Nothing Left To Want (11 page)

His face broke in the first smile I had seen since I had walked, or hobbled, into the family mausoleum. “It will be my pleasure to take Miss Petal for a walk and introduce her to Fifth Avenue. Are you certain you can make it up to your room?”

I laughed and pointed at the staff elevator. “Yeah, George, I’ll be fine. Maybe, when you bring Petal back, you could send up some lunch?”

“
My pleasure, Miss Carey.” He gently saw me into the elevator and, before the doors closed, he smiled softly at me. “It's wonderful to have you home, Miss Carey, and Happy Birthday. I wish ... ”

I shook my head. “Don’t, George; don’t make any wishes for me. I’ll be okay.”

I pressed two instead of my own floor and maneuvered my way down the short corridor to my parents' suite. I didn’t knock, just stumbled into the darkened room in all my bright yellow glory and crutches. My mother stirred in her Charlotte Thomas sheets. The huge room reeked of her cloying scent and her anger.

“
Carey? Jesus, what are you doing here and what are you wearing?” I moved over and sat down on the bed. She slithered to the other side. I turned on her bedside lamp and pushed up my sleeves. “Oh this, isn’t it fabulous? I picked it up in Kansas … and these?” I waved my wrists over her face. She squeezed her eyes shut. “These are my new bracelets. Like ‘em? You know, Ellen, today is my birthday. Yup, fifteen. I can see you didn’t have time to shop. Should I maybe call Harry’s and have a couple of Martin Katz’s little armbands sent over as your late gift to me?” Martin Katz was doing some outrageous work in diamonds for Hollywood stars. His diamond bracelets were stunning in a retro way, and running a cool million apiece. I sighed loudly. “I know it’s extravagant, but I’m going to need two, one for each cut. Is that okay? I’ll tell him to put it on your charge. That way, when Daddy asks what you got for your first born, you can show him the bill.”

She didn’t open her eyes. “Go ahead, I don’t care. You’ll look ridiculous wearing them at your age, but it’s not my business.”

I answered her in exaggerated Marcia Brady tones. “Oh golly, thanks, Mom. You’re the best Mom ever!”

She looked at me, her dark eyes cold. “I’m glad you think so, Carey. Now, as to your staying here, right now it’s not the best time for me. Your father and I are working through some issues and I was thinking that you might want to stay with your friends for a while, maybe the little Marin girls?”

“
Sure, Ellen, glad to do it, but I think maybe I’ll take them somewhere for a couple weeks. I don’t feel like doing the whole hotel thing right now. You don’t want me getting photographed with these on, do you?” I raised my bandaged wrists again.

She shuddered. “No, I don’t. That’s clever thinking, Carey. Yes, by all means take a little vacation; you and the girls. Consider it an extra birthday gift from your father and me.”

I looked away from her so she wouldn’t see the expression in my eyes. “Fine with me, Ellen. Will you want to call Dwight?”

“
Dwight? Who’s that?”

“
It’s my school, Mommy, you know, the place I have been attending for the last three years! Well, with the exception of my recent little … would you call it a vacation? Is that what you have been calling it, what you’ve been telling people?”

“
Fine, Carey, express your hostility, act like a pathetic child. Of course I remember the name of your school. You just caught me off-guard. I’ll make arrangements. As to what I’ve been telling people, why I haven’t told them anything. No one has noticed you’ve been gone at all, Carolyn.” It was a good hit, I’ll give her that.

I stood up shakily. “Right, okay, well, thanks, Ellen. Always a pleasure. I’m going to go upstairs now. I’ll assume it’s all right with you if I stay tonight? I’m tired, my friends are tired, and I imagine they will want to talk to their parents before we just take off.”

