CHAPTER SIX

From the way Ava described me to her hairdresser, Renae, when we entered the salon, someone would think I had just arrived from a hidden corner in Tibet or some other place where salons, hair conditioners, shampoos, and nail polish had never been seen, not to mention running water. Anyone listening looked like she would think it was a sin not to have gone to a beauty salon to have your hair and nails done. A little panic seized me. Would Ava’s descriptions lead everyone to ask personal questions that would lead me to contradictions? I tried keeping my eyes down and not looking at anyone else in the salon.

Renae did say my hair needed a lot of preparation. It was dry and stringy with split ends. Fortunately, she avoided saying “dirty,” which surely would have brought a parade of questions for Ava with negative connotations. Who did you say this girl was? Where is she from? Parents? Derick had a sister?

Maybe most, if not all, were afraid of her. No one asked anything like that. Both Renae and Ava stood back and studied me as they flipped through pictures of hairstyles. All other eyes were on them, too. Every once in a while, they’d pause on one page, and Renae would bring the picture up beside my face.

This one emphasized my eyes too much to the detriment of all my other fine features; this one exaggerated my jawbone and distorted my otherwise good looks. It was taking so long that I thought they wouldn’t find any that worked, and they’d give up and just have my hair washed and brushed. I was almost hoping that would be so.

Suddenly, they both agreed on one.

“Which one is it?” I asked. The whole salon was waiting to hear and see, but Ava didn’t tell anyone anything.

“Relax. Just leave it up to Renae,” she told me. “Better it’s a surprise.”

Renae’s ebony eyes brightened with excitement. Someone would think she was really re-creating me. Moments later, she was washing my hair as vigorously as she would if it was crusted with soot. I thought she’d make me bald. After she blow-dried it, the manicurist started on my nails while Renae began snipping and brushing. To me it felt like she was taking an ax to it. Gobs fell. With both the manicurist and Renae at me, I was afraid to move, practically to breathe. Ava stood in the background, thumbing through fashion magazines and occasionally looking at me and nodding at the progress. I watched in the mirror as if I was looking at someone else on television. Gradually, the hairstyle took shape.

“What do you call this?” I asked. I think the sound of my voice surprised both the manicurist and Renae. Until then, I was more like a seated statue, a mannequin, something used for training hairdressers.

“It’s the new bob,” Renae said. “As you see, you have a voluminous crown and a neat nape. I’m working on elongated wedges now.”

As Mazy might say, that was Greek to me. But it did seem like my face was changing, too. My eyes looked bigger and my lips softer, fuller. I glanced at my nails after they had been neatly trimmed and cleaned. Ava had chosen the color, which the manicurist agreed was the best match for my complexion, Sandy Nude. She would do the same for my toenails.

My whole look was altering, but it occurred to me that I shouldn’t be surprised. I was becoming a different person in so many ways. Why not look different, too? It was almost supernatural, slipping into a new persona in a new family in a new world. Even my memories had to change, of course. Past feelings were to be forgotten or at least put into storage.

For the last five years, I had spent most of my life in one house, seeing the world through Mazy’s eyes. She had shaped my opinions of almost everything, including myself. Now cutting and washing my hair, buying me new clothes, and enrolling me in a new school was a new leg of the journey taking me away from the person I thought I was and creating someone I had yet to know myself. Was I happy to be here? Did I like all this and want all that was promised? Indecision married to fear made me so vulnerable, so helpless. With all that had happened to me and the little I came with, what else could I be but clay to be formed by both Ava and my father?

Suddenly, a really frightening thought occurred. I wondered, when my hair was completely shaped and the features of my face highlighted, would Ava look at me and instantly realize that I could be no other than Derick Anders’s daughter? Would my true identity jump out at her? I was feeling so naked now, even with the shadows lifted away. What would I say if she made the accusation?

Even the most successful and efficient liars crumbled when they were confronted abruptly with the truth.

However, nothing like that happened. When everything had been completed, all the other customers and other hairstylists congratulated Ava as if she were Pygmalion bringing a statue to life. Apparently, to them, I hadn’t had much of an identity when I stepped into this salon anyway. Clearly implied was that before all this, I was so plain, so ordinary, that I was no better than someone carved poorly in stone, a resting place for birds. People would have passed me by, barely noticing I was there. Now I had been touched by the good fairy’s wand. How could I be anything but grateful?

