The Chic Shall Inherit the Earth Page 17

  “Five more days until Cotillion,” said the only one among us who had a date.

  Oh happy thought.

  Chapter 20

  LIKE THE GLOWING EYES of Jawas, the camera lenses of the video geeks—sorry, the students from Media & Communications—followed me, my event coordinator, and my teams everywhere. I’m sure I actually heard groans of ecstasy on Thursday as the rigging crews arrived, unloaded the flying light bridge off the truck, and fixed the thousand-watt lights to it before the hydraulic lifters moved it into place. This wasn’t a rock concert, but it was close. The event coordinator assured me that when the band arrived to do their sound checks Friday afternoon, all the structure work would be done, the lights would be ready to give us a club atmosphere, the draperies would be hanging from the walls of the ballroom, and the graduating class’s banner would be raised in all its glory at the back of the stage.

  The big picture was my job. I had a whole team for the tables and seating, and another for flowers and decorations, one for sound, one for the band. But the whole look, not to mention having everything come together by eight o’clock on Friday night, was on my plate.

  Can you say “bunch-o-work”? But I was glad. The more I had to do, the less I had to think. If anything could save me, it would be not thinking.

  The event coordinator and I were joined at the hip this week—or at least, joined at the ear via Bluetooth. Not for the first time, I realized how much hanging out with my mom at charity events had prepared me for a role like this. I was even issuing instructions the same way she did: pleasantly, with a smile, and leaving absolutely no room for argument.

  It was a good thing that certain instructors—my English prof, the Phys.Ed. coach, my art teacher—had pretty much given us all a pass for the week, because I didn’t have time to be in class. Some people, like Mr. Milsom, required that we be at our lab benches until the last minute of the last class of the last day. The guy was completely maddening. He didn’t have anything new to say, and the juniors could have done all the cleaning and spraying that he assigned to us. I’m sure it was a power play, designed to squeeze the last bit of agony out of his victims.

  Shani, Vanessa, and I managed to squeeze an hour out of Wednesday afternoon—the time normally occupied by Public Speaking, as a matter of fact—to storyboard our video on my MacBook Air. Once we had all the raw footage, Ashley would upload it to the school server and Shani and I would edit it with Final Cut Pro. Then it would go to Vanessa for the voiceover we’d already scripted, and by Sunday night, hopefully it would be done.

  “I swear, if this doesn’t get us all an A plus and a commemorative plaque, I’m going to hire a lawyer,” Shani grumbled. “How can one class be so much work?”

  “I should have gone with the group doing a poetry reading down at City Lights Books,” Vanessa said. “One night, open and shut.”

  “And completely forgettable,” I reminded her. “With this, you’ll be watched by generations of grateful juniors.”

  She supported her spine with one hand as she stretched. “They’d better be grateful. If not, I’m coming back to haunt them all. And then I’ll demand royalties.”

  When we got the storyboard done, Shani went back up to her room and I walked down the nearly empty corridor with Vanessa. Everyone who had any sense was outside on the lawn, or gone. I could have used some lawn time, myself. In fact, lying in the sun with an empty brain and nothing to do but turn over every hour seemed like the ultimate bliss.

  “Come by my room, okay?” Vanessa said suddenly.

  I blinked away my poolside fantasy. “Sorry. I was daydreaming about having nothing to do. Sure. What’s up?”

  “I talked to Pietro. I thought you’d want to know.” She clattered down the staircase and, even though I had a distinct feeling that something on the punch list was getting away from me, I followed. After a cliffhanger like that, wouldn’t you?

  She pushed open her door. “I finally got up the nerve to call him on—”

  She stopped dead and I ran into her back. “Sorry. What’s—”

  I stepped sideways into the room to see a woman sitting on the bed. Dressed in a black suit—ohmigosh, Prada, from the last show in Milan, only she’d had the collar redesigned—and killer Balenciaga pumps, she rose slowly. Someday, if she allowed herself twenty years of dissipated living, plastic surgery, and petulance, Vanessa might look like this.

