Cutler 1 - Dawn (23 page)

"Dawn," he whispered. "Can I just hold you, just for a moment, just to—"

"Oh, Philip, we shouldn't. We should try to—"

He ignored me and brought his hands to my shoulders to pull me toward him. Then he gathered me in his arms and held me there against him. His breath was warm on my cheek. He clutched me as if I were the only one who could save him. I felt his lips graze my hair and forehead. My heart pounded as he held me tighter, my breasts brought firmly to his chest.

"Dawn," he whispered again. I felt his hands coming around my shoulders. Electric tingles seized madly up and down my arms, and all those nerves that a girl my age wasn't supposed to have burned with fire. I must stop him, I thought. This is wrong. I screamed inside myself, but suddenly he seized my wrists and held them against my sides. Then he kissed my neck and started to travel down to my breasts.

He let go of my wrists and brought his hands to my bosom quickly. As soon as he did, I stepped back. "Philip, stop. You mustn't. We'd better go." I started toward the door.

"Don't go. I'm sorry. I told myself I wouldn't dream of doing that when I was alone with you, but I couldn't help it. I'm sorry," he said.

When I looked back at him, he did look like someone in torment.

"I won't do it again. I promise," he said. He smiled and stepped toward me. "I just wanted to hold you to see if I could hold you the way a brother should hold a sister, to comfort you or greet you, but not . . . to touch you that way."

He bowed his head remorsefully.

"I guess I shouldn't have brought you here so soon." He waited, his eyes hopeful that I would disagree and want to forget the truth.

"Let's leave, Philip," I said. When his arms had encircled me and held me fast, I had become an instrument of desire for romantic fulfillment. Now I was scared, too, of what was inside me.

He reached up quickly and pulled the light cord dropping a sheet of darkness over us. Then he seized my arm.

"In the darkness we can pretend we're not brother and sister. You can't see me; I can't see you." His grip tightened.

"Philip!"

"Just kidding," he said and laughed. He released his hold on me, and I retreated to the door.

I hurried out and turned to wait for him to close the door and follow. As soon as he did, we started up the cement stairs. But just as we did so, a shadow moved over us, and we both looked up into the disapproving eyes of Grandmother Cutler.

Bloated with anger, she glared down at us and looked so much bigger and taller.

"Clara Sue thought you two would be here," she spat. "I'm returning to my office. Eugenia, I want to see you there within five minutes. Philip, Collins needs you in the dining room immediately."

She spun on her heels and walked off briskly.

My heart felt as if it would crack open my chest, and my face felt so hot and flushed, I thought my cheeks would burn. Philip turned back to me, his face filled with fear and embarrassment. What had happened to the strong, confident look he had worn so often back at school? He looked so feeble and weak. He gazed after Grandmother and then back at me.

"I . . . I'm sorry. I'd better get going," he stammered.

"Philip!" I cried, but he lunged up the remaining steps and rushed off.

I took a deep breath and continued up the stairs. A heavy-looking, bruised gray cloud slipped over the warm afternoon sun, putting a chill in my heart.

Clara Sue smiled smugly at me from the receptionist's desk as I walked through the lobby toward Grandmother Cutler's office. She was obviously still jealous and upset by the way Father and Mother had reacted to my playing the piano the other day, I thought, as well as to the crowd's applause for my singing at Grandmother Cutler's birthday party. I knocked on Grandmother's office door. I found her seated behind her desk, her back straight, her shoulders stiff, and her arms on the arms of the chair. She looked like a high court judge. I stood before her, a tight wire inside, stretched so taut I thought I might break and cry.

"Sit down," she commanded icily and nodded toward the chair before her desk. I slipped into it, clutching the arms tightly in my palms, and gazed nervously at her.

"Eugenia," she said, only moving her head slightly forward, "I'm going to ask you this just once. Just what is there between you and your brother?"

"Between us?"