Everyone interpreted the look on my face as I gazed at myself to be a look of pleased wonder. Some laughed at my surprise. Others wished they had my raw material. I listened to them and looked at them poke and paw at themselves as they gazed longingly into mirrors. I realized that the pool of jealousy in beauty salons could drown you.

Sandwiches and drinks had been brought in while Renae brushed and trimmed my hair, but I couldn’t eat or drink while they worked on me. Ava handed me a sandwich and a bottle of water as I stepped away from the chair.

“You can munch on this on the way to school,” she said. “I want to get you set at school today. There’s no time to go to a restaurant with me still having time for some of my own errands.”

She shoved it at me, and we left the salon. Even though it had taken hours, it all seemed fast to me. I was happy we weren’t going to a restaurant, where the menu would convert to another list of questions, another interrogation. I had been so nervous that now I didn’t have much of an appetite anyway.

When we got into her car, she paused and then looked at me, sitting there, staring ahead. I hadn’t even unwrapped the sandwich.

“I’ll take your silence to be a result of the shock at how good you look and not your dissatisfaction. Am I correct?”

“Yes,” I said, although there was far more to it that she must never know.

She smiled and nodded, the look of self-satisfaction rippling through her face.

“Your mother must have been an attractive woman. I venture to guess you look more like her than you do your ghost of a father?”

“I couldn’t tell you. I didn’t even have a picture of him, and neither did my mother,” I said. It had the effect of damming up what I was sure would be a sea of potential questions about my father and his family, each another threat to this fiction Daddy and I were creating.

“Didn’t your mother ever talk about him?”

“Not pleasantly, so I didn’t ask questions.”

“Did the other children at school tease you about not having a father?”

“No. Most were too interested in themselves to care about me,” I said. “And there were plenty of children who had divorced parents. Most had only a mother; some had only a father. I used to pretend that was me, too. My parents were divorced. It felt better than having a father who didn’t want anything to do with you. It’s painful to think of your father as someone who never had or has you in his thoughts now. I could meet him on a street and not know it, and vice versa. And you know what? I’d love that. I’d love to walk right past him, realize who he was, and then turn and call to him. ‘Hey, Daddy,’ I’d say. ‘Hi.’ I’d just want to see the expression on his face.”

She looked at me as if some power had put everything on pause, our movements and our breath, and then she burst into a laugh that nearly brought tears to her eyes. I had to smile. It was a relief to hear it, even though I had no clue why she was laughing so hard. She was quiet for a long moment afterward, deciding what to tell me, I thought. She nodded like someone answering herself.

“You remind me more of myself at your age than Karen does,” she revealed. “You and I grew up in different worlds, but we might have been shaped by similar demons. Mine must remain buried. I’m jealous of your honesty. It’s refreshing, hopeful. Don’t lose it.”

Honesty? Hopeful? I thought, surprised. I’m being anything but honest. Was I really that good of a liar? Daddy would be proud. And then I realized how incredibly crazy that sounded. What father would take pride in his daughter’s ability to be false? And what were Ava’s demons? Of course, I was too terrified to ask. Once you ask someone else questions, you give her permission to ask you endless questions.

“However…” She paused and looked at me. “Although we don’t know each other that well yet, I will give you some advice. You’re about to be enrolled in a school I venture to say will be quite unlike the ones you’ve attended. All the other students here come from well-to-do families. It’s like too much cream in your coffee. For the first few days, even weeks, I advise you to keep your opinions to yourself, especially about any of the other girls. Just listen and be as neutral as you can be. Put honesty on the back burner for now. At least, until you feel more secure, and at this stage in your life, that’s the most important thing. Sometimes it takes a lifetime to realize how to best juggle your need for the truth.”

When I had entered Hurley’s public school, Mazy had given me similar advice about being too honest. “Everyone,” she had said, “likes to be lied to about themselves, even if they know that what you’re saying is completely false.”

