“Sorry,” I say, sighing.
“And try to sigh a little less, too.”
“Should I stop breathing too, mother?” I ask.
She chuckles in that regular uptight tone of hers. “Nonsense, my dear. I just want you to look good.”
“No, you want me to look like a doll.”
“What’s wrong with looking like a doll, dear?” she says, smiling as she applies some last-minute powder, making me cough. “Perfect.” She grabs my shoulders and points at the mirror. “Look at how pretty you are.” I smile when I hear her compliment. “Almost as beautiful as your mother.” The smile immediately disappears.
“Mother, why are we doing this again?” I ask, as she starts pulling on my dress to make it tighter so she can zip me up.
“Because we have important visitors today, honey. I already told you that.”
“But you promised me that I could go out and have some fun today.”
“Honey … we’ve been through this already. Sometimes business gets in the way of fun.”
“What business?”
“You’ll find out soon enough,” she says, chuckling a little.
“But I promised Miles that I’d come and see him today,” I say.
Her face suddenly turns rigid. “Miles? You mean that boy?”
“Yes. I like him.”
“Well, I don’t,” she snaps, zipping me up so quickly that I have to suck in a breath.
I put my arms at my side. “You said he couldn’t come to my party. I hated not having him there. I wish you’d allowed him inside the house.”
“Oh, no,” she says. “That filthy boy? Never.”
“Filthy? He’s not filthy,” I say, making a face.
“Honey, he spends half his time on the streets.”
“That’s because he hates his foster parents.” He hates them so much, he never even allowed me to meet them. That’s how ashamed he was.
“And he behaves like a wild animal,” my mother adds, as she pats her own hair and admires herself in the mirror.
“That’s because they bully him, so he fights back.”
“I don’t care why he does it. I don’t want him in my house.”
“Well, you promised me that I could go out and do what I wanted after what happened at the party.”
“No, I said you could go out and have some fun but only with nice, well-educated children.”
“I’m not a child anymore, Mother, and I don’t like this at all. I want to see Miles. I don’t want to meet your ‘important people.’” I make quotation marks with my fingers.
“I don’t care what you want, darling. You will not go out and see him. Not today.”
“Not any day if it were up to you,” I sneer.
“Exactly,” she says, turning toward me. “Don’t act like I don’t have your best interests at heart. You know that I want what’s best for you, and Miles is not it.”
I wince. “No, you have your best interests at heart.”
She sighs. “Honey, we don’t have time for this. We’ll have this discussion another day.” She grabs my hand. “Our guests are waiting.”
“No! I don’t want to.” I jerk my arm, but she’s not letting me go.
“You’re going to see them whether you want to or not,” she hisses, turning her head toward me like a snake who’s about to bite off my head.
“No, let go of me,” I yell.
“Sometimes you just have to do what you don’t want to because it’s the best in the long run. You can’t have what you desire, but you’ll get so much more in return,” she mutters as she drags me toward the door.
“Let me go!” I yell.
Right as she opens the door, the housekeeper is knocking, and her hand stops midair, her eyes zooming in on us. “Is everything okay, ma’am?”
“Yes.” My mother immediately directs her attention toward me. “Now you’re going to behave,” she whispers. “You’re going to be nice to our guests. You’re going to be cordial, sweet, charming, and everything that makes a woman desirable. You will talk to them like the good girl you are, or I will make sure you never set foot outside this house again. Is that understood?”
I swallow, frowning in silent protest. I keep my lips slammed together, refusing to answer.
“You will do as I say, or I will have that boy … Miles …”
“Don’t you dare touch him,” I say.
She squints. “Hmm … you think your mother is capable of harming a human being?”
“I know you’d let others do the hurting. As long as you get what you want,” I say.
I’ve seen her do it plenty of times. With my aunt, for example. Her little boy was only eight when a truck ‘accidentally’ hit him. He died shortly after due to a brain hemorrhage. Of course, it was no accident; that truck bore the logo of one of the funders for my father’s campaign. My aunt had threatened to expose my father’s shady practices for acquiring money. In the end, he still won, so I guess my aunt learned her lesson.
Never cross my parents. My mother is the worst of them; she’s usually the one behind all the drama. My father knows only ten percent of the things she does. I know because I asked him one time, and he acted like he didn’t know a thing about it. Of course, I do watch the news, and I know how to spot my father’s sponsors. I’ve met them many times, and I know their logos. It’s just so sad that they think they can hide their evil acts from me. It’s like they’re still trying to pretend they’re good, for me.
Except my mother has slowly been showing her true colors to me, like today. I’ve seen her behave like a wicked witch before. But she’s never threatened to hurt someone I like before.
It’s like she’s only nice to me when she wants something from me. In this case, it’s talking to some people. I’m sure there’s more to it than she’s letting me know.
She pushes me through the hallway and into the living room, where a couple is sitting on the couch, and, judging from their wrinkles and desperate attempts to hide them, they’re about the same age as my parents. A boy gets up from his seat across the room, smiling like an idiot when he sees me.
“Vanessa,” my mother says as the people stand up to greet me. “Meet the Starr’s.”
The boy is the first to grab my hand and shake it. “Hi, I’m Phillip.”
“Hi,” I say, a little unsure of what to do.
“You’re adorable. Just perfect for my little boy,” his mother says, and I shake her thin, bony hand.
His father pinches my cheek, making me cringe. “What a lovely girl.”
I pull on my mother’s sleeve, and she leans in to listen to my question. “What does she mean with ‘for my little boy?’”
My mother clears her throat. “Let’s go sit with our guests.”
The happy, anxious looks on their faces creep me out, as if they’re expecting some kind of performance from me. “Mother, who are these people?” I whisper as we all walk back to the couch.
“Don’t be rude, Vanessa. These people are important. They support your father’s campaign.”
“Oh …” I say. Not another one.
“Their boy is very nice. He even attends the same school you do.”
“My high school?” I ask, perplexed. “I’ve never seen him there before.”
“Well, he does, so I’m sure you two will be able to find each other now. You’ll grow fond of him, I’m sure.”
“Why? I don’t even know him yet. Hard to tell from here,” I say.
“You’ll get to know him soon enough, my dear. Better than you imagined.” She chuckles a little.
“What do you mean?” I ask.
“Well,” she whispers as we sit down, “he’ll make an excellent husband for you.”
The fake smile plastered on my face cracks through the middle. I swallow, as I see the world and my future as I imagined it fading before my eyes. I wanted to go out and see the world, to kiss different boys and tell my girlfriends what it would be like, to marry the man of my dreams when I was ready, and to become an actress because that’s what I like to do. Those were my dreams.
And now my dreams have shattered in two.
As I stare out the window, listening to the endless chatter between the adults, I see a boy with a magnifying glass outside in the grass not far from our house. His dark eyes bore into mine as he stops, lifts his head, and gazes at me with a look that’s as much broken as mine.