Chapter 3 – ANNA
3
ANNA
W hen someone knocked at my bedroom door the next morning, I squeezed my eyes tighter shut beneath the covers. My exhaustion-addled body had mostly recovered from the trip but my mind still craved silence and darkness. Solitude.
The door creaked as it opened, showing just how little use this room had while I’d been away. Dad wouldn’t tolerate a creaking hinge in his home for long.
“Anna?”
My eyes shot open and I tossed the covers off, pushing myself up. The last time I heard her voice she was telling me I was lucky I got her nose and not my father’s. Always preoccupied with meaningless things. The material. The objective.
“Mom?”
My mother stood in the doorway of my room holding a tray.
Her lips twitched up into something close to a smile as she strode into the room.
“Hello, darling,” she said, setting the tray down over my knees. “You look terrible.”
I laughed. Of course that would be the first thing she said to me after all this time. But my laughter morphed to tears, washing the bitter edge to our reunion away. I slipped the tray from my lap and kicked my way out of the covers, putting my arms around her.
She looked the same somehow. Still the glamorous middle-aged woman that I left behind, with maybe just a few more units of Botox and filler. Despite the unnatural tautness of her skin and the several layers of makeup, she actually looked better if that were possible. Not in the objective sense, but somehow deeper.
Her green eyes glowed bright and she looked dignified in her cream slacks and ivory blouse; the combination was her version of a casual at-home look. She looked alive. More or less alert.
When I’d left, I didn’t say goodbye to her. She was at her worst then, with the pills and the booze. I doubted she’d have been present enough to even understand me. She would’ve said what she always did when I spoke. That’s nice, darling, and sent me off with a pat on the back.
Her marriage to my father was miserable. She came from a rich, property-owning family so the natural next step was to marry into a rich political one, true love and happiness be damned. I’d always been taken care of by housekeepers and nannies, my mom only poking her head into my life whenever she surfaced from her stupor. And even then usually only to point out some flaw or tell me I should listen to my father.
Was she off the meds? I hoped so. She brushed my hair back and pulled a couple tissues out of the box on my vanity, handing them to me.
“When did Dad tell you?” I asked, dabbing my eyes before giving my nose a quick blow.
Her lips pulled into a tight-lipped false smile and she turned from me to throw open the light-blocking curtains, making me hiss as too-bright, likely afternoon, sunlight filled my room, burning out my corneas.
“Just this morning,” she replied, coming back to perch on the edge of my bed with nothing less than perfect posture.
The way she said it made it clear she was wondering how long he’d kept the information from her. But she didn’t ask. She wouldn’t.
“I didn’t believe him at first. I wouldn’t unless I saw you myself.”
“And now that you have?”
Her unusually thoughtful green eyes analyzed me. She didn’t say anything about the bruises yet, even though I knew she could see them, especially now in the light.
“An explanation would be nice.”
It wasn’t like we ever had what a normal person might call a strong relationship. But, even taking that into account, I felt I owed it to them to give them something. They were fully within their rights to turn me away, but they didn’t. Mom just brought me breakfast in bed. Never in the seventeen years before I left had she done that. Not once. Not even for a birthday. Not even when I was sick.
“Okay,” I answered tentatively. “What do you want to know? It’s not exactly an enthralling story. I worked. I lived in a mediocre apartment. Had a couple of shitty boyfriends…”
Shitty was putting it nicely. Her gaze fell to the bruises along my collar.
I swallowed.
Don’t ask.
Please don’t ask.
I wasn’t ready to talk about it. Just having her look at what that asshole did to me was pushing back to the verge of tears. Making my stomach feel hollow and chest hot and my fists twist into the plush blankets.
“You can talk to me about it when you’re ready. I know you’ve been through… some trouble recently. Rest. Have some breakfast.”
Some trouble?
I knew that tone. I knew those words. We can talk about it later was always Mom’s go-to. Later always meant never. Back then, it hurt. Now, I was grateful for her complete inability to talk about anything even remotely upsetting.
“Thanks, Mom.”
She patted my knee, gesturing to the tray again. “Eat,” she commanded. “Before it gets cold.”
I hadn’t been hungry when she walked in, but my stomach grumbled as I pulled the tray back onto my lap. There was a plate of fresh fruit, a few strips of crisp bacon, a short stack of mini pancakes, and a selection of other pastries with orange juice and a latte.
“Am I interrupting something?”
My father lurked in the doorway like the oppressive shadow he was, giving my mother a look that might sour the milk in my latte.
Mom stood up, brushing down the front of her slacks. “Nothing at all, dear. I just came to bring our Anna some food.”
My fingers twitched with the childish urge to grab hold of my mom and beg her to stay. I wasn’t ready for the Hudson Vaughn experience.
He nodded to his wife as if they were business partners passing one another in a hallway, entering my room without invitation as she excused herself. Some things would never change. Like my parents’ inability to be in the same room together for more than a few minutes unless it was for the purposes of publicity, putting on a front, or consuming a meal in utter silence.
Mom threw me her best impression of an encouraging smile before she vanished from view.
Hudson Vaughn held a garment bag over his shoulder which he dropped onto the bed near my feet.