  But I sincerely hoped not.

  “Mama,” she whispered.

  The woman didn’t answer. Instead, her hawkish black gaze narrowed on the plaid jumper Vanessa wore since skirts with waistbands were getting uncomfortable. Her daughter’s hands moved to cover her belly, then hesitated and fell to her sides. “So. It’s true.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “What does it matter? I came to see for myself. I could not credit even a photograph with showing me the truth.”

  “What photograph?”

  But I already knew. The one from last week, when the wind had blown her coat open and the photographer’s timing had been hair-trigger perfect.

  “The one that was the centerfold of Hello! and Paris Match. The one that has disgraced us all.”

  Vanessa’s throat moved as she swallowed. “It’s got nothing to do with you.”

  But that stare had included me for the first time. “Whoever you are, you may go.”

  I glanced at Vanessa. I knew she was capable of holding her own against pretty much anything, whether it was an earthquake or a pack of raging juniors. But leave her with this woman? She scared me.

  “This is my friend Lissa, and I’ve just invited her down here. Don’t dismiss her as if she were a servant.”

  “That’s okay,” I whispered. “I’ll just, um… We can talk later.”

  “Please don’t. I’m sure Mama will be leaving shortly.” She raised her eyebrows in the principessa’s direction.

  “I’m sure you do not wish to have this conversation in front of a witness.”

  “Lissa knows everything there is to know.”

  “Does she? Perhaps you could explain why it is that I do not. Why I must learn this dreadful news from Paris Match.”

  “Dreadful? Is that how you feel about your grandson?”

  A spasm went over the woman’s face, but whether it was disgust or distress, I couldn’t tell. “Do not speak as though this is real.”

  “Oh, it’s real.” Vanessa took off her jacket and smoothed the fabric of the jumper taut, so that the mound of her belly was perfectly visible. “It’s as real as it gets.”

  The principessa’s nostrils pinched together as she turned her head away to gaze at the calendar hanging on the side of the wardrobe. Along with notes for doctors’ appointments and assignments due, June 18 was circled in red pen. Graduation Day. Cotillion. The day after tomorrow.

  “Do not be vulgar. Of course you must do something.”

  “I am, Mama. Thank you for asking. I’m eating lots of green vegetables and walking two miles a day and cutting out alcohol and coffee.”

  “And darn, you just keep gaining weight,” I quipped, hoping to lighten the mood.

  The basilisk stare pinned me in place. “Be silent.”

  “Mama, don’t speak to my friends like that.”

  “I do not appreciate levity when I am trying to approach the solution to this difficulty. My doctor in London will take care of this. And once he has, you’ll appear in public looking as you’ve always done. The regatta at Henley is in two weeks—that would be the perfect venue. We will demand a retraction from the magazines and they will have no choice but to comply.”

  I stared, translating this outrageous plan. Did she really mean what I think she meant?

  “It’s not safe to abort during the second trimester,” Vanessa informed her. “Even you must know that.”

  “I certainly do know it, since I’ve experienced it. I nearly died.”

  And what about the baby? No chance there. Gulp.

  The woman stare
d at me again. “I have your promise that nothing said in this room will leave it? Because if one word leaks to the press, I will know, and my lawyers will crush you and your family to pulp.”

  “Good grief, Mother.” Vanessa sighed. “Lissa is the last person who would blab to the tabs. And her family is quite capable of taking your lawyers on. But that’s beside the point. The point is, I’m not going to have your London abortion. I’m not going to Henley, either. I’m going to have the baby.”

  The principessa didn’t miss a beat. “Have you arranged for a family to adopt it?”

  “What if I haven’t?”

  “Then you will leave it to me.”

  “What if I don’t want to do that?”

  “Do not challenge me, Vanessa. You surely don’t plan to keep this child and bring it up on your own? Because you will find that your trust fund will no longer be available to you.”

