Beauty (3 page)

It didn’t make her popular.

‘Teacher’s pet.’

‘Suck-up.’

‘Such a nerd.’

MacAllister felt bad for her. School was a struggle for Dina, as far as the kids went. First it was her great grades, next it was her beauty. The other girls got jealous and banded together. There was a lot of spite. Dina mostly sat on her own at lunch, and the girls that would eat with her were the losers. Boys would ask Dina out, but then succumb to peer pressure and slouch away from her in the playground.

Dina Kane didn’t care. She was relentlessly focused. Her average grade was an A. And she stayed for every afterschool programme she could.

‘Don’t you have a home to go to?’ asked Ms Segal in chess club.

‘Oh, yes. My mom really misses me,’ Dina said, brightly. ‘She just wants me to do well in school.’

‘Your brother’s at St Joseph’s, right?’

‘Yes.’ A tiny cloud, but she smiled it away. ‘There was only enough money for one of us.’

The Catholic school in Bronxville had a great reputation; it charged a small fee; class sizes were much smaller; the kids wore a uniform. They mostly headed to college and became professionals.

You couldn’t say the same for Dina’s school.

‘That doesn’t seem fair,’ said Ms Segal.

‘Better one of us than neither of us,’ Dina replied. ‘I’m doing fine here.’

And she was.

Dina dreaded going home each night.

‘Hey, Mom! How was your day?’

She would smile and give her mother a hug, hoping against hope that one day things would be different. One day the hug would be returned. One day Ellen would be interested in Dina.

‘What do you care? I just stay here and look after the house, cleaning and shopping and cooking –’ Ellen made it sound like hard labour in a penal camp – ‘while you just swan about at school.’

‘I got a five hundred in my PSATs.’

‘What the hell does that mean?’

‘You know, Mom. Next year I take the SATs? For college? I got a really good grade in my practice tests.’

Ellen looked at her blankly. ‘What the hell for? You ain’t going to college. Not unless you win the lottery. I can’t afford two of you.’

Dina felt the tears prickle. Mostly she tried so hard to ignore her mother’s cruelty – the detachment, the coldness – but sometimes it was tough.

College was her dream, her ticket out of a hellish childhood, her chance to make something of herself, something special, something real.

But Ellen Kane was standing in her way, like a demon on a bridge.

It was Johnny first – always Johnny.

Her father’s death had started the spiral.

‘Paulie! Look out on the goddamned crane!’ His supervisor’s yell came floating up from the ground, but Paulie Kane didn’t hear him.

He was balancing on the heavy iron bar, trying to swing it into place. It was night and he was cold, but he had that good antifreeze, right in his pocket. Saturday frigging night and here he was, working overtime.

Johnny had started school and it all cost: tuition, books, uniform, everything. At least Ellen was happy again for a little while. He loved how she lit up when she saw her son, so cute in his blue uniform with the white piping. She was the mom of a private-school kid. And she got to take him there every day.

But Paulie was paying the bills. Ellen was obsessed with their status. When he’d said maybe Johnny could head to the elementary school across the block, for free, Ellen had sulked and refused to have sex with him.

Everything
seemed
OK in their house. That was what all the neighbours thought.

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t.

Paulie barely saw the kids. On Sundays, he slept. He was packing on the pounds. When he was there, they clambered over him, not giving him any rest. And if he gave little Dina any compliments, Ellen scowled at him.

‘She’s demanding. She’s spoiled. You’re encouraging her.’

‘Come on, now.’ Paulie wasn’t so fatherly himself, but his wife’s barely-concealed hostility perplexed him. ‘She’s just a little kid.’

‘If you give in to her, she’ll always be whining for attention,’ Ellen said. ‘Don’t you see how she plays up to it?’

‘She’s real pretty, that’s all it is.’

Exactly the wrong thing to say. ‘She’s vain, Paulie – vain – already, at four. Don’t make it any worse.’

So he would disengage the little hands from his neck, and then, when Dina cried and Ellen yelled, he’d feel even more guilty.

The bar seemed like a good place to go.

A real good place – where you could get your stress relief cheap and fast, at a few bucks for a glass of rye whiskey, his favourite.