“What’s that?”
“It’s a dress. We have a gala this weekend.”
We? I was already expected to be part of ‘we’ again?
“I suggest we take some time to get your story straight. People are going to want to know what Malawi was like.”
“Wait, if it’s this weekend, why are you giving it to me now?”
His stare could’ve withered all the roses in the gardens. It was the same look he gave me when he found out what—or more accurately who —I used to do on the beach every time he found my bed empty in the middle of the night.
“So that we can get it tailored if it doesn’t fit properly,” he said as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. “For the past six years, everybody who knows us believes that you have been in Malawi building sustainable housing in rural settlements. Now that you’re back, you need to be formally re-introduced to society. To your old friends.”
They were not my friends. If anything, they were his. Friends was a little generous of a term for the people who were at best, his colleagues, donors, and acquaintances. Or their offspring.
“The tailor will be here this afternoon to make any adjustments needed. In the meantime, you have a hair appointment at eleven.”
“A what?” I asked, brushing croissant flakes off my lips, hating that it was the best thing I’d eaten in weeks.
He looked at the crumbs on the sheets like they personally offended him. I took another, messier bite, letting more crumbs fall to join their comrades on the Egyptian cotton.
He cleared his throat, but the tightness in his jaw kicked up a notch, and I knew I was already striking more than a few nerves.
“You need to look like Hudson Vaughn’s daughter,” he said in a tone that brokered no room for argument, speaking about himself in the third person like a total jackass. “You represent me and this family. We have a reputation to uphold.”
He straightened his tie. “At least everyone thinks you were roughing it in rural Africa so your current appearance won’t come as too much of a shock to anyone.”
Wow. Thanks, Dad.
Everything in his life…engineered to perfection. As always.
He made up the charity-mission-in-Africa story because the truth would show his constituents that his perfect family-man image was faker than the porcelain veneers in his mouth.
“Aren’t you at least going to give me a couple of days to settle in?” I asked, sarcastic, provoking his brows to slant sharply.
“You showed up out of the blue after six years of running away from us,” he said. “We had no idea whether you were alive or dead.”
“Would it have made a difference?”
“Drop the defiant teenager act. You’re a grown woman now, Anna. Act like it. You’re back because you finally learned that the real world isn’t as forgiving as me and your mother are.”
I pressed my lips together against a scathing reply. It hurt mostly because he was right.
The world outside these walls, outside this city, and without the protection a life with my family afforded, had been nothing like I imagined it would be. I’d been free in so many ways, but somehow I always found my way back into a cage.
I had to remind myself there were good things about my life away from here. I liked my job for the most part. Until Josh and I moved in together, I had a cute studio apartment filled with plants I could never keep alive and things I liked. I had a few friends, well, if you could call the barista at the local Drip and the doorman friends .
It wasn’t perfect, but until Josh, it was something that was mine.
When my father realized I wasn’t going to give him the confirmation or gratitude he was looking for, he continued. “That doesn’t matter now. Your life since you left us until this moment doesn’t matter. What matters is you’re here now. And if you intend to stay a member of the Vaughn family, you have to look the part.”
He took something out of his pocket and handed it to me: a glossy, metallic credit card. “Ask your mother who does her beauty treatments. You’re looking a little tired. Skinny, too. Eat that before you leave for your appointment.” He pointed at the food.
Do this. Do that. Be quiet. Be perfect.
Home sweet fucking home.
A longing for my studio apartment in a city far away hit me like a brick. He was already squeezing me back into the Anna Vaughn-shaped box that he made for me, and I didn’t get to have this one tailored. I was halfway through a chocolate Danish, but I lost my appetite, dropping it back onto the plate while I brushed my fingers together, scattering more bits of pastry over the bed.
“Was there something else?” I asked when he didn’t move to leave, watching me make a mess with barely concealed disgust.
“Yes. Be back by three for the fitting. Saturday, I’ll re-introduce my daughter, Anna Vaughn—” He pauses and I wondered how long he’d known I hadn’t gone by that name. If he perhaps did know the name I went by and could’ve found me whenever he pleased. It would make sense. I was careful not to be found, but I always wondered why no images of me ever surfaced anywhere on the internet, not ever. And how no one ever found out I wasn’t in Malawi.
Damn. He was even more cold than I realized.
“My daughter, Anna, who is back home and ready for the next phase in her life. Law School.”
My mouth fell open. “Not this again, Dad.”
“If you don’t like it you’re welcome to go back to wherever you came from. I don’t suppose you used your time away to get any other sort of reputable degree?”
I clamped my mouth shut.
He snorted, the words I didn’t think so practically written all over his face. “David is waiting downstairs to take you to your appointment.”
He turned to the door, stopped, and turned around again.
“Dr. Brandt will come by this evening,” he added.
I took a slow, deep sip of my latte. Dr. Brandt was the go-to concierge physician for rich people with something to hide. Anyone who needed a Xanax prescription or to get their teenage daughter an abortion called him.
I didn’t need either, but I knew I wasn’t a picture of health and wellness.
This was as close to tenderness as my father got. He cared that something happened to me, but he cared more that we were going to be seen in public together, and he needed to make sure I looked good.
