House of Secrets Read online

“What happened?” I asked.

  “I ran out on the way to my date’s home, and that wasn’t an excuse her father would accept if we were late for her curfew, so I had to call my father to come and bail us out.”

  “Was he angry?”

  “Oh, no. My dad was quite a great guy. He thought it was funny, but he felt sorry for us and stayed with my car while I used his to take my date home to make her curfew. Then I went for a can of gas and returned. Every time I went on a date or out with friends, he’d always smile and say, ‘Hey, George, you got enough gas?’ ”

  “I wish I had met him.”

  “Oh, you did, when you were about three,” he said. “Of course, I don’t expect you to remember, but he gave you one of those very big lollipops, one almost as big as your face.”

  It was on the tip of my tongue to ask more questions about the days when my mother had first come to Wyndemere, but I was afraid of stepping into forbidden territory, afraid to hear things that might deeply disturb me, especially today.

  “I’ll be waiting for your phone call,” he told me when he dropped me off at the salon. “Just going to spend some time with one of my old friends, Tony Gibson. He hears out of his left ear, and I hear out of my right, so we get along. You have my cell number, right?”

  “My mom had me put it in my wallet some time ago,” I said. I paused when I opened the car door to get out. “She told me that if I was ever in trouble and she wasn’t around, you’d be the one I should call.”

  “Absolutely,” he said. “Night or day.”

  “I’d hate to bother you.”

  I waited to see if he would say anything more, but he only nodded. “Have a good hairdo,” he said.

  “Thanks.”

  I couldn’t imagine a conversation between me and my father being much different. I was sure he would have that same special look in his eyes as he contemplated his little girl being turned into a young woman. I had seen that look on the faces of some of my friends’ fathers. They were excited for them but also a little regretful. Every father wants his daughter to be his little girl forever. How lucky they were to have someone who loved them so much that they couldn’t help but have those feelings.

  Now I was really nervous about all this. I always had my hair washed and cut at home, but to have someone who not only made his living doing it but also had a reputation for doing it well was intimidating. Had I chosen the right style? Was I too young for it? Would he embarrass me?

  Alison was just being finished up when I entered the salon. Her stylist and now mine, Richard Boxer, paused to gaze at me. He looked at me so long I thought he was deciding whether he should even try to do anything with my hair. All my fears were being realized, I thought, but he surprised me.

  “I just love it,” he said, “when I’m given great raw material to work with.”

  I blushed because of the way other women in the salon were looking at me, too, but Alison looked skeptical. I thought he had done a wonderful job with her hair. I didn’t think it was possible for her to look more beautiful, but she did. She decided to stay while he worked on mine and talk about the prom, the after-party, and all the gossip leading up to it. Whenever she paused, Richard asked me questions about Wyndemere.

  “How many bedrooms are in that place?”

  “Seventeen,” I said, “but not all are used.”

  “The first time I saw it, I was about seven, I think. My parents were driving by, and I looked at it and thought surely a king or a prince lived in it. Now I see it is a princess,” he added, looking at me in the mirror as he began to cut and style.

  “I don’t really live in it,” I said.

  “Oh?”

  I described the help’s quarters. I looked at Alison as I spoke. I didn’t know what she had told him to get me the appointment on such short notice. Maybe she’d made me sound much more important than I was. He was quiet a moment after I finished.

  Then he stepped back, looked at me in the mirror, and said, “By the time I’m done with you here, you will look like the princess I imagined whether you sleep in one of those fancy bedrooms or not. I’ll make sure of that.”

  It was as if I had challenged him. I was more nervous than ever. It did seem like everything I was doing to prepare for this date was another test. Did I deserve the dress? Would a new hairstyle change everyone’s perception of me? Would I look foolish on the dance floor with Paul? Would I make a fool of myself at the after-party? Could I really be anything like Alison? Could I have her poise and self-confidence? Most of all, perhaps, would Ryder laugh at me, shake his head, and regret bringing me along? I was too young and innocent after all. A hairdo did not a prom date make, I told myself, but I soon changed my mind.