“You’ll discover soon that many of Karen’s friends are quite superficial,” Ava said now. “We’re an important family in this town, and I ascribe most if not all her friends and invitations to that. You don’t snub a Saddlebrook. My family’s tentacles, my father’s, I should say, pierce and poke just about every business in this community, one way or another. As I told you earlier, he spoils Karen, and she knows how to take advantage of that. He’s taught her well, despite me. Karen can be a bully, just like her grandfather can be. Understand?”

“I’ve read Charles Dickens and Jane Austen novels,” I said. “I know how families can damage themselves and how powerful people can get away with almost anything.”

Ava looked at me with surprise again.

“I wouldn’t have thought someone who lived the life you’ve lived would be as studious as you appear to be,” she said. It was the first hint of suspicion and sounded a little too much like an accusation. I was really afraid to speak or explain, but I thought it through carefully as I spoke.

“I wasn’t able to become that sociable with other girls at school, and I wasn’t up to hanging out in malls or something, so I spent my time reading. It was just a way…”

“Just a way?”

“Out. Escape,” I said.

She widened her eyes. I could see that she liked that. I breathed relief. How many times would I be in a little crisis like this, and how many times would I make as clever an escape?

“We’ll have more talks like this,” she promised. Then she nodded. “That’s the elementary and high schools just ahead.”

It was time now for my eyes to pop. It appeared more like someone’s estate. This was no official, government-looking building with the usual austere front. Although it was already mid-October, it was warmer than usual. Leaves had not changed colors, and the grass was still rich green, even greener than it was at my father and Ava’s home. Sprawled over beautiful grounds with an enormous front lawn, recently mowed, was an enormous classic building with dark-green vines growing around the front windows of what was obviously the main building. Added-on connecting structures led to an adjoining smaller building on the right with the title “Administrative Offices” over the arched front door and to what looked on the left like more classrooms and then a glass-enclosed modern building, which Ava said was the gymnasium her father had built. She described the athletic fields behind the buildings but said the population of the school was too small for a football team. There was a girls’ and a boys’ basketball team. At the moment, only three groundskeepers were outside the building. I kept thinking this was too picturesque to be an elementary and high school. It was warm, attractive, and inviting.

Ava glanced at me and smiled. “Not like the schools you attended?”

“No. If it weren’t for the sign revealing what it is, I’d drive right by looking for a school.”

She nodded with obvious pride. “It was originally a billionaire’s estate,” Ava said. “My father was instrumental in getting it all for a private school. But believe me, he worked out ways for himself to claim big deductions by donating the property.”

She smiled.

“Rich people look out for each other more than poor people do. Less desperate. Sometimes they make money just to prove they can. Remember that. I’m not often as honest about my world.”

That didn’t amaze me, but I was thinking too hard about the school. It seemed to reek of privilege and wealth. To the right was a smaller parking lot clearly labeled for teachers and administrators only. The parking lot for everyone else was on the left side of the building and farther from any entrance. Ava went to the right and pulled into a space marked for the high school principal.

“It’s something of a secret that there are two reserved places for the principal,” she said, winking. She started to open the door and then stopped. “Oh. Your uncle was supposed to buy you school supplies with a backpack and leave it at the office for you. Hopefully, he didn’t forget. Lately, he’s been my absentminded professor. My father keeps him too busy.”

We got out and walked to the entrance of the administration building. Everything looked just built, polished and cleaned better than a hospital ward. The gray and black tile floor glistened, as did the dark-brown panel walls. The hallway had bright but warm lighting. But what struck me the most was how quiet it was. There were no sounds of students. Anyone blindfolded would never guess he or she was in a school, public or private.

We turned into the first door on the right, a double glass door that opened to a secretary busy on a computer at her half-moon, dark-cherry wood desk with a vase of mixed fresh flowers on the right corner. The moment she saw Ava, she nearly rose to attention. A plaque on her desk indicated that her name was Mrs. Hollingsworth and she was the principal’s secretary. She was gray-haired and matronly, like someone’s sixty-odd-year-old grandmother.

“Oh, Mrs. Anders, I have everything here for your niece,” she said, lifting a large manila envelope. “And her backpack is right here, too.”

“Where’s Dr. Stewart?” Ava asked with her characteristic tone of demand.

“Oh, she’s on the monthly tour of the facilities with the head custodian, Mr. Hull. She should return momentarily.”

