Chapter 11
FOURTEEN YEARS LEFT
The whole wedding was a performance.
Under Clayton’s direction, Phoebe made a white dress with an enormous fluffy skirt and lace sleeves. Grand but traditional, it was a dress conceived for a broad audience and uglier than homemade sin.
At least Phoebe and I got to be creative with the hair—she sewed about fifty small silk daisies into my best wig. I looked like a fairy princess being married off to the human world.
When Clayton and I said our vows, Hess was only a few feet away, standing in a pink taffeta bridesmaid dress. I felt her presence burning behind me the entire time. Afterward, she stayed by my side, performing her maid of honor duties and keeping my champagne coupe filled.
I barely saw Clayton. When we weren’t posing for pictures and greeting reporters, he was mingling with the partygoers.
Nearly the entire guest list were his people.
My group was small but mighty with Hess, Phoebe, Martha, Tima, Mom, and Darlene.
All of these women who’d become like family to me in less than a year.
After it was over, Clayton and I got into his Cadillac and drove away from the church with tin cans bouncing from the bumper. The quiet wasn’t a silence between us; we were both lost in our own thoughts.
We passed through an ornate metal gate and snaked up a long drive until a house like a palace revealed itself, shining on the hill. It was the grandest thing I’d ever seen.
He politely opened the front door for me, and I stood in the cavernous dark hall alone while he checked in on his mother.
I was afraid to touch anything, and I worried I’d made a big mistake.
Here was yet another space where I would have to creep around, an intruder in my own life, like I’d done as a child and when I’d first arrived at Mom’s.
When he came back, he gave me the full tour.
Living rooms, sitting rooms, dining rooms, all filled with pristine, unused furniture.
More an idea of a house than a place for real living.
In the kitchen he told me the cook would arrive in the morning and fix my breakfast. I could tell her my food preferences when we met.
I’d spent my whole life eating what was given to me or what could be scavenged, and I wondered what I should say. There was so much I wanted to try.
We finally came upon a door he indicated as my “wing.” Behind it was a modern but feminine sitting room with brand-new furniture arranged like a magazine photo.
A set of glass doors led out to a terrace overlooking the pool in the backyard.
He showed me a small spiral staircase looping down to the ground floor.
Leading off the sitting room was an enormous bedroom decorated in the same style. I had my own bathroom with a marble tub and a vanity with a gold stool. And then, there was the closet. It was its own little room filled with dresses, hats, shoes, purses, and God knows what else.
I was truly speechless. All I had in my suitcase were the few dresses Phoebe had made me and a ratty nightgown.
He watched me closely, searching for a reaction.
“Honest to God, I don’t know what to say.”
“That’s a first.” He smiled at me. I wanted to give him a hug, but I didn’t know if that was okay without the cameras around. We were in such strange territory.
“Can I give you a hug? It’s okay if you don’t want me to. I ain’t sure how to be a fake wife.”
He laughed and motioned at me with his arms, and I wrapped myself around his warm chest. He was about a foot taller than me, and his shirt smelled like wood shavings. It was comforting, being with him. I felt safe.
“Thank you.”
“It’s my pleasure, Miss Belle.”
I saw a phone on my bedside table, and I ran my finger along its smooth edge.
“That’s your private line. With its own number. No one will be able to listen.”
I knew who I wanted to call.
“I’ll let you get settled in. Good night.”
I was wigless and stripped down in the bath when I heard footsteps outside the bathroom. The door opened, and Hess tiptoed in as if we were back at Mom’s and someone could catch us.
“Did you see that closet? Lord have mercy!” She grinned at me.
She looked as if she’d run here, still in her bridesmaid heels, like a Greek warrior delivering a message. She glowed.
I held my bubble-covered arms out to her. She quickly took her clothes off and got in at the other side of the tub, sloshing foamy water onto the floor. I turned around and lay back against her chest. We both looked out over the gleaming surfaces of the bathroom.
I knew she was used to nice things, but it was as if she could feel it for me, the awe of it. The soft, fluffy security of this new life. Mom’s had been a wonderful place, but I’d never had any privacy, and I never forgot its precarious nature. If I didn’t make rent, I didn’t get to stay.
With Hess there, wrapped around my body, it felt more real. Everything always felt better and more real when she was there to witness it with me.
Her fingers slipped from my chest down my belly and stroked gently beneath the suds where I couldn’t see them. A heat flared, warming the water to boiling, and she continued to stroke. That slick, erotic place was easy to find in the water, as if we were made to make love under the sea.
Afterward, we got out and put our hair up in plush towels and put on the two robes that hung in the bathroom. I was a little sick from all the champagne and the surprise of the room and the heady bathtub plunge. I was wrung out.
We climbed into the enormous bed with its thick floral blanket and mound of small, silly pillows matching the wallpaper. We tossed the pillows onto the floor and snuggled under the sheets with our hair still wet against the cotton.
Then Hess wrapped herself around me, and we slept curled and wet-headed, like two mermaids floating in the ocean on their wedding night.