enough to be cute anymore, but you’re not old enough–looking to be enticing. When you get your period, your weight should start migrating to the right places and we can finally move on.”
But I don’t want to move on.
“I guess we’ll just have to stay here a little while longer,” she continues, voice full of disappointment, to make me feel ashamed. I am ashamed, but also relieved because I want more time with Dean.
“Where are we going next?” I ask her, not sure I really want to know the answer.
“Don’t worry about that, bunny, just focus on your health,” she says, starting to soften, right in front of my eyes, pushing a strand of hair away from my face. I pull away from her. Instinct. She hasn’t touched me in a long time. “Are you stressed out at all? What are you eating at lunch? Are the girls mean to you at school?”
I love when Mother acts like this so I scoot closer to her again, asking for more. I know it never lasts, but I soak it in when I can, these moments when she likes me. If I say the right thing, maybe she’ll stay close to me for a little while longer. I think hard about what she might like to hear from me. How can I make her like me?
“I’m mostly friends with the boys,” I finally admit to her, hoping she’ll be proud. The boys at school don’t talk much, they just want to play sports, and I’m good at soccer and basketball so they let me play with them during recess. The girls are into gossip, and while I find the camaraderie appealing, telling secrets to each other before school, whispering by the swings while I hang back with the boys, passing notes during class, it still seems too risky to me.
I can’t tell them anything real anyway.
The boys are easier. Sure, they talk a lot about boobs, sometimes snapping my bra from behind, and they sing aloud to “The Whisper Song” like they aren’t all still virgins and they talk about which girls they want to “bone,” but that’s all simple enough stuff to fend off. I make fun of their mothers while I kick a goal, or their sisters while I shoot the ball, or their dicks before I sprint to the other side of the field, faster than all of them, and they laugh and get back in the game.
It’s so easy to be a guys’ girl.
“The boys at school are your friends?” Mother asks me, more interested, more curious, but not exactly impressed.
“Just friends, Mother.”
Truth is, I don’t want a boyfriend in junior high. I don’t see the point, especially after closely observing other relationships all year. They hold hands at school for a couple weeks, the boy feels up the girl in his garage and then tells all of his friends about it the next day, just to dump her a few days later, becoming the only topic of discussion in school for at least twenty-four hours or until the next breakup of some other doomed couple.
There’s nothing to gain there.
Still, Mother asks me about the boys at school almost every day after that conversation. She never asks about my grades or French Club or the soccer team, like Dean does. She only wants to know if I got a boyfriend yet.
No boyfriend.
No period either.
Thank God.
* * *
• • •
FOR MY THIRTEENTH birthday, Dean gets me a fancy chocolate cake with two whole tiers. It’s soccer themed. Black and white and green, vanilla frosting. They sing the song to me. Dean practically shouts it at the top of his lungs. Mother merely mouths along. I smile because I do love the attention.
“Being a teenager is a pretty big deal, you know.” Dean beams, handing me a small wrapped gift. The paper is silver foil, really pretty, I think he paid extra for a professional to do it. “That’s from me and your mother. We love you.”
No one has ever said that to me before.
My mouth falls open the slightest bit. I’m shocked, dying to say the words back to him, to them, but I close it back up and immediately start to cry instead. It’s so embarrassing, and Dean rubs my back sweetly while she watches. Mother doesn’t touch me. I wish she would, but she scratches the back of Dean’s neck adoringly. She knows I love him, too, and it delights her for all the wrong reasons. Dean can tell this is an important moment for me, but he thinks it’s because it’s the first time he’s said it to me. He has no idea it’s the first time I’m hearing it at all and that I’ll always remember it and I want to tell him how much it means to me that he loves me, how much he means to me, but I’ll never be able to say any of that to him.
“Okay, Miss Waterworks, you don’t even know what’s in the box yet!” Dean laughs good-naturedly, soothing me with a small squeeze on my arm, helping me through my emotions in the best way he knows how. “Go on, sweetheart, open it.”
Inside the silver foil wrapping paper is a tiny black velvet box. Jewelry. I crack open the top lid to find two diamond solitaire earrings, sparkling. They’re pretty, too, and I wonder if Mother helped to pick them out. Probably not.
“See?” Dean said, proud of the gift, and maybe of me. “Big deal. Happy birthday, honey.”
A week later I get my period and it feels like a death sentence.
I mean, I guess it was.
You know.
For Dean.
CHAPTER
7
MY OVERALL TREATMENT at the agency was markedly improved when I started swanning about the workplace with that offensively large rock on my finger. I was officially engaged to Collin Case, heir apparent to the agency’s biggest client. They would have been fools to cross me again and they knew it. Oh, how they all tried to make me forget.
Len Arthur hosted a catered luncheon in my honor the Tuesday after the Newport weekend. Nothing says “We’re sorry” like an assortment of flavorless sandwiches from Au Bon Pain. It was unclear who tipped them off to my marital success. My best guess was Syl, wrongly assuming I would relish the attention, but the last thing I wanted to do was spend a free hour with a bunch of idiots I had to look at all the time anyway. The hideous event was essentially a pseudo–bridal shower wherein I was bestowed with midlevel to upmarket wines, gift certificates to department stores and a fair amount of tacky household items I’d never use, like coffee mugs or pillowcases, etched with mr. & mrs., bride or taken. And I had to sit there and smile with a miniature veil atop my head in the middle of the day like an absolute loon. Alas, I supposed I’d just have to get used to this sort of thing for the foreseeable future. It was sure to be the first of many parties in celebration of my forthcoming nuptials.