My mother gave me a genuine smile. “Oh, of course, you can stay tonight, Carolyn. This is your home, don’t be ridiculous.” She gave a little laugh. “And I wouldn’t worry about your little friends talking to their parents. You can all just go as soon as you decide where you want to travel to. I’ll have my secretary notify Dwight for them as well. I understand the elder Marins are wintering in Los Angeles. Karen Marin is pregnant again. I hear it’s a boy, so I don’t imagine she will be returning to the city this winter. In fact, I know she won’t. I’m sure she’ll be very grateful to me for arranging this little amusement for her daughters.”

I stood at the doorway, balanced on my crutches. “Ellen, Mom, do you … did you remember what today was?”

She was silent but as I finally turned to go she spoke softly. “Yes, I did, Carey, but what does it matter?”

I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter … sorry I asked.” Brightening my voice I said casually, “So I’ll just order the bracelets, then, right?”

“
If you want. You can do what you want, Carey.”

“
Great, Ellen, that is exactly what I’m going to do, just what I want. I’ll see you.”

She didn’t answer, and later, when I called Milan, she seemed neither excited nor upset one way or the other about our travel plans. She did thank me for the earrings I had sent over from Martin Katz. I had asked our jeweler to pick out a pair for her and Christy when I had ordered my bracelets.

The next day the three of us lay together on her bed and argued in desultory voices about where to go, until we decided - or Milan decided - that we would ask my aunt if we could use her home in Aspen. We called it running away, but it’s not really running away, is it, if no one cares that you’re gone.

Chapter 12

The week the three of us went up to Aunt Georgia’s place in Aspen ended up being pretty defining in terms of our permanent roles in each other’s lives.

I’ll say this for Milan and Christy: while it feels to me like they deserted me and basically left me to rot, if anyone were to ask them they would see it quite differently. They would say - well,
will
say, because I can’t kid myself here, I am not going through the door, a door that is only ten feet from me but might as well be a million miles away ...

I am not going through it alive, and in death, I’ll achieve a level of fame that I have never had. I’ll be the new Anna Nicole Smith, which is just nasty but, yeah, everyone will know my name and everyone will have an opinion. I don’t have to be a brain surgeon to figure out the gossip. It’ll be a ton of Monday morning quarterbacking on the rich and dysfunctional. Daddy always hates it when people do that with his team; he is going to hate it more when they do it with his family, a lot more.

I should feel bad about it but I don’t. He left me. I would never have left him.

Milan and Christy left me too but, unlike Daddy, those girls, and especially Milan, will bask in the publicity. I bet dead I will be the best friend they ever had. I bet Milan will take off her bright pinks and blues and put on an outrageous black dress for a day or two and strike a grief pose. If she keeps her eyes hidden under shades, no one will notice that they are dry.

It’s not that she didn’t love me once, it’s just that she wrote me off a while ago. Good for her; you’d think she was a Kelleher the way she can cut her losses.

As for Daddy, I think he’ll grieve, never publicly, and maybe not too much since he has his new family. Also it looks like the Lions are going to make the play-offs this year. But maybe, when he’s alone, he’ll think about me, and remember me, remember that I used to know how to make him proud, make him laugh.

I don’t know when that stopped exactly. Obviously, if I knew anything, I wouldn’t be here.

I would like to see Milan right now, her more than anyone else. She has a way with words, that fabulous blond. She would look at me lying here and say something funny, like she did when the three of us were getting settled on our flight that day to Aspen.

We were just three girls, but even in First Class we took up a lot of air space. I had Petal in her totally adorable Vuitton doggy clutch, which she hated, so she was barking frantically. Milan had brought along two huge pillows and three carry-ons. Only Christy, quiet and beautiful, with her small bag which fit neatly into the overhead compartment, wasn’t giving anyone a headache.

Christy was always like that, like a girl in a fairytale, or maybe Alice in Wonderland. Things happened around her but not to her. She has always appeared contented to follow along in Milan’s turbulent wake, being admired but never judged. I can see now, too late, how smart her choices were.