“I have no time to wait for that,” Ava said. When something annoyed her, there was enough fury in her widened eyes to make the president shudder.

“Of course. I’ll let her know you’re here.” She reached for an intercom.

“That’s not necessary. My niece is far from an idiot. She’ll peruse the school packet and wait for Dr. Stewart. I assume my husband signed any required documents.”

“Oh, yes, yes. She’s ready to get started,” Mrs. Hollingsworth said, smiling at me. “You can sit right there, Saffron.” She nodded at the dark-brown leather settee on the right. There was a glass table in front of it with a half dozen pamphlets neatly displayed.

On the wall on the right was the portrait of a distinguished-looking elderly man with thick gray hair.

“Is that your father?” I asked, practically in a whisper.

“Actually, my grandfather. My father’s little joke,” she muttered.

“Huh?” I thought and uttered.

“Get your things,” Ava told me. I stepped to the desk, and Mrs. Hollingsworth handed me the packet and a gold foil backpack. A small nick on the strap revealed it was the same one, the one I had left in Hurley, the one my grandmother had bought me. Had my father gone there and fetched it? When? Had he had it sent to him? Why? Did he want me to feel more at home? Was that why he did it? Or did he want to be sure no one had discovered any connection to him in Mazy’s house? Did he want to convince anyone in authority that I had run off?

Whatever the reasons, wasn’t that dangerous? What else of mine had he brought back?

Concerned, I glanced nervously at Ava. Although it was quite unlikely she’d realize anything from looking at it, it still seemed somewhat risky to me for him to have done it.

“I don’t anticipate any problems, Mrs. Hollingsworth,” Ava said, “but you know how to reach me should you have any reason to.”

“Oh, of course. I’m sure all will go fine.”

Ava turned to me, deliberately speaking loudly and firmly enough for Mrs. Hollingsworth to hear.

“If anyone is capable of handling new challenges, I’m sure it’s you, Saffron. Compared to what you have endured, this should be child’s play. Good luck. Follow the rules, and remember my advice.”

She gave Mrs. Hollingsworth a look that would have resulted in a strike at any bowling alley and then walked out. Mrs. Hollingsworth offered me a fragile smile and sat. I went to the settee and opened the backpack to see if anything from the Hurley school was still inside. It had been completely emptied. I sighed with relief and began reading the information in the manila envelope, familiar rules and threats with an added full page on cleanliness and proper dress, specifically forbidding certain types of T-shirts, short skirts, and jackets with inscriptions and images. Any form of profanity or even a suggestion of it was practically a capital offense resulting in suspension, if not expulsion. Heavily emphasized between the rules and suggestions was the fact that it was costly to go here and there were no refunds if you were expelled.

I wondered what the tuition was and found a page with the numbers almost too tiny to read. Grades 9–12 cost $60,000 a year. The penalties for late payments were on a rising scale that quickly doubled the tuition.

I looked up when a tall, surprisingly attractive woman wearing a khaki two-button jacket and skirt entered. She had a white tie loosely tied over the white blouse beneath. I couldn’t imagine her to be older than her mid-thirties, if that. Her coffee-brown hair had been cut to fall in curls about her neck, no longer than the arch in her shoulders. She wasn’t an African American, but she was clearly not a white Anglo-Saxon. She had startling sapphire eyes, soft full lips, and a nose fit for a beauty queen. Maybe she had been one as a teenager. She was at least five foot ten or so, with narrow hips, a small waist, and a bosom in perfect proportion to the rest of her. She was the sort of woman people looked at and immediately thought movie star. Her smile at me seemed to brighten every perfect feature.

“You must be Saffron,” she said. There was something foreign in her accent. She spoke with the clarity and sharpness of what Mazy called “the King’s English,” but she didn’t seem British. She spoke more like Grace Kelly, the actress who did become a princess. Mazy and I used to watch her old movies together.

“Welcome.” Dr. Stewart extended her right hand. I thought she was wearing the same nail polish that had been put on me. Her fingers were long and thin but firmly took mine when I stood. “You look as frightened as I was my first day,” she added, widening her smile. Then she turned to Mrs. Hollingsworth and changed her expression so dramatically, it was scary. Rage seemed to flood up from her neck and into her face. Her voice deepened.