  Richard Boxer was truly an artist. He used his scissors and brush with a graceful expertise. I felt myself being remade right before my eyes. When he was finished, others in the salon paused to look our way and offer compliments.

  “You look nice,” Alison said. “Thanks, Richard,” she told him, as if he had been doing her a great favor and not me.

  “Thank you, Alison,” I said.

  She smiled. “You do look good. Ryder’s right,” she said. “Paul Gabriel is one very lucky guy.”

  “Ryder said that?” I asked.

  She nodded.

  I spun around and looked at myself again in the mirror. Maybe I didn’t have the strength to be modest, I thought. I wasn’t falling in love with my own image like Narcissus in Greek mythology, but I was suddenly confident enough to believe that Ryder really would look at me with new eyes.

  Everyone would.

  “I’ll call you later to see if you have any questions,” Alison said, and rushed off.

  Two of the women leaving at the same time paused to tell me they wished they were my age again and going to a prom.

  When he returned to take me home, Mr. Stark lavished compliment upon compliment on me, adding to my swelled head. “You’ve really grown into a beautiful young lady,” he said the moment he set eyes on me. “It’s a joy to be around to see it happening. Don’t forget, I knew you when you were still in diapers. You have your mother’s beautiful eyes. That new hairdo brings it out.”

  “I guess my birth came as a shock,” I suggested, hoping he would lower his defenses and reveal more to me about myself and my mother.

  “Not a shock. You didn’t exactly appear overnight. Last I heard, it still takes about nine months.”

  “Well, I imagine I was a shock to someone,” I said.

  He didn’t say anything.

  “Probably my real father most of all,” I suggested.

  He glanced at me. We had never spoken about any of that. It was as if he accepted that I was simply always there.

  “Did you know him?” I pursued.

  I didn’t know why it was suddenly more important than ever to talk about my father. Maybe I really regretted not having him to celebrate the steps I was taking into womanhood. All over Hillsborough tonight, most of, if not all, the girls going to the prom would have both their parents standing in doorways watching them leave in their gowns, their escorts in tuxedos, their childhoods retreating like snails into shells. Whose hand would my mother be holding when I left? Who would celebrate and comfort her? Who would share her pride?

  Yes, something had come over me in that beauty salon. I didn’t only feel beautiful; I felt older, mature. Although asking Mr. Stark this question had come into my mind before this, especially when he was doing something with me or I was watching him fix something to do with the house and he said something about what I was like when I was an infant, I never had the nerve to ask it until now.

  After a long pause, he said, “That’s something for you to discuss with your mother, Fern, not me.”

  I sat back. He’d surely tell my mother. That was good, I thought. Maybe she’d decide it was time for her to tell me more.

  In the meantime, when we arrived at Wyndemere, she was very excited about my hairdo. In fact, she was so embarrassed a
bout her reaction she turned to Mr. Stark, who was smiling and chuckling, and regained her composure quickly.

  “You know what they say, George,” she said. “You relive your youth through your children.”

  “Yes, well, I wouldn’t doubt you were as beautiful at her age, Emma,” he replied. “You’re still quite beautiful.”

  “Oh, go on with you,” she said, waving at him as she would at a fly.

  From the way he had reacted to my question in the car and the way they were looking at each other now, I was convinced there was something more between them than simple friendship, if not in the past, then in the present.

  “You go rest now, Fern,” my mother ordered. “You have quite an evening ahead of you.”

  It seemed to me she wanted me out of the moment she was sharing with Mr. Stark. In fact, I had never seen my mother look as embarrassed. The tailoring of my beautiful dress, the styled hair, the prospects of the prom and the after-party, preparing to be viewed by Dr. Davenport, Ryder’s compliments according to Alison, and now what I sensed in my mother—all of it was emotionally overwhelming. She was right. I needed some quiet time.