Milan had, as usual, attracted the attention of everyone in the plane. The poor passengers that had to get by her kept tripping over her ten mile legs which were hanging in the aisle because she said she was only comfortable sitting sideways in her seat. I was suffocating underneath her pillows since she had propped them between us and was leaning back on me. Lucky Christy was across the aisle. At take-off Milan said loudly enough for everyone to hear, “I hate flying commercial and ahhbviously Petal does too. That’s why she won’t shut up.”

I giggled into the pillows, thinking that since she and Petal had only flown non-commercially once before, this was a pretty sudden onset dislike.

She twisted her head around and winked at me. “I know what you’re thinking, Care Bear, but if a girl doesn’t set high standards for herself, how will she ever become Queen of the Universe?”

“
Queen of the Universe, Mills? Is that who you’re going to be when we grow up? What will Christy and I be, then?”

“
My darling little handmaids.” Seeing my expression she kissed my forehead. “No, not handmaids - my duchesses, my court, the heads of my entourage. Queens and stars always have entourages.”

“
Mills, what if we want to be stars too, what if we want to have entourages, not be them?”

“
Care Bear, you don’t have what it takes to live your life in the media glare. It would make you craaaazy, and Gawd, can you imagine Christy? I mean people like to look at her but what would she say if anyone asked her a question? Nope, it’s got to be me. You two can come along for the ride. You have to. I’d be lost without my sissy and my little Care Bear, and Petal too. She’ll love it. Listen to her bark. She is totally diva material.”

I thought about what she said. It was true that when the three of us went anywhere, it was she that everybody looked at, but I wasn’t sure if it was true that I couldn’t be a queen or a star too. After all, I was the Kelleher. She might have had a one of a kind face and body, but I was pretty too, pretty and a Kelleher. I decided to file my thoughts away for later.

Playing along with her, I took out my lipstick and held it up to her mouth like a microphone. “Tell me, Miss Marin, what are the disadvantages as you see them of commercial flight?”

She tossed her head and lowered her eyes. “Well, Barbara, and first let me say thank you sooo much for choosing me as one of the ten most fascinating people of this year - good call - the reason I hate commercial flight is because I just looove the Mile High Club, but, Barbara, commercial jet bathrooms are so tiny that it really takes the fun out of the whole experience, don’t you think so, Barbara? I mean, come on, all those world leaders you interview, especially President Clinton … ” Milan slowly licked her lips and laughed.,“ … you must be a frequent flyer in the Mile High Club yourself.”

Christy and I both screamed with laughter. Later on, though, after Christy fell asleep, I wanted to ask Milan if she had ever been with a guy for real. I wanted to tell her about Jeff. She was my best friend but I didn’t know how she’d respond. She was so beautiful, glittering with her other-worldly confidence, that I just couldn’t do it.

Somehow I knew the whole losing your virginity in the mental ward scenario wasn’t the kind of thing Milan would find hot - pathetic, yes; hot no - so I never told her. I thought I’d wait, wait for the right guy to come along, someone really gorgeous and cool, a Milan-approved boy. When he showed up, he and I would have what she called movie star sex and I would bask in her rarely given approval.

I still don’t know if back then she knew what that even meant, movie star sex. I don’t know when she gave it up. She’s funny that way. Everybody thinks that she talks openly about everything and it’s just the opposite really. As for me, I don’t think I know what movie star sex is, not even now. But back then, even though I was totally clueless, I did know it probably didn’t involve a lock down facility in Kansas, polyester sheets and some loser who said I was weird.

I stayed quiet and thought that maybe Milan was right. Maybe I would make a better entourage duchess than a queen of the universe.

We had to ride the shuttle from Denver to Aspen since Aunt Georgia didn’t keep permanent staff at her place in Colorado. She had sent a set of car keys over, along with the house keys and the alarm code. I had laughed at the car keys, holding them up to the girls, asking them what Aunt Georgia thought we would do with them.