“Weren’t you supposed to follow up on Mr. Hull’s report about the hot water heater in the girls’ locker room, Mrs. Hollingsworth?”

“I did,” the secretary said, and started sifting through papers on her desk. “Yes. They were sending someone either yesterday or today.”

“Well, no one has come. Follow up again, but more sternly. I want someone here before the end of the day.”

“Yes, Dr. Stewart,” Mrs. Hollingsworth said, and pressed a button on her phone to get an outside line.

Dr. Stewart turned back to me, her warm smile returning.

“I know your schedule. You have advanced world history this hour. Mr. Leshner is your teacher. I’ll introduce you. I’ve assigned Melina Forest to be your ‘big sister’ for the remainder of the week. She shares every class with you and is one of my more responsible students. She’s anxious to help. Shall we?”

Melina Forest? That was the girl Karen didn’t like.

I picked up my book bag and the manila envelope.

“Why don’t you put your school pamphlet in your bag now?” she suggested. I did it quickly. “Your uncle told me a little about you,” she said as we walked out of the office. “I’ll schedule a meet-and-greet for us during one of your study periods, or perhaps we’ll have lunch together in my office and get to know each other better, okay?”

I nodded, amazed at the suggestion. Was it just for me? A member of Ava Saddlebrook Anders’s family?

“I have one with every student here. I like to know everything I can about my students, including their ambitions. You look a little surprised, but we have a relatively small high school population. I’d be remiss if I didn’t know as much as I can about my students. And they should know as much as is proper about me. Is that okay with you?”

For a moment, I couldn’t even nod. She was another adult to fool, to lie to, another pool of risk to swim through. I hoped, expected, Daddy would first tell me exactly what he had told her. Did he add any details? Surely she wouldn’t be easy to deceive.

“Yes,” I managed.

She laughed the sort of laugh that makes you want to like someone. She squeezed the top of my left arm gently.

“Don’t be so frightened,” she said. “You’re about to begin the best educational experience of your life. You’ll even get to regret weekends.”

She laughed again and then turned almost as serious as she had with Mrs. Hollingsworth.

“From the information your uncle has provided us, I can see that you’re a high achiever. I expect that here you’ll surpass everything you’ve achieved previously. I know my student body is a highly sociable one. Some are satisfied just gliding along, but from what your uncle has told me about you, about your challenges, I don’t expect you to be one of those.”

She leaned toward me as we left the administration building and entered the high school corridor.

“For most of these students, practically everything’s come easily, but I know that’s not true for you. What you don’t know is, it didn’t for me, either, despite how it might appear. That, I hope, will convince you to be honest with me. N’est-ce pas?”

I know my mouth fell open stupidly. She laughed again.

“Your uncle told me you knew some French.”

“No, I don’t. I mean, just some expressions I’ve read.”

“Nevertheless, Mr. Denning will be excited to have you in his French class,” she said.

We walked on.

Ava had to have called my father, maybe when we were in the beauty salon and I was too occupied to notice, and told him about my tiny exchange with Celisse.

Was every word I said at the house recorded? How would I be able to keep track of every little detail that came from my lips? I felt as if some power larger than us all had put a great magnifying glass over me.

When Dr. Stewart opened the classroom door, it was as if everyone inside froze; even the words in the air stopped dead. It was unexpected to see so beautiful a woman as Dr. Stewart command so much obvious fear. Now that I saw what I would call her power, the prospect of having heart-to-heart, honest talks with her was more daunting.

Daddy, Daddy, a little voice inside was crying, what are you doing to me?

Dr. Stewart introduced me to the class of nine, but from the looks on their faces, she didn’t have to bother. Karen, I thought. Karen had probably been talking about me all day. Mr. Leshner gave me the textbook and I took my seat, left available for me, it turned out, to be next to Melina Forest. I turned to the chapter they were discussing, a chapter on China. It was all quite new to me. What if everything at this school was miles ahead of Hurley public school and even all that Mazy had taught? The first assumption about me could fall flat on its face. I wasn’t as advanced as I thought and as Daddy had surely led everyone here to believe.

