My mother’s face blanched. “How dare you talk to me that way,” she said under her breath, in a firm voice that frightened me more than yelling would have. “Nobody speaks to me like that.”
She glared at me a moment, her nostrils flaring. Then she snatched up her makeup kit, wheeled around, and was gone.
From that moment on, she lavished even more attention on Jenna — her face, hair, and clothes — reserving her approval for Jenna’s small acting triumphs and Mark’s athletic achievements. Every now and then, she’d look at me and complain, “If only you’d take a little care with your appearance.” But then she’d bite her lip and turn away. I can’t remember her showing the least bit of interest in my grades or art after that. Soon I stopped playing the violin; I’d only been doing it for her. But I continued to work hard in school. I enjoyed school, and studying and writing term papers came easily to me. When my paintings won first place in a high school competition, my father came to the show and afterward slipped a fifty-dollar bill into my hand — his way of saying he approved. My mother had begged off, saying she had to drive Jenna to an audition, which, I suppose, was the truth. (Had I really heard her say to him, “She’s all yours”?) When I graduated high school with honors, my parents sat through the ceremony, but the only congratulation I could recall was my father’s gentle kiss on my cheek, and, this time, a hundred-dollar bill. When I’d gotten into Sarah Lawrence, my parents didn’t take me out to celebrate the way they had when Mark got a lacrosse scholarship to Ohio State and Jenna got into NYU. If Dad hadn’t been away on a business trip then, I suppose the job would have fallen to him. Until the accident, they had dutifully paid my tuition, but they never asked how I was doing or said much, if anything, about the class reports I mailed home to them from the first semester.
“Don’t look so sad, sweetie,” Yvonne said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. I looked into her concerned, blue-rimmed eyes and felt a wave of irrational love and gratitude for this woman I hardly knew. “You’ll look beautiful when Kitty gets through with you.”
“Don’t blink.” Kitty applied two strokes of mascara to each of my eyes. I did my best to comply, willing the tears back. A moment later, I was fully composed. “There. Am I a genius or what?”
“You’re a genius. Come on over here, Jane.”
I joined Yvonne in front of the mirror. She pulled my hair out of its ponytail and fluffed it up on both sides of my face. “Look how pretty you are,” she said softly.
I looked. My face in all that makeup looked alien. Not bad. Better than usual, in fact. But still, alien. I knew I could never walk around in the world like that.
“Your eyes are such a pretty green,” Kitty told me. “See how a little eyeliner makes them pop?”
“Give us a smile,” Yvonne said, and I did. My gratitude was genuine. How could it not be after all their kindness? “You have dimples!” she exclaimed. “Lucky.”
“You should smile more often,” Kitty told me. Then a mischievous look crossed her face. “Let’s take her out and show her to Nico.”
“But of course.”
“No.” I could feel myself panicking. “No, I can’t.”
“Why not?” Kitty asked, in the middle of reapplying lipstick to her own pouty lips.
“Honey, he’s just your boss,” Yvonne told me. “He’s not your daddy. What’s he gonna do? Order you to go back to your room
and wash that trashy makeup off your face, you little slut? No, wait a minute.” She scrunched her face up adorably. “That’s
my
daddy.”
I thought a moment about Mr. Rathburn.
What might he think if he saw me this way? Would he think I was trying to be attractive for his sake? Would he — could he — think I really
was
attractive?
I hesitated.
“What’s the harm?” Kitty asked. “Let’s go knock him back on his ass.”
I couldn’t answer. Suddenly I remembered — how could I have forgotten? — Bianca Ingram, sitting beside Mr. Rathburn, her hand perched intimately on his arm. Her sleek, shiny head of hair, her deep black eyes, her full lips. Her expensive clothes, her long legs, her curves. No. I could never compete with that. It would be foolish to try.
“Thank you so much for all you’ve done for me,” I told the women waiting in front of me. “I really appreciate your kindness… more than I can say. But I have a splitting headache.” I said the words, and suddenly they were true; a throbbing started behind both my eyes. “I’d better go to bed.”
Yvonne dug in her purse. “I’ve got some ibuprofen.” She dropped two pills into my hand, closed my fingers around them, and kissed me on the cheek. “Enough fun for one day,” she said to Kitty.
“Back to the damn guitar talk,” Kitty said with a sigh. A moment later, they were gone.