  “Fine. I still have the money from Grandmère.”

  “And that will provide you with a house and someone to care for the child?”

  “If I’m careful.”

  “And your university career?”

  “Might have to go on hold for a while.”

  Was she serious? The last time we’d talked, she’d been prepared to give the baby up. Had she changed her mind? I tried to picture a single Vanessa giving night feedings and buying groceries in the twenty-four-hour Safeway with a baby on her hip. Somehow I couldn’t do it.

  “You cannot possibly be serious.” The principessa’s tone held utter finality. “And if you are, I will not allow it. This mistake cannot ruin your life, or mine. I will not be the grandmother of the child of a gardener.”

  “He’s half royal.”

  “He is not royal at all if he is illegitimate. Now. How soon can you be prepared to leave?”

  “Mother, school isn’t over yet.”

  “Nonsense. Your examinations are over, and you cannot plan to attend the graduation ceremony looking like… that.”

  “I certainly do. And the Cotillion on Friday night as well.”

  “No. You are coming with me. I have a car waiting outside. I’m sure your friend will help you load your clothes into it.”

  Unhurried, Vanessa picked up her blazer and hung it in the closet. “No. I’m going to enjoy my graduation, finish up my outstanding projects—which you have no idea about because you can’t even be bothered to show interest in my classes—and go to Grandpère in Provence next week as planned.”

  “Does he know about this?” She gestured at Vanessa’s middle.

  “No. But it doesn’t matter. He won’t treat it like leprosy.”

  “Do not be so sure. He is, after all, the one who forced me to get my first abortion.”

  “Only because it wasn’t his son’s child.”

  At this point my brain slipped into complete paralysis. One thing I knew for sure: My parents might have their faults, but at least they were normal. I was never, ever taking them for granted again. Can you imagine me having this conversation with my mother? Now that I knew the kind of raptor Vanessa had for a parent, the fact that she’d turned out the way she had was… understandable. Forgivable, even. How could you have a chance to develop compassion and empathy in your nature when your own mother had aborted your half-siblings as thoughtlessly as she might cough up some unpleasant phlegm?

  She was phlegm. Nasty, toxic, and she didn’t even smell good. Had no one ever told her that Poison went out in the eighties?

  If this pregnancy caused an irreparable split between mother and daughter, in my opinion it could only be a good thing.

  “Very well.” The principessa rose. “You bring shame upon yourself, and I will not stay to see it.”

  “I didn’t expect you to.”

  Wow. It had never occurred to me that she would stay for the graduation ceremony, either. I mean, can you imagine having that perched on the lawn like a vulture during your happy moment of academic triumph? Yikes.

  “This discussion is not over. You may expect me at your grandfather’s by the end of next week.”

  “He won’t let you in, Mama. He never does.”

  “I will not be alone.”

  With that, she brushed past us and went out. No hug, no kiss, no “have a nice life.” Vanessa closed the door behind her and dropped onto the bed as if her knees had done all they could and were giving up.

  “I’m sorry you had to see that.”

  “I’m sorry you had to live it. What a harpy.”

  A huff of breath might have passed for a laugh. “I adored her when I was little. Always laughing, always so beautiful. She had flocks of men around all the time, like a court around their queen.” Her voice trailed away.

  “What happened? How did the queen turn into the wicked witch?”

  She lifted one shoulder. “Life, I guess. The babies. After the second abortion she started to change. She’s not a religious person, but maybe the guilt started to get to her.”

  “At least you won’t have to live with that.” I sat beside her. “Are you really going to have the baby and raise him on your own?”

  This time the huff of breath had some humor in it. “No. I just said that to get her going. And to throw her off the trail.”

  “Pietro? You said you talked to him.”

  She nodded. Silently, a tear overflowed and trickled down her cheek.

  “Here.” Thank goodness the tissues were still in my bag. “Let it out, Vanessa. Just let it go.”