  I went to my room, but I was afraid I would do something to mess up my hair, so I didn’t lie down. I sat with two large fluffy pillows behind my lower back and tried to meditate, but it seemed an impossible task. My body felt electrified. I was sizzling with images and things that had been said to me and about me. A little while later, my mother knocked and then came in with a cup of herbal tea.

  “This will calm you a bit,” she said. It was always a joke between her and Mr. Stark that the English thought a cup of tea could solve everything.

  I took the cup and looked at her. Even as a little girl, I always sensed when my mother was debating with herself whether to say or do something, and she was doing that right now.

  “Mr. Stark said you asked him some personal questions. He’d never tell you, but he was a little embarrassed.”

  “Why?”

  “They’re not questions for him to answer.”

  “Then who will answer them?” I countered quickly, maybe a bit too harshly.

  She continued to stare at me for a few moments and then nodded. “This is a big night for you, Fern. It’s almost like a coming-out party, something they used to do for debutantes. You’re making an entrance onto your social stage at an age when I believe you’re most vulnerable emotionally. I’ll know when it’s right for you to get the answers to questions that hover above us both. Trust me,” she said. “Please.”

  “Okay, Mummy. Of course, I trust you.”

  She smiled. “You sounded like me at your age just now. We Brits always call our mothers Mummy, even when we’re old enough to be grandmothers ourselves.”

  She stepped forward to hug me and kiss me on the forehead.

  “Don’t worry. I didn’t mess up a strand,” she joked. “Call me if you want help with anything.”

  “I will, Mummy. Thank you.”

  She walked out, her head a little lowered, her shoulders up, feeling much older herself, I was sure. It brought tears to my eyes. I never wanted my mother to age a day, but my pushing myself into a woman’s state of mind was going to cause just that. It was inevitable, sad and wonderful simultaneously. Someday all this would happen again, only I would be the mother.

  I looked at the clock. It was time for my shower and then my careful and timid application of whatever makeup I thought I needed. I would probably call my mother back to help me decide. When she was in show business or tried to be, makeup was surely a major thing for her. We did have some pictures of her when she worked in New York and trying to get a foothold on a singing career. She was stunning.

  Just before I got ready to shower, my phone rang. It was Alison. She surprised me with her confession.

  “Now that I’ve seen how good you look, I’m nervous,” she said. “I hope my hair is right, and this dress . . . my mother helped me choose it, but . . .”

  “You can’t be anything but beautiful, Alison,” I said.

  Me, giving her courage? Were we always to be this way, self-conscious and, when it came right down to it, insecure, no matter how pretty we were and how often we were told?

  “You did go last year,” I reminded her. “At least you know what to expect.”

  “Yes, but that was different.”

  “Why?”

  “I didn’t go with Ryder Davenport, president of the class. There’ll be a spotlight on us all night.”

  I knew she didn’t mean to, but she did sound like she was complaining about it, whereas I’d scrub every floor in Wyndemere on my hands and knees if I could be his date.

  “There’s always a spotlight on you two, Alison,” I said. I hoped I didn’t sound as jealous about it as I felt.

  “You’re right, of course. Just pre-prom jitters. Anyway, I’m looking forward to seeing you in your gown.”

  “My mother thinks it fits perfectly.”

  “Does she? Your mother was a professional singer once, right? Ryder told me that.”

  “She tried to be. She worked in New York when she came from England.”

  “Ryder says you have a beautiful voice, too.”

  “He does? I don’t remember singing that much in front of him.”

  “You’re in the chorus.”

  “But I’m not the one Mr. Jacobs calls on to do the solo parts.”

  “Ryder thinks you will be once Carly Daniels graduates.”

  “He said that, too?”

  “Why are you so surprised? You don’t live in the main part of the house, but you live in Wyndemere, and you two were practically brought up together until you were old enough to be on your own, right?”

  “Yes,” I said. I wanted to say more, but I was afraid of revealing too much.