The next morning, the main house was quiet. I tried to wake Maddy for preschool as usual, but she fell back asleep three times. Finally, I propped her up and tried to dress her like a rag doll. When she dozed off again while I was tugging her shirt on over her head, I gave up and decided to let her stay home for the morning. At 11 a.m., she finally got up. I was buttering her toast when Mr. Rathburn stepped into the kitchen. He looked past me into the breakfast room, where Maddy was clinking her spoon against a row of half-filled water glasses, improvising a little song. When his eyes fell on me again, he looked annoyed, and I thought he might upbraid me for keeping Maddy home without permission, but then he surprised me. “Why did you leave the party last night when I asked you to stay? Kitty said you had a headache, but I know you too well to believe that. You were just looking for an excuse.”
“I did have a headache,” I told him, “
and
I was looking for an excuse.”
He raised an eyebrow. His hair was damp, and he wore an aftershave that made me think of wood smoke and cloves. “Is that right?” he said. “You know you blew a chance to be seen with the rich and famous. Most people would have given their right arm to come to that party.”
I mixed some cinnamon and sugar in a small bowl. “Be seen by whom, Mr. Rathburn?”
“Ingrate.” He opened a cupboard and rummaged around, finally finding a box of Shredded Wheat. Then he opened another cupboard. “Who moved the bowls?”
I found them and handed him one.
“Thank you.” He opened the silverware drawer. “What? Are all the spoons dirty?”
I fished one out of the dishwasher for him. “Walter put on some coffee,” I said.
“Yes. Well.” He poured milk into his bowl. “I won’t disturb your precious solitude if I eat breakfast with you and Maddy, will I?”
“My solitude isn’t precious — and Maddy would like that very much.”
Maddy squealed with delight when her father sat down next to her. He kissed her forehead and rumpled her matted hair. “You come over to the barn after you’re dressed,” he told her. “We’ll be practicing. You like to listen, right?”
Maddy nodded emphatically. “Where’s my present? You didn’t forget, did you?”
“One-track mind.” He gave me a small, grudging smile. “Finish
your cinnamon toast. Then go look in the suitcase in my bedroom. But wash your fingers first.” He turned back to me. “So, Jane. What do you think?”
Puzzled, I waited for him to say more.
“Of Bianca,” he prompted me. “What do you think of her?”
What could I say in reply? I thought of several answers and chose the most diplomatic one. “She’s very beautiful.”
“Well, of course she is. I was counting on you for some insight. What do you think of
her?
”
I thought of the angry look she’d flashed at Maddy, of the bits of their conversation I’d heard the night before. “I’ve barely spoken to her,” I said finally.
“Well, speak to her, then. I want to know whether you approve of her.”
“But it isn’t any of my business.”
“I’m making it your business.” Then his voice softened. “I trust your good sense.”
“I don’t think she particularly wants to speak to me.”
“Are you saying she’s a snob?”
“No.” I chose my words carefully. “She seems more interested in talking to you, so your judgment on her character would be more informed than mine.”
“Huh.” He finished the last of his cereal in silence, got up to put his bowl in the sink, and poured himself some coffee. Maddy was just finishing her last bite. “And one more thing, daughter of mine,” he called to her.
“Yes, Daddy?” She looked up, a ring of crumbs around her mouth.
“Bring Miss Jane with you to the rehearsal.” He looked straight at me, though he addressed her. “Don’t let her run off like a scared bunny rabbit.” Then he was gone.
Not long after noon, music began wafting up from the barn into the relative quiet of the main house. Maddy had been transfixed by the pricey kaleidoscope her father had bought her, exclaiming over the colorful shifting patterns, but at the first guitar chord, she set the toy aside. “Let’s go. Daddy said we could.”
“Yes, we’re going.” I got to my feet and brushed some of Copilot’s black hair from my skirt. No matter how often the housekeepers vacuumed, they were no match for his exuberant shedding.
Maddy grabbed my hand and tugged. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go.”
On our way down the hill toward the barn, I felt a by now familiar trepidation overcoming me. As nice as Kitty and Yvonne and even Dennis had been to me the night before, the chance to spend more time with them didn’t lessen my dread of seeing Mr. Rathburn flirt with his new girlfriend. But it was clear that I had no choice. I followed Maddy through the swinging red door into the barn, a building that till then I’d only seen from a distance.