Melina gave me a big smile, and before Mr. Leshner could show me where we were in the textbook, she leaned over and turned mine to the right page. Dr. Stewart left, and Mr. Leshner continued the discussion as if I were merely a breeze passing through the classroom. However, when the bell rang, he stepped over to wish me luck and offer his personal services anytime I needed them.

“We’ll get you caught up pretty quickly,” he assured me.

When I stepped out of the classroom, Melina practically blocked anyone else from approaching me, not that the rest of them looked that excited to meet me. Had Karen described me as her poor, despondent relative?

“We’re off to Introduction to French,” Melina said. “You’ve got to tell me all about your last school. I know you came from California. I’ve been to Hollywood and Universal City. Did you ever see a movie star? Oh, let’s go,” she said before I could even start to answer. She took my left arm at the elbow, and we walked out.

A tall, at least six-foot-three-inch African American boy in a light-blue shirt and jeans stepped up beside us.

“Hey,” he said to me.

“I haven’t even formally introduced myself to her, Tommy.”

“Well, let’s get going,” he said, smiling. “So we can talk about me.”

For a moment, I thought he was serious, and then he laughed, and she elbowed him hard enough for him to cry out.

“I’m Melina Forest, and this egomaniac is Tommy Diamond.”

“I’m Saffron,” I said, mostly to him. So this was what Karen meant when she suggested some parents wouldn’t be fond of their daughters going out with him. He was an African American. I couldn’t help staring at him, because he had brown eyes with a bluish tint. His smile brought out the tint. He was lean, but he had impressive shoulders.

“Hi,” he said. “Welcome to Cloud Nine.”

When he put his hand out to shake mine, I saw how big his hands were.

“You’re the basketball star,” I said, recalling what Karen had told me.

“Just a member of the team,” he replied. He had the most impish smile I had ever seen, especially when he looked at Melina.

“His middle name is Narcissus,” she said. “Take it from there,” she added, and he laughed.

“Believe everything she says,” he told me. “She likes being brutally honest.”

We all turned when we heard my name. Karen was hurrying to catch up.

She immediately moaned, “I could have been your big sister.”

“You’re a class behind, Karen, and you’re not in AP,” Melina said. “Your not realizing that simple and obvious fact is probably a good reason you’re not in AP.”

“Ha, ha. Hi, Tommy,” she said.

He put up his hands. “I didn’t do it,” he said.

“What?”

“Whatever anyone told you I did,” he said, and he and Melina laughed. I did, too.

Karen looked at me as if I had become best friends with the two of them in an instant. I shook my head.

“Did my mother choose that hairstyle for you?”

“She and the beautician. Do you like it?”

She grunted. “It’s all right. I’ll meet you outside at the end of the day,” she told me. “My father is picking us up,” she said, stressing the words my father, seemingly more for Tommy’s benefit than mine.

We watched her trail off, attaching herself quickly to two other girls who surely wanted gossip.

“Are you positive you want to move here?” Melina asked, looking after Karen and her friends.

“I didn’t have a choice,” I replied.

Tommy’s smiled faded. What had he already heard about my fictional past? How much did Karen embellish what she had been told?

Melina nodded. “Actually, few of us did,” she said dryly. “Allez, ma chère. I’ll tell you what to expect of Mr. Denning. By the end of the semester, you’ll be speaking nothing but French in his class or else.”

“See you later,” Tommy said, turning. “I’m in AP Spanish.”

“Because it’s easier for you,” Melina yelled after him. He held up his hand and kept going.

“And his mother’s Spanish,” Melina told me. “Minor detail he left out!” she shouted in Tommy’s direction. He raised his hands but kept walking. She turned back to me.

“I’ll be happy to study with you and catch you up, but have your aunt and uncle bring you to my house. Karen’s not my favorite Saddlebrook. Oh,” she said, stopping. She dug into her bag. “Here.” She handed me a business card.

“What’s this?”

“My card. Everyone has one. Your aunt will probably have some made for you.”

“Card?”

It read “Melina Forest,” with her address, phone number, and email.

“Allez,” she said. “Mr. Denning gives demerits for lateness, ten a second.”

I hurried to keep up with her long strides, clutching her card in my right hand, wondering even more where the train from Hurley had taken me.