Ellen forgets I’m not used to this world, and she dives in with a passion and a black card that makes my head spin. I’m accustomed to shopping for things like groceries on a super-tight budget, but I’m not sure budget is even a word she’s familiar with.
The first indication that I’m totally out of my element is that the manager of the first store we go to pops open a bottle of champagne and makes mimosas for us, and he doesn’t bother to ask for my ID to make sure I’m old enough. He doesn’t care how old I am. He cares about entertaining and spoiling my aunt so that she will spend insane amounts of money in his store.
Not that she needs the encouragement.
With every store we go to, it’s the same thing. Wash, rinse, repeat. Champagne, specialty coffees, chocolates, neck massages, little jewelry pieces and trinkets. The works.
My aunt seems to be on a mission. By the time she’s hauling me off to some completely exclusive restaurant for lunch, she’s bought me an entirely new wardrobe. I’ve told her several times that I don’t need one because I wear a uniform at school, but she’s deaf when it comes to my protests.
Finally, in the brief silence before the waiter returns with another set of alcoholic beverages meant to keep me compliant, she tugs off her designer sunglasses and peers at me across the table. For one, fleeting second, she sees me. Me. Teddy.
“I wish you wouldn’t fight it so hard, Teddy,” she says, reaching up to pinch her nose between two fingers. She squeezes her eyes shut for a second, as if she’s staving off a headache. If I wasn’t sure that the champagne we were drinking all morning was top-shelf, I’d think it was the alcohol. Instead, I think, it’s me.
“Sorry,” I say, glancing down at my awkwardly folded hands in my lap. “I don’t know what to do.”
The waiter returns with our drinks, and Ellen is all smiles again.
“Now that’s the easy part,” she says, as soon as he’s left. “Just stop apologizing and follow my lead. And you can start by finishing that martini before the waiter comes back with the veal.”
For one second, I thought she was going to get honest with me; share that part of her that isn’t hidden behind the nails and hair and the jewels glistening in her ears.
She goes straight back into her idle chatter, no hint at the moment that nearly passed between us. I sip on the martini and she flirts harmlessly with the waiter for more olives. Not that she’d have to. They’d have delivered them out on a solid-gold platter if she asked.
I realize that she’s doing with me what she used to do with Sadie, and I can’t stop her. She’s replaced her absent daughter with me, which is quite ironic considering how I pretended to be that same daughter for a while there before I got caught.
We are in the middle of lunch and I’m staring at some dish of unidentifiable food that I couldn’t pronounce even with a language tutor, when that facade crumbles. She’s reaching for her wallet, halfway through telling the waiter about our plans for the rest of the day when he makes the age-old joke about how he thought we were sisters.
She giggles and lays a hand on my forearm. “Oh no,” she says, waving him away. “I know it doesn’t look like it, but I’m her mother.”
Her hand immediately stiffens on my arm, and then shoots back to rest awkwardly in her lap. She avoids looking at me, instead getting deeply involved in hunting for something in her bag until she pulls out a little orange bottle of pills.
I wonder if she’s sick or if she’s still taking the drug that killed her daughter.
Just thinking it makes me feel selfish. Sure, she might confuse me with her daughter now and again, but she’s still been kind. She’s more than kind, she’s family now.
She practically shoots up from her seat as soon as the waiter returns with the receipt. Her unfocused eyes dance with an empty-looking happiness that doesn’t hide the fact she’s embarrassed by her little Freudian slip.
It doesn’t feel as warm and deep as I had always dreamed that a bond with family would be, but I remind myself that we’re newly acquainted family, and that it’s probably going to take some time for us to build a bond.
We finish up our unbelievably decadent day in Manhattan, and are driven back to the house. Ellen disappears upstairs with another headache as soon as we get back, and I’m left alone with the butler and more boxes than should have humanly been able to fit in the car drive back.
I should feel excited, exhausted even, but I just feel sort of … sad.
Ellen said this trip was to get to know each other better, but all I learned was how deeply broken she still is. I’m not sure how long I can stand being treated as a surrogate daughter. I’m still trying to find my place in this world without someone trying to turn me into someone else.
Their butler leaves me alone as he brings my new things up to the guest room. In that brief moment alone in the dark front hall, I hear someone clearing their throat and spot Dane standing in the door downstairs.
“You look tired,” he says, and after everything today, I appreciate the honesty.
“You have no idea,” I say, sighing. I glance up the stairs and move to rest against the banister beside him. “Is she always so …”
“Yes,” he says, shaking his head. “Especially since … you know.”
I nod.
We sit in silence for a moment while the butler returns for a second load. I keep wanting to offer to help, but my instincts are telling me that’d be somehow insulting.
As soon as he leaves, Dane gestures to a side door. “You want to see the car?”