Inside, any resemblance to an ordinary barn disappeared. The rough wooden interior was outfitted with all manner of speakers and musical equipment. Rattan armchairs and love seats were scattered around the fringes. Mitch sat scribbling notes in what looked like the least comfortable chair of the bunch; Javier hovered nearby waiting for instruction. A handful of men in gray T-shirts — where had they come from? — adjusted the instruments, working deftly
around the band members, who when I entered were joking and improvising. Mr. Rathburn strummed an electric guitar, listening intently.
“Cut it out!” he shouted. “I can’t hear myself think.” The roadies and the band fell silent, and Mr. Rathburn strummed again. “Out of tune,” he said finally, and one of the T-shirted men rushed over to swap the guitar for a different one.
Where are Yvonne and Kitty?
I wondered, then decided they must still be back at the guesthouse. And where was Bianca Ingram? I’d spied her earlier, pouring herself coffee in the kitchen, long hair swept up loosely so that a few dark strands fell fetchingly around her face, the casual look of her faded blue jeans accented with silver stiletto heels.
Honestly,
I wondered,
who could work in shoes like that?
But I had to admit that if anyone could, it was probably Bianca Ingram.
Maddy chose to sit in the love seat right in front of her father’s microphone and patted the cushion next to her until I joined her. I made her put in the earplugs Lucia kept for occasions like this, then wished I had a pair for myself. I hadn’t heard live music since my best friend in college had dragged me to a handful of clubs during our first semester. Even the noodling around I’d heard so far was just this side of head splitting; I braced myself for the tidal wave of sound that must be coming. Still, I relished the chance to watch Mr. Rathburn without being seen. Absorbed in business, he hadn’t noticed me at all.
A moment later, Mr. Rathburn held up one hand, signaling to the others. “Let’s work on ‘Blue Moon Rising,’ key of C. You ready?” Then he began to count. “A one, a two, a one, two, three, four,” and
the band launched into a song I hadn’t heard before. It was an easy one to like, catchy and upbeat, although, as I’d noticed in listening to his albums, the music’s tempo was at odds with the words. I strained to make out the lyrics, catching just a phrase here or there above the torrent of sound, only enough to get the general gist, something about being stranded on the barren face of the moon. The song was about loneliness, isolation. Was this about him? I wondered. Could Mr. Rathburn, with all his fans, friends, and employees, really be lonely? If so, was that why he so often wanted to speak to me?
And, I wondered, how had I not liked Mr. Rathburn’s singing voice? Why had I been put off by its gravelly edges? Now, to my ear, its roughness was more genuine, more affecting, than a more mellifluous voice would have been. As he sang, I noticed how he leaned back, throwing his whole body into his vocals, his deft fingers playing the chords so easily, the guitar almost an afterthought. I saw how when he launched into a solo, his attention shifted from his voice to his fingers, and how quick his hands were. I wished I could simultaneously watch the expressions on his face and his fingers moving on the strings, and not have to tear my gaze from one to look at the other.
Then something primal awoke in me. With a deep breath, I found myself wondering how those fingertips would feel on my skin. But what was I doing, thinking about Mr. Rathburn that way? Besides torturing myself, that is. I forced myself to look away, off into the shadows behind the stage, and was startled to catch sight of Bianca Ingram, motionless as a hunter stalking a deer, her camera trained on me. A moment later, she lowered the camera
and glared at me, her face expressing naked dislike. Then she was gone, and if I trusted myself less I might have believed I’d imagined the whole thing.
“No, no, no.” Mr. Rathburn’s voice rose above the music. The band ground to a halt. “Lonnie, try not to speed up on me. Keep it constant.” Now Bianca was at the front of the stage, snapping picture after picture of Nico, though he hardly seemed to notice. “The rhythm’s not working at all. Tommy, my man. Crisper. Cleaner.”
Tom muttered something under his breath.
“If you won’t do it, I’ll find somebody else who will,” Mr. Rathburn said gruffly. “One more time.” And they started from the top.
For a while, Maddy listened to her father’s music with more concentration than I would have imagined possible, her legs swinging, her eyes intent. After forty-five minutes or so, she slid off her seat and started dancing at the side of the stage, her ballet moves charmingly incongruous. I’m sure she wished her father would pay her some attention, but he was focused on his music. Between songs he exhorted the band. “Tighter, tighter. We sound unbelievably sloppy.” To my untrained ear, they sounded perfectly professional. “Fuck it, Dennis, can’t you put some soul into it?”