“We’re almost at Chantal,” Donovan tells me.
The streets and sidewalks are crowded with all kinds of vehicles and people. I crane my neck and gaze up and feel the size of an ant. The closest I’ve ever come to a big city is when Momma and I drove to Katy for the Little Voices singing competition. Katy’s thirty miles from Houston but we were too afraid to drive into the heart of the city.
Amid the sound of car horns and revving engines, the Phantom pulls to a stop in front of a limestone building, marked by age but renovated with big modern windows. To one side is a single gold canopy with black letters that spell out a very understated “Chantal.” Donovan opens my door, and I slide out and into air that now smells of exhaust with a hint of pub food.
I stand and take a 360 of my surroundings. I must look as lost as I feel because Donovan asks, “Are you all right, Young Edie?”
My heart pounds and I swallow hard. “Everythin’s bigger than all hell and half of Texas.” The door to Chantal opens and a woman in black steps out.
“The front desk will call for me when you’re ready to leave.”
I look at Donovan and want to grab on to him as tight as my fraying rope. “Aren’t you comin’ in?”
“It’s a ladies’ spa.” I’m not sure, but I think he’s embarrassed.
“Okay.” I let out a breath and turn toward the spa. I’ve been through a lot in the past five months, I can do this. I put one foot in front of another and tell myself I’m a twenty-five… no, I’m a thirty-year-old adult, and there’s nothing to be afraid of.
“Hello, Edie.” The woman at the door has red hair, and if I was at the Do or Dye I’d guess she’s a 5c, but different brands have different names and formulations for their color lines. Whatever brand, it’s vibrant and the sort of quality I’d want at Shear Elegance. “Welcome back.”
The inside of Chantal is mostly white with touches of gold and black. It’s oddly quiet and I don’t see other guests as I am shown to a room with a spa chair and massage table. The towels are folded to look like swans, and I’m handed a thick robe. Pink champagne sits next to a plate of tiny hors d’oeuvres and I nibble and read the latest Vogue before Ginger enters the room. Her hair is pulled back into a ponytail that looks like a black whip, and she proceeds to beat the hell out of my muscles just like Tina. No matter how many times I say “ouch” or “Gawd almighty,” she takes it as a sign to double down. By the time she leaves, I’m sore as all git-out and wonder if Clarice is still holding a grudge about being called a crazy roach. I wonder what else she might have in store, but the next three hours are bliss. I’m pampered like I’m queen of the world. I take note of everything because who knows what my future holds or what dreams I can make come true.
I forget about the scars on my forearms until the manicurist massages my hands and wrists. This isn’t Livingston, where suicide scars aren’t out of the norm and where there’s always someone with bigger issues than yours. This is the real world, but if the manicurist is surprised by my forearms, she doesn’t show it. The only thing that does raise a brow is my choice of red finger- and toenail polish. Evidently, Edie always wears the same pale pink.
The only real shock of the day comes after my roots match the rest of my blonde hair. I tell the stylist to trim an inch, curl it with a three-quarter barrel, and back-comb the crown. I read Elle and Harper’s Bazaar when what I really want is a People or US Weekly to find out what’s happening in the world—who’s getting married, having a baby, or the latest cheating scandal. Sometimes it’s reassuring to see that perfect people have regular problems just like everyone else.
Everyone except me. No one has my problems, at least not that I know of. I flip a page in Elle and see Miley Cyrus in a fishnet minidress and a thong. I can’t believe the girl who inspired me to be Brittany Wittany went from Hannah Montana to swinging naked on a wrecking ball and twerking in latex, seemingly overnight.
Then it hits me. I gasp and my mouth falls open. You too, Miley?
The stylist looks at me through the station’s mirror as she curls and pins my hair. “Are you okay?”
“Yes.” I nod. For a split second I thought I’d discovered someone like me, but Miley’s never lost her memory, just her clothes.
Other than asking if I’m okay, the stylist isn’t chatty. In fact, no one really talks at Chantal. They just do their thing, pour champagne, and serve hors d’oeuvres. I wonder if it’s the spa’s policy or if no one wants to talk to Edie because she’s been evil to them. Either way, I’m just relieved that I don’t have to give them my amnesia smile or answer questions. I just have to kick back, get pampered, and drink champagne, which brings me to something I noticed. Edie is a lightweight. I wouldn’t call myself a big boozer, but I keep up with the best of them—namely on Momma’s side. I can hold my own, but Edie’s half lit after a few glasses of champagne.
By the time I emerge from the gold doors and back into the exhaust fumes, I’m looking like a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. My hair is shiny and bouncy and back-combed halfway to heaven like God intended. My brows have been tweezed, my face steamed with lavender, scraped with an epi-blade, and perked up with a yummy facial concocted just for Edie. My skin is as soft as a baby and I smell like a mandarin and cranberry cocktail. I feel more like myself and that feels mighty fine.
Donovan pauses as he opens the door for me. He blinks several times but he doesn’t comment. My makeover has struck him dumb. We drive for twenty minutes through the orange and grays of the setting sun before the car slows and turns onto a narrow road. Gates with an H in the middle swing open, and I assume the H stands for Hawthorne. I should be sick with anxiety. My stomach should feel heavy with dread, but champagne bubbles make my insides feel tingly, and everything looks rosy from my champagne goggles. I’m too tipsy to feel fear, but I need to remember that liquid courage can turn into stupid juice real quick, and I’ve gotten myself into trouble a time or two. Triple-shot Thursdays come to mind, and the last thing I want to do is shoot my mouth off at Marv and Claire and wake up at Livingston again.
The road is lined with trees changing color for the season and lit with lamps atop tarnished posts. The road turns into a circular drive that has a fountain in the middle with a bunch of fish heads spitting water into a big clamshell. If I had a penny, I’d toss it in there for luck, but I don’t have
any money at all.
Donovan stops the Phantom in front of what looks like a museum made of white stone. Or maybe one of those old grand hotels on a lakeshore where fancy people go to golf or yacht or whatever it is that fancy people do. The car stops at wide steps and dramatic wood-and-stained-glass doors. “This is someone’s house? It’s huge.”
“Hawthorne is forty thousand square feet and had forty-two rooms when it was completed in eighteen-ninety-three. It has been modernized three times, bringing the total number of rooms to thirty-three, not counting the pool, bowling alley, and wine cellar.”
And just like that, my stomach gets tight and I’m not feeling so rosy.
“Your parents are waiting for you inside,” Donovan tells me, and I follow him up the steps to the front doors.
The inside of Hawthorne looks like a museum, too. It’s unreal, like there should be velvet ropes to keep tourists from wandering off carpet runners and touching anything. But there are no ropes or runners. No tour guide. Just me and Donovan for now.
My gaze travels up walls made of dark wood and covered with huge paintings and tapestries hanging from gold cord. I tilt my head all the way back to look at the enormous domed ceiling made with the same stained glass as the front doors. Large urns of fresh flowers sit atop even larger pedestal tables. The room on my left is bright yellow and white and there’s a marble fireplace with naked ladies carved in it.
The house smells of old wood and lemon oil, roses and lilies. Everything about it is rich and grand, but not exactly what I’d call warm and inviting. “Are people actually livin’ in this place?” I ask myself more than anyone else. Those naked ladies look cold enough to sneeze and I notice their breasts are very perky.
“Until the first of the year,” Donovan tells me. “Then we close this house and open Chatsworth in Palm Beach.”