“I trust the problem you encountered in St. Louis won’t be following you home?”
My mouth went dry.
“No.”
“Good.”
I watched his retreating back until he disappeared, standing up on shaking legs to pick up the garment bag and walk it to my closet, sticking it on an empty spot on one of the dress racks. I unzipped the top part to peek inside. It was a lilac, floor-length gown with long sleeves and a low back. Very elegant, but not me at all. My mom insisted the color suited me and dressed me in it often, but I always thought I looked better in warmer or richer hues.
For half a second, I wondered what would have happened if I’d stayed here. If I tried harder to be perfect. Memories of my mother’s empty wine and champagne bottles every brunch and dinner came to mind. It didn’t matter if I tried harder because it was impossible.
There would always be a higher tier to try to attain, just out of reach.
I wasn’t staying here a second longer than I needed to once I figured out my next move. And that move was sure as shit not law school.
Checking my phone, there were some messages from a number I didn’t recognize. I tapped the first one.
Unknown: You blocked me? Grow up.
I didn’t read the rest, blocking that number too.
I changed into a black, long-sleeved blouse and straight-leg jeans from the Hudson Vaughn approved wardrobe, making sure my splotchy neck and arms were covered in a gauzy Burberry scarf before heading downstairs to the waiting car.
So many things had changed in a landscape once so familiar. Somehow it was a comfort to know that I wasn’t the only thing that didn’t remain constant here. Not everything was structured. Boring. Restricting.
There was only one thing in my life that felt real in that terrifyingly uncertain way.
…meeting Carter was more than just a breath of fresh air, it was finally breathing.
I picked my fingernails, annoyed at how he kept pressing his way into my thoughts. Embarrassing, really. I would bet a good chunk of change he hadn’t even thought about me once since we last met. Between all those European women he was photographed with at business events and galas, how would he even find the time?
David dropped me off and said he would wait for me. I resented that being my father’s daughter came with those perks, as much as I was grateful for them. I walked into the salon and went to the desk, telling the receptionist I had an appointment.
“What name is that under?”
“Vaughn. Hudson maybe. Or Annie. I mean Anna ,” I corrected quickly. Annie Taylor was Josh’s girlfriend who lived in St. Louis. I was Anna Vaughn.
I am Anna Vaughn.
“Oh my God, Anna?”
I turned around, hearing my name. It must have come from the woman who was looking expectantly at me with a smile on her face. She was familiar, but in the way that you knew the melody of a song but none of the lyrics.
“Summer?” I tried, recognizing something in the shape of her nose and the set of her eyes. She laughed excitedly.
“Oh my God, it is you. When did you come back to town? How long has it been?”
I couldn’t answer any of her questions before she engulfed me in a hug.
“I’m sorry. I literally got back yesterday.”
“It’s been way too long. Are you busy today?”
My kneejerk reaction was to tell her fuck yes I was busy from now until Forevuary, but the daughter of Hudson Vaughn wouldn’t be so rude.
“Um, not this afternoon,” I said, choking on the sweetness of my tone. “But if you’re free for dinner, I might?—”
“Perfect!”
Her animated excitement made me feel like a total asshole, especially when my sluggish mind began to fill in the antiquated memories. The feel of our old friendship.
Summer Rockwell. We’d gone to the same private secondary school. We were the kind of friends who were close until it was time to graduate. At first, she seemed so different but the more that I looked at her, the more I saw the girl I went to school with. Her hair was short now, freshly blown out. It suited her heart-shaped face well. She was a saint for not mentioning how bad I looked.
But then, she’d always been that way. Kind and sweet and excited about everything. Never noticing anyone’s flaws. It was why I liked her so much. And also why I never really ‘clicked’ with her even though we spent years lunching and getting our nails done and watching the boys’ rugby tournaments after school.
If I was a dark storm cloud personified, she was the sun, and I could use a little more of that right now.
We exchanged numbers and I went to my stylist’s chair, feeling lighter, her effervescent energy floating me up along with her.
I reminded myself that my father and memories of Carter weren’t the only things I was coming home to. There were some people in my life who weren’t terrible, Rosie being one, and there was the ocean and the beach.
There was the opportunity for a fresh start. A clean state. No matter what Daddy dearest said, nothing had to be the exact same as it was before… starting with the disaster on my head.
The stylist let me sit and threw the apron over me before getting a good look at my hair.
“So what are we doing with this mop, doll?”
I almost wanted to apologize to her. My hair was dry and frizzy. When I left, I got the bright idea to dye it lighter to disguise myself which had only damaged it. And with my life imploding over the last couple months, I hadn’t bothered to try to tone the soft beige strands so they were brassy now, my natural color stretching an inch or two from my scalp.
“Darker, I think.”
Truth be told, I didn’t have enough energy to come up with anything more than that.
“Yeah?” she said, running her fingers through the hair at my crown. “Back to your natural, maybe? Looks like it could use a break from all the lightening.”
I must’ve made a face because she amended. “How about something in between? A nice rich balayage that will grow out with grace while your hair heals?”
“Sounds perfect.”