Paulie started to spend a lot of time there. He came late to the building site, dropped bricks, made mistakes. A warning came back through the channels:
Cut it out
.

He was smart. From that day on, Paulie never went back to the bar. Instead, he worked Saturday nights, and he brought a hip flask.

Drinks tasted good when you were bored. Booze ran like antifreeze through your veins when you were cold. He had to work while the boys were out bowling or watching football, so at least there was a little bit of relief in his pocket. That made work more fun. And he didn’t have to think about the kids. Or his wife. Or his bills . . .

Paulie unscrewed the top again and tilted the metal bottle towards his mouth. Sweet relief . . .

Drip
.
Drip
. He swallowed nothing.
Fuck!
It couldn’t be gone already?

He had four more hours in this dump.

His body was wedged against the corner of the bar as it swung over the street below.

‘Paulie! Jesus Christ!’ Marco DiCapello was calling.

Jesus? That’s funny: they think I’m Jesus
. Paulie swayed and giggled to himself, then stood up on one leg, bracing his arm against the crane, to shake the bottle and tip out the last drops . . .

He didn’t see the ice, or even feel it. There was a split second when he realised his arm wasn’t bracing. Was reaching into air. Like the rest of him.

Eighty foot was too short a fall to scream.

‘So sorry for your loss.’

Sal Rispelli was the local
capo
. He was used to this scene and did it well. Ellen Kane was playing her part too – the grieving widow with two little children – wearing a fitted black dress. She had fixed her hair and put it up in a ladylike bun, and she had done her make-up carefully. Despite her age and cares, she looked good today. Maybe it was the adrenaline.

‘He was everything to me.’ Ellen looked truly distressed, even frightened. Of course, Paulie was working off the books. ‘I don’t know how our family will survive.’

‘Don’t worry.’ Sal placed a hand over hers.

‘But I have to worry. There’s our mortgage . . . and Johnny’s school. And what will we live on? I can’t go out to work. My darling Dina needs me.’

Ellen missed Paulie some. But she missed her security a hell of a lot more. The mascara-thickened lashes batted themselves at the
capo
.

‘Anything you can do for our family, Signor Rispelli,’ she said, humbly.

There was something very sexy about a pleading woman, humble and submissive. The way they should be.

‘Paulie was family.’
That stupid drunk
. ‘We take care of our own. Don Angelo has already paid off your mortgage. And you are receiving a lump sum of two hundred thousand dollars.’

Ellen nearly fainted. She swayed in her chair.

‘What?’ she whispered.

‘Two hundred grand,’ he repeated. Hell, they hadn’t put the workers in safety harnesses. It was a lot cheaper than workman’s comp. He’d chewed out that jerk-off, DiCapello, at the site this morning, and
now
the worker grunts had harnesses. But they were grumbling over Paulie. Watching a man die will do that to you.

The
famiglia
didn’t like deaths they hadn’t ordered. It was in their interest now to take real good care of Ellen Kane.

‘And, for yourself, a pension wage. You come down to the salon for an hour every lunch and style the ladies’ hair. You’ll get very well paid.’ A pretend job made things easier than a stipend to her little schmuck bank account.

‘I can’t believe it!’ Ellen gasped. For once, she wasn’t faking her emotion. She grabbed Rispelli’s hand and kissed the back of it, just like she’d seen them do in the movies. Softly, again and again.

He was starting to get uncomfortably aroused. Time to get out of here and over to a strip joint. One of their hookers could finish what Ellen had started.

‘You and the kids won’t miss a beat. Remember, you’re under our protection. So act respectable,’ he said, with a thin smile.

Ellen heard the warning:
No drinking. No screwing. A grateful client household
.

‘Yes, Signor Rispelli. Thank you so much.’

Joy was rushing through her, joy she had to lower her eyes to contain. No more worry. No more fear. This was the best thing Paulie ever did for her.

‘Better get back to your daughter, then,’ Rispelli grunted, waving his hand to dismiss her. ‘Like you said – she needs you.’

‘I have to make this money last,’ Ellen said. ‘It’s all I have.’

Dina looked round their house. There was all new furniture and a fancy TV and videotape machine. The garden was now planted with roses. Her mother wore a soft, pretty dress made of pink wool and her hair was piled up neatly on her head. She went out to the beauty salon each Thursday.