"Don't force me to define every one of my words and speak unspeakable things," she snarled and then quickly relaxed again. "I know that when you were at Emerson Peabody, before Philip learned the truth of your identity, he fancied you one of his girlfriends, and you, understandably, were attracted to him. Did anything happen for which this family should feel shame?" she asked, raising her eyebrows inquisitively.

It was as if my heart stopped beating and waited for my mind to stop reeling. A gush of heat rushed up my stomach and over my breasts, circling my throat in a fiery ring that choked me. I felt feverish. At first my tongue refused to form words, but as the silence stretched and became uncomfortably thick, I vanquished my throat lumps and caught my breath.

"Absolutely nothing," I said with a voice so deep I hardly recognized it as my own. "What a horrible thing to ask!"

"It would be far more horrible if you had something to confess," she retorted. Her sharp, penetrating gaze rested on me with deep concentration.

"Philip is a healthy young man," she began, "and like all young men, he is not unlike a wild horse just finding his legs. I think you have the worldly experience to understand my point." She waited for me to acknowledge her, but I simply stared, my heart pounding, my teeth coming down on my lower lip. "And you are not without attractive feminine characteristics, the sort most men find irresistible," she added disdainfully. "Therefore," she concluded, "most of the responsibility for proper behavior will depend on you."

"We've done nothing wrong," I insisted, now unable to keep the tears that burned behind my eyelids from emerging.

"And that's the way I want to keep it," she replied, nodding. "I am forbidding you from this day forward to spend any time alone with him, do you hear? You are not to go into any hotel rooms by yourselves or invite him into your room without a third party present."

"That's not fair. We're being punished when we haven't done anything wrong."

"It's for preventative purposes," she said and in a little more reasonable tone added, "until you are both able to conduct yourselves more like a normal brother and sister. You must keep in mind how unusual the circumstances have been and are. I know what's best."

"You know what's best? Why do you know what's best for everyone else? You can't tell everyone how to live, how to act, even when to speak to each other," I stormed, my anger now rising like an awakened giant. "I won't listen to you."

"You will only make things more difficult for yourself and for Philip," she threatened.

I gazed about the room frantically and wondered where were my mother and my father? Why wasn't at least my father here to participate in this discussion?

Were they merely puppets? Did my grandmother pull their strings and run their lives, too?

"Now, then," she said, shifting herself in the seat and shifting her tone of voice as if the issue had been settled, "I have given you sufficient time to adjust yourself to your new surroundings and your new responsibilities, yet you persist in hanging on to some of your old ways."

"What old ways?"

She leaned forward and uncovered something on her desk.

"That silly name, for one," she said. "You have succeeded in confusing my staff. This nonsense has got to end. Most girls who had lived the kind of hand to mouth existence you were forced to live would be more than grateful for all you have now. I want to see some signs of that gratitude. One way you can do that is to wear this on your uniform; it's something most of my staff does anyway."

"What is it?" I leaned forward, and she turned the nameplate toward me. It was a tiny brass plaque with EUGENIA written boldly in black. Instantly my heart became a thumping heavy lead drum in my chest. My cheeks became so inflamed, it felt as if my skin were on fire. All I could think was that she was trying to brand me, to make me a conquest, a possession, to prove to everyone in the hotel that she would have her way whenever she wanted.

"I'll never wear that," I said defiantly. "I'd rather be sent to live with some foster family."

She shook her head and pulled the corners of her mouth in as if I were some pitiful creature.

"You'll wear it; you won't go live with any foster family, though goodness knows, I would gladly send you if I thought that would end the turmoil.

"I was hoping that by now you had seen that this is your life and that you should live according to the rules set down for you. I was hoping that in time you would somehow fit in here and become part of this distinguished family. Because of your squalid background and upbringing, I see now that you will not fit in as quickly as I'd wished—particularly since despite some qualities and talents to recommend you, you cling to your wild and unrefined ways."

"I'll never change my name," I said resolutely. She glared at me and nodded.

"Very well. You are to return to your room and remain there until you change your mind and agree to put this nameplate on your uniform. Until then you will not report to work and you will not go to the kitchen to eat. No one will bring you anything to eat, either."