  “Anyway, see you soon, Princess of Wyndemere,” she added, but it didn’t sound like a compliment.

  “Don’t tell anyone that, or it will get back to Ryder’s stepmother and I’ll be assassinated,” I said.

  “Why don’t you and your mother leave that place? She could probably get a similar job somewhere else, maybe in one of the bigger cities?” She sounded like she wished we would leave, especially me.

  “Someday, maybe,” I said.

  She grunted and said good-bye.

  I turned to look at myself. My face was flushed. Her words, despite the insecure way I sounded to her, had excited me more than even I realized. Time to get ready, I thought. This will be quite a night.

  My mother did help me with my makeup. She helped me choose the right shade of lipstick. She knew how to emphasize my eyes, which everyone thought was the feature I should highlight. She said it had always been the same for her. I watched how she used a dark eyeliner pencil carefully, from the inner corner of each eye to the outside edge. As she worked, she talked about what she was doing.

  “I was very lucky,” she said. “I had a makeup artist who liked to practice on my eyes before I went for an audition or sang in some club when I did get a job. She was just starting out in the industry, too.”

  “What happened to her?”

  “She went to Los Angeles, and the last I heard, which was years and years ago, she got jobs on television shows. You’re so lucky you have long eyelashes. I knew some girls trying to be models who’d kill for your eyelashes,” she said. “You don’t need to curl them. They already make your eyes look bigger.”

  She stood back and looked at me in the mirror.

  “I wouldn’t do much more,” she said. “Subtlety is always more effective.”

  She paused and simply stared. It was one of those times when my mother looked at me and surely was thrown back to her memories of herself at my age or a little older. How frustrating it must have been for her to be failing at her dream, especially in light of how her father had treated it and her. In the end, she was surely haunted by the question of whether her defiance was worth it. She had lost so much and was somewhere she had never intended to be, with no husban
d to help her care for their daughter.

  And yet she never ever made me feel unwanted. She would rather die than call me a mistake. I was sure her resistance to talking about how she became pregnant was tied to her worry that I would feel inferior. No one wanted to be known as an accident, and once the details of it were spelled out, the sense of being just that would be more vivid and impossible to ignore. And yet I would be a liar to deny that I wanted to know it all, every second. Of course, question one was, who was my father? Then, where did my mother meet him? How long had she been seeing him? Was it that unlucky first time parents worry their daughters will have? Did she love this man? Was she being rebellious and defiant? Was she drunk or even on some drug? Did she keep her pregnancy a secret from her lover? Did he even know that I existed?

  Who, standing in my shoes, wouldn’t have these questions invading every thoughtful moment of her life?

  I looked away, took a breath, and rose.

  “Time to put on my gown,” I said.

  She nodded. I went to the closet. When I slipped it on, she did the zipper in the back, and then we both looked at me. Her smile said it all. I put on my shoes. She gave me the earrings and watched me put them on.

  “Mr. Stark would like to see you before you go see Dr. Davenport,” she said. “He’s waiting in the kitchen.”

  As soon as I walked in, he stood up. “Wow!” he said. “Is this the little girl who used to follow me around, wearing my tool belt, when she was about seven?”

  “Same girl,” my mother said.

  “You look beautiful, Fern,” he said.

  “Thank you.”

  “Let me get a quick picture for your mom.” He took out his smartphone and took a few, which he showed us. “I’ll get them printed out,” he said. “Maybe frame one, huh?” he asked my mother.

  “That’d be nice, George. Thank you.”

  We heard a knock and saw Ryder standing there in his tuxedo. He was carrying the corsage he would give Alison.

  “You look mighty handsome, Ryder,” Mr. Stark said.

  “Thank you, Mr. Stark,” Ryder said, but his eyes were locked on me. It took him so long to comment that I was sure he was dissatisfied. But then he smiled and said, “It looks like my mother’s dress was made especially for you, Fern. You look great.”