Part 1 (2/2)
Her friend grabbed the h.e.l.lo Kitty notepad off the pillow and read, ”Thirty-six C, twenty-five, thirty-five.”
A few weeks shy of starting the seventh grade, Tabitha had blossomed over the summer into a woman.
”Remember when my mom took us to Milan to see her friend's spring show?” Lex's mother, Birdie Easton, a rock-n-roll legend, received invitations year after year to the best parties, extravaganzas and fas.h.i.+on shows in the world.
”Valentine?” She puffed on a cigarette. Unable to inhale yet, Tabitha exhaled from her mouth.
”Valentino,” Lex corrected. ”Anyways-there's a resemblance between Elle Macpherson, the model who wore the red dress, and you.” She held Vogue's fall issue up. Macpherson graced the cover. The season's periodicals were spread out on Tabitha's bed. At twelve, Lex was already a slave to fas.h.i.+on, especially couture.
”Red is my favorite color, it goes with my look.” Tabitha laughed. She happened to be the only redhead in her cla.s.s, as well as the only girl rich enough to furnish a complete wardrobe from Yves Saint Laurent. ”Why do you read those crummy gossip rags? You know our folks told us not to pay the press any attention.” Since her parents announced their trial separation a few weeks ago, she'd stopped looking at the tabloids.
”They also told us not to smoke.” Lex's face sobered as she shoved a Swedish fish in her mouth. She chewed the candy, swallowed and announced, ”There's an article in here t.i.tled 'High Society Marriages Headed for Ruin'.”
”I bet my parents are featured.” Tabitha didn't have to ask. She took the page from Lex's sticky hands and glanced at the expose. It shed light on America's most prominent family-hers. Considered fierce academics, the Brillfords remained regular art patrons and n.o.ble philanthropists. With five generations celebrated in their community, they were the town's toast and invited to all social events, but not in recent weeks. No, they'd become outcasts. ”This is why my parents have been fighting all summer.”
She'd heard her parents' hoa.r.s.e voices ringing through their eight-thousand-square-foot residence pretty much night and day.
”When my parents argue, Dad sleeps in the guest room. Yours?”
”Daddy moved his stuff into the east wing.” Tabitha frowned. Countess Irma, Taddy's mother, had remained in the west quarters.
Lex s.h.i.+fted on the bed. ”I saw it mentions why your mom spent time in the hospital. Didn't you wonder?”
”Yes, Daddy wouldn't tell me.” Tabitha focused on the article, reading closely and hanging on every word. ”Says here, after one knock-down, drag-out fight my mom flew headfirst over a spiral staircase with a pair of shears in her hands. That's when the NYPD arrived.” Tabitha recalled the incident where Irma had lost her little finger after a botched effort to cut her husband's p.e.n.i.s off.
”Why didn't your dad press charges?”
”Daddy knows better.” Jesus. I can't believe this is in the paper about my parents.
”Keep reading,” Lex bossed.
”Says the fight started after Daddy filled her lingerie chest with South American killer insects, whoa!”
”Killer bugs?”
”Do they exist?” she asked Lex, hoping this wasn't true. However, she remembered her mother being in the hospital. This made perfect sense.
Her friend rolled her eyes. ”If you'd come to biology cla.s.s, you'd learn from Mr. Kauffman there are many insect species known to harm animals-and humans. They live in South America. So what brought on the bug attack?”
”Mom tried to run his a.s.s over with her car.”
”When?”
”While Daddy was jogging alongside the West Side Highway.”
”Get outta here!” Lex shouted.
”Her car flew off Pier 92.” In horror, Tabitha held up the paper showing Lex the photo of Irma's Rolls-Royce being pulled out of the Hudson River. ”They're going to kill each other.” She threw the paper in the trashcan next to her desk. ”This started when my daddy ordered that test.”
”What test?” Lex asked as she switched her attention to Marie Claire. Lex's own family life equated to heavy metal groupie h.e.l.l, but she escaped into the glossy fas.h.i.+on magazine pictures. Her favorite designer, Donna Karan, lived in their building.
”The parent test.”
”Don't you mean the paternity test?” Lex popped another candy and continued with a mouthful, ”Explains my mom's call with yours a few days ago. She blabbed on and on about some test results.”
”Right.” Tabitha wished Lex would ease up on the candy. The boys in cla.s.s already tormented her over her weight. It seemed the more they teased, the more Lex ate. ”You better quit with the sugar. Birdie will lock the fridge again.” Lex's mother believed starvation preserved one's figure.
”Tabitha Adelaide.” Knocking and a voice came from the other side o her bedroom door.
”One sec.” She extinguished the cigarette in Lex's grape soda can.
Lex scrambled and threw everything under the bed. In her jersey knit sweats with honey-blonde hair pulled back by a headband, Lex knew the drill. She ran for the window and climbed out onto the fire escape. Sticking her head back in, she whispered, ”Call me after dinner. Mom pa.s.ses out by eight. She mentioned some gibberish about having a serious talk about school tonight.”
”Where's Eddie singing this week?”
”What's today's date?” Lex asked.
”August eleventh.”
”Dad is in Finland. Tomorrow his band goes off to Norway.” Eddie Easton's Headbanger Glam Metal Show toured as the longest-running concert to come from one studio alb.u.m in music history. On his fifth year, he'd come home to see Lex and Birdie-twice. Lex slammed the window shut and, in her bare feet, climbed the fire escape to her own apartment.
”Coming.” Tabitha sprayed air freshener, hit the ceiling fan and lit a vanilla-scented candle. After unlocking the door, she jumped on the bed and shouted, ”Come in.” She turned to see Mr. Constance, her family's butler who'd lived with them for as long as she could remember.
”Your parents request your presence in the study.” He wiped his eyes when he stepped into her room and picked her jeans off the floor.
”Are you crying?” she asked and sat her Seventeen magazine down. Mr. Constance was never upset, at least not in front of her. ”You okay?” Tabitha reached out to give him a hug.
He shook his head to rea.s.sure her. ”Go see your folks, right this instant.”
”Yes sir.” Lately, she'd grown to hate any interaction with her family. This month they'd gone cuckoo, similar to Lex's mother, Birdie, and they didn't make much sense. Her mother had hit the gin, and in return, her father had hit his wife.
At her parents' request, she came off the landing on the second floor and walked into the study. Her mother sat on the sofa, unable to make eye contact with her. Weirdo.
”Tabitha Adelaide, take a seat.” Her father greeted her from the room's far side with an unrecognizable, icy expression.
She stepped closer and tried to forget the article she'd read upstairs. ”Hey, Daddy. Hi, Mommy.” Tabitha sat in a comfy chair opposite her mother on the sofa. The blue fabric warmed her bare legs. She used to sit in the same place as a little girl when her father rehea.r.s.ed his lectures. ”You wanted to see me?”
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