‘We live pretty well, Momma,’ she said, pleadingly.

‘I know.’ Ellen turned to study her reflection in a gilt-edged mirror. She didn’t believe in making investments, hadn’t tried to sell the house and move up the property ladder. But she did love stuff that made her life easier: pretty dresses, hairdressing appointments, manicures, expensive mirrors.

‘I take you on holiday twice a year,’ she said, proudly. ‘Disneyland! How many other kids get to go to Disneyland around here?’

Dina sighed. At Disneyland, Mom had a great time. She and Johnny were bored out of their brains. But, no matter how much they asked to go someplace else, it was always Ellen’s choice.

‘Yes, Momma, thank you. But, you know, school’s more important.’

‘Johnny is at Catholic school.’

‘I meant me.’ Dina brushed her dark hair back behind her ears, nervously. ‘You know they get much better results at St Joseph’s. I want to go there too.’

‘Honey, you know there isn’t money for the both of you. You wouldn’t want to deny Johnny his chance?’

Dina flushed. ‘I love Johnny.’

‘Well, I can’t afford to pay twice. We all have to make sacrifices.’

‘Maybe . . . Maybe you could get another job.’

Ellen’s hour or two at the salon was hardly backbreaking.

Dina’s green eyes begged. ‘Momma, lots of parents work, you know? And maybe we could skip the vacations? Save our money for the fee for St Joseph’s?’

‘Dina, please stop
whining
. It’s all about you. I work so hard raising you two kids without Daddy. All on my own, with nobody to help me.’ Ellen’s voice cracked with self-pity. ‘Now you want me to slave till I drop for private school.’

‘It’s not fair.’

‘What?’

‘It’s not fair,’ Dina repeated, louder. She could hardly believe she had actually spoken the words. They had been swimming around her little head for so long. ‘You treat Johnny better than me. You love him more than me.’

You love him
would probably have been enough.

All her young life, Dina Kane had been wriggling away from this moment, from admitting it: her mother didn’t love her. Didn’t really even like her.

And now, aged ten, it was staring her in the face.

‘You’re such a spoiled little madam. You think you’re so special,’ Ellen hissed. ‘Asking a
widow
to work extra hours?’

‘Don’t you want me to get a good education?’

‘The local public school is perfectly fine. Besides, Johnny needs it more. He’s a man; he has to make his own way.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘You know well enough.’ Ellen tossed her head. ‘You’re a girl. And you’re not ugly.’ It was as close as she would come to paying Dina a compliment. ‘You can marry some poor schlub. Maybe he’ll have more patience for your nonsense than I do.’

‘Momma,’ Dina’s eyes filled with tears, ‘I went to see the principal at St Joseph’s and asked about aid. You know, for the poor kids. But she said we have money, so they can’t pay it. The money we got when Daddy died?’

‘You want me to give you my pension? Public school is good enough for you, Dina. Life’s what you make it.’

Life’s what you make it
.

The taunt was seared into Dina Kane’s mind.

Her mother had given her life, food to eat and shelter. Not too much else – cheap Christmas gifts and holidays that she didn’t want.

But she had also been given the gift of determination – hard and cold as a diamond, deep inside her.

Johnny was the light of her life.

‘Hey, sis! Looking beautiful.’

‘Hi, Dinasaur! Have a great day at school?’

‘How’s my little princess? Still smarter than all her teachers, right?’

Johnny would hug Dina, kiss her, sweep her up. She’d clung to him ever since her tiny arms could snake around his neck. Johnny made her childhood bearable. Dina knew she was loved, loved by someone, loved by family.

Often she wished that they were like all those orphan brothers and sisters in the fairy stories: no parents. Just two children out on their own.

A dead mommy could be mourned.

Dina constructed a fantasy world. Her mommy loved her. Her daddy watched over her from heaven. She was at PS 935 because it was the
best
school and Mommy wanted the
best
.

And so Dina worked to make it the best.

She occasionally got a few friends – at least for a while – but it never lasted. Girls would invite Dina to play. Then, as Ellen never reciprocated, the playdates dried up.

‘But why can’t we have Susan over?’

‘I don’t need my neat house wrecked by a gaggle of screaming kids. I have enough on my plate.’