He had brought back clothing, jewelry, and perfume for all three of us but specifically asked me to put on my new black sleeveless dress for dinner that night. It had a deep V-neck collar and a hem about midway between my ankles and knees. The material was something I had never seen or felt. He said he had had it specially made for me. It clung to my body like another layer of skin. I was braless and wore a pair of thong panties. He asked me not to wear any jewelry tonight.
“Real beauty is always understated,” he told me. “Attractive women don’t realize that they challenge their own natural attractiveness when they are ostentatious and wear too much valuable jewelry. There’s too much unnecessary competition occurring on their own bodies. Why take attention from your eyes, your lips, your magnificent complexion?”
That sounded so right. Was there anything Daddy didn’t know about women, about anything?
“Am I beautiful now, Daddy?” I asked him.
“I wouldn’t have bought you this dress if I didn’t think the time had come,” he said.
I would be the only one of us girls wearing something formal to dinner that evening. Marla was in jeans and a school sweatshirt. Ava wore a pair of black jeans and a white knit blouse. Daddy wore a dark blue shirt and white slacks. Tonight he looked even younger. Time fell helplessly at his feet. He was shielded against the slings and arrows of days, months, and years. They were like flies on the skin of an elephant. I think that was why he was so unconcerned about dates, even days of the week, unless he had an appointment. No one seemed to notice that he rarely wore a watch. He had beautiful rings, gold bracelets, and exquisite necklaces, jewelry from all over the world, but usually avoided wearing a watch, even though I knew he had a drawer full of them.
When I asked him why he rarely wore one, he said, “What difference does one hour to the next make for me, Lorelei? I always live in the moment and never waste my time longing for tomorrow.”
He seemed to have a built-in clock anyway and instinctively knew what time it was whenever it was important for him to know. We girls all had watches, and there were all sorts of antique clocks in our house, remarkably in sync, announcing the hour in perfect harmony. In the living room, we had a pendulum clock Daddy claimed was made in the eighteenth century and had once been hanging in the palace of Louis IV of France. The way he described it there, described the entire palace, in fact, with such detail, I was sure he had been there and had seen it there.
As he looked at me in the new dress, he smiled with appreciation. I could feel his love as though it flowed in soft, melodic waves from his eyes, his lips, and his heart. How many of the other orphan girls had a daddy who appreciated them as much as mine appreciated me? Why shouldn’t I do everything he wanted, get anything he needed, be anyone he wanted me to be? Maybe he wasn’t my real father, but I existed because of him. That was what my heart told me every day.
“Ava?” Daddy said. “Look at our Lorelei. She’s stunning in that dress. Wouldn’t you agree?” Neither of my sisters had yet commented.
“Yes, Daddy, it does fit her well,” she said rather flatly. She could have easily added, “Big deal.”
He looked up at her. “It’s more than just the dress. She’s grown wonderfully. I’d say there’s been a remarkable maturing, wouldn’t you?”
“There has been, Daddy. Remarkable,” Ava replied dryly. I saw how Daddy held his gaze on her. There was nothing in his face to reveal his displeasure, but just that extra moment was enough. “I mean, she’s blooming into someone very beautiful right before our very eyes,” Ava quickly added.
“Exactly,” Daddy said, now pleased with her response. “I expected nothing less.”
He put his left hand on Marla’s head, stroking her the way he might stroke a dog. Maybe he could feel her jealousy through his legs. She clung to him as if her life depended on it.
“Don’t worry, Marla,” he said. “You’re next. We will see similar beauty appearing in you as well when your time comes.”
“When’s that, Daddy?” she asked, looking up at him hopefully and excitedly.
“Patience,” he said. “Everything comes to those who wait. Ava was the same way, weren’t you, Ava?”
“I didn’t have to be as patient. I bloomed a little bit earlier, Daddy,” she said softly.
He glanced at her wryly, his lips pursed for a moment. “Our Ava,” he said, “is a little insecure yet.”
Insecure? Ava? None of Daddy’s daughters could be insecure, especially by Ava’s age and doing the things Ava was now required to do. I was more surprised than she was at the obvious criticism, but she took it harder. She looked as if she might break out in hysterical sobs. I almost felt sorry for her, even though a bigger part of me took pleasure in seeing her knocked off her pedestal.
“It’s nothing,” Daddy quickly added. “It’s quite normal, in fact. It always comes with some sibling rivalry, and there’s nothing wrong with some good old-fashioned sibling rivalry.” He laughed and then added, “I have every confidence that Ava will prove to be one of my best little girls, if not the best.”
That pulled her back from the cliff of dark sorrow, and she looked happy again. As if our lives were a play being enacted on some grand stage, right on cue, Mrs. Fennel came to the doorway that opened to the dining room before anything more could be said about who would be Daddy’s best daughter and who wouldn’t.
“Everything’s ready,” she announced. The manner in which she spoke and the way she stood there, her body stiff, her shoulders back, made it seem as if one of us was about to go to an execution and not our dinner.
“Well, then, let’s go to the table,” Daddy said, and stood. Marla leaped to her feet. Ava moved forward quickly. She expected him to put his arm around her shoulders, as he often did, and lead her into the dining room, but he reached out for my hand instead. I looked at Ava. Her eyebrows lifted, and her eyes flashed anger and disappointment in my direction, but then she quickly looked away and started for the dining room so she wouldn’t see Daddy kiss my cheek. However, I was sure she heard him whisper, “You’re a diamond now out of the rough. How complete and confident I feel just looking at you.”
Could my heart be fuller? I glanced at myself in the wall mirror in our dining room and saw the glow in my face. The flame inside me that my happiness fueled could light a room, I thought. I was filled with the sin of pride but completely unconcerned. In our world, the deadliest sin was not pleasing Daddy. Everything else was more a misdemeanor than a felony.
“Tell us about your trip to France, Daddy,” Marla said after the four of us had sat.
Mrs. Fennel never ate with us. She served our dinners, breakfasts, and lunches and ate by herself in the kitchen. Ava said we should be grateful about that. “Watching her eat is like watching a starving dog go at food.”
“I visited friends outside of Paris near Versailles,” Daddy began.
“Old friends?”