"My father and mother won't let you do this," I said. That made her smile. "They won't!" I cried through my tears. "They like me; they want us to be a family," I bawled. The hot drops streaked down my face.

"Of course we will be a family; we are a family, a distinguished family, but in order for you to become part of it, you must cast off your disgraceful past.

"Now, after you put on your nameplate and accept your birthright—"

"I won't." I ground the tears out of my eyes with my fists and shook my head. "I won't," I whispered. She ignored me.

"After you put on your nameplate," she repeated, hissing through clenched teeth, "you will return to your duties." She stopped talking and scrutinized me. "We'll see," she said with such cold confidence, it made my knees shake. "Everyone in the hotel will know you are being insubordinate," she added. "No one will talk to you or be friendly until you conform. You can save yourself and everyone else a great deal of grief, Eugenia." She held out the nameplate. I shook my head.

"My father won't let you do this," I said, half in prayer.

"Your father," she said with such vehemence it widened my eyes. "That's another problem you cling to stubbornly. You have learned what terrible things Ormand Longchamp has done, and yet you want to remain in contact with him." I looked up sharply. She sat back and opened her desk drawer to take out the letter I had written to Daddy and had given to my father to send. My heart jumped and then plunged. How could my father have given it to her—I'd told him how important it was to me. Oh, was there no one I could trust in this hateful place?

"I forbid you to communicate with this man, this child stealer." She tossed the letter across her desk. "Take this and yourself back to your room. Don't even come out to eat. When you are ready to become part of this family, this hotel, and this great heritage, return and ask for your nameplate. I don't want to set eyes on you again until you do that. You're excused," she said and turned to some papers on her desk.

For a long moment my legs wouldn't respond to my command to stand. I felt paralyzed in the chair. Her strength seemed so formidable. How could I hope to defeat such a person? She ruled the hotel and the family like a queen, and I, still the most lowly family member, had been returned to her kingdom, in many ways more of a prisoner than Daddy, who was in jail.

I rose slowly, my legs shaking. I wanted to run out of her office and charge out of the hotel, but where would I run to? Where would I go? Who would take me in? I never knew any of Daddy or Momma's relatives in Georgia, and they, as far as I knew, never even heard of me or Jimmy or Fern. If I just ran off, Grandmother would send the police after me, I thought. Or maybe she wouldn't; maybe she would be glad. Still, she couldn't help but inform the police, and a girl like me in a strange place would soon be found and returned.

Everyone would consider me the ungrateful one, too, the unwashed wild thing who had to be trained, broken, and forced to be a young lady. Grandmother would look like the abused yet loving matriarch of the family. No one would want anything to do with me until I obeyed her and changed into what she wanted me to be.

I started out of her office, my head down. Who could I turn to?

Never did I miss Jimmy more than I did at this moment. I missed the way he narrowed his eyes when he gave something deep thought. I missed the confident smile he had when he was sure what he was saying was right. I missed the warmth in his dark eyes when he looked at me lovingly. I remembered the way he promised to always be there whenever I needed him, and how he swore he would always protect me. How I missed the security that came from the feeling that he was nearby watching over me.

I opened the office door and without looking back walked out. The hotel lobby was growing crowded. People were coming in from their afternoon activities. Many milled about talking excitedly. I saw some children and teenagers standing with their parents. Like all of the guests, they were well dressed, happy, affluent-looking people. Everyone was bubbly and cheerful. They were enjoying their holiday together. For a moment I stood there and looked longingly and enviously at these happy families. Why were they so lucky? What had they done to be born into that sort of world, and what had I done to be tossed and turned about in a storm of confusion: mothers and fathers who were not real parents, brothers and sisters who were not real brothers and sisters.

And a grandmother who was a tyrant.

With my head down I walked through the lobby and did the only thing that I could do: return to my room, which had now become my prison. But I was determined. I would rather die than give up my name, even though it was a lie.