  With a gasp, she began to cry in earnest. I couldn’t help it—I put my arms around her and patted her back while she wept it all out. Ten minutes must have gone by while I pieced together the broken bits of the story, muffled against my uniform blazer.

  Pietro apparently had an older brother, Roberto. He and his wife had been through in vitro twice without success—and in an Italian family where he was one of three sons, this was extremely hard on the young couple, both emotionally and financially.

  “So the brother is going to adopt the baby?” I said, trying to get it clear.

  She nodded and slowly straightened. “You’d think it was a gift from heaven. His wife—her name is Lisabeta—sent me an e-mail last night with pictures of the room they’re planning for the nursery. It made me cry.”

  There had been a time when I would not have believed Vanessa could cry, never mind twice in one day.

  “So even though you have to go through graduation, um…”

  “Looking like a whale?”

  “More like a porpoise. A sleek, really well-dressed one. But even though you have to do that, there’s a blessing at the end.”

  “That’s one way to look at it.” She gazed into the distance for a moment. “In fact, that’s the way I will look at it. This baby is desperately wanted—even if it’s not by me. My job is to get him to his parents safely, isn’t it?”

  “Keep up those vegetables.”

  “I guess I’d better cave and eat the broccoli, then. I was holding out on that.”

  I gave her a hug. “You’ll do fine. That baby will be the healthiest, most loved kid ever.”

  She looked at me for a moment as my arms fell away, and I braced myself for the inevitable Vanessa smackdown.

  “I would never have gone through with this if it weren’t for you,” she said. “And Roberto and Lisabeta wouldn’t be painting their nursery right now.”

  “You would have.” I nodded almost to myself at my own certainty. “You’d have done the right thing.”

  “I’m not so sure. But you were. Why?”

  Out of the fifty answers to that, I chose one. “Because I prayed about it.”

  “You couldn’t have known it would turn out like this.”

  “Of course not. But God did.”

  She fell silent. I can feel the moment for a good exit, and I took it. As I slipped out the door into the corridor, I looked back. She was gazing into the distance again.

  Maybe she was keeping those words and pondering them in her heart. I coul
dn’t tell.

  That was between her and God.

  Chapter 21

  GRADUATION DAY!

  Like Christmas Day, wedding day, birthday, those two words aren’t just words. They’re wreathed with flowers and float in the air.

  Graduation Day! Woohoo!

  And the best part? I didn’t have to film, arrange, organize, or otherwise do one single thing during that part of the day except put on cap and gown and show up. After that… well, I’d think about that when I got there.

  The ceremony was scheduled for two o’clock, and my parents and my sister, Jolie, arrived on the ten a.m. shuttle from Los Angeles. Since I could see the driveway from our dorm window, I managed to keep up a continuous surveillance starting at ten-oh-one. Finally a rented Beemer with its top down wheeled onto the gravel, and I think I set a land speed record going down the stairs, because I made it out the open front doors before Dad had even stopped the car. They piled out and the four of us crashed into a huge group hug, like one big happy organism with four heads and sixteen limbs.

  Oh, it felt good to be with my family again! I mean, what a difference between this and the tête-à-tête with the principessa. I made a vow that instead of fighting over stupid stuff with my sister, I would appreciate her driving need to make a difference in the world. I’d love my dad for his skill as an artist, instead of feeling sorry for myself every time he had to fly off to the other side of the world for a shoot. And I’d find a minute to thank my mom for her unconscious training in event planning, because it was proving worth its weight in gold this week. No more whining because she put so much importance on charity. What else was it but a well-organized form of putting other people first?

  “I’m so happy,” I burbled when we finally split apart and could speak. “Seeing you guys here is like getting a big fat cake all to myself.”

  “With no calories,” Jolie quipped. She was an inch or so shorter than I and she’d colored her hair a few shades lighter than her normal brown. My sister had also lost the last of the puppy fat that had driven her nuts as a teenager. She looked every bit the competent filmmaker she was going to be after one more year at UCLA Film School.