Daughters of Fortune: A Novel (25 page)

Inside, Amber was met by a grim-faced Mrs. Dauston, her house mistress. Overweight and underloved, she had wound up a bitter spinster—the kind of person who should never have been allowed to teach. Each year, she watched all these privileged young girls go on to lead the kind of life she could only dream about, and it left a sour taste. She was not averse to taking her disappointment with life out on her charges.

She looked Amber Melville up and down. She had seen her type before. The angelic face didn’t fool her for a second. Too rich and too beautiful, she needed to be taken down a peg or two. She issued Amber a three-inch thick, leather-bound rule book—
Beaumont Manor’s Code of Honor
—and told her to memorize it.

“Anyone found breaking these rules will be dealt with ruthlessly,” she said in her harsh Scottish burr, as they walked through the labyrinth of corridors to Amber’s new room. The words echoed back at them, bouncing off the high ceilings and making the girl jump.

It was only September, but already the place was freezing. Stone floors and a permanent draft from ill-fitted doors and windows didn’t bode well. Neither did the tiny radiators. Amber didn’t even want to think what it was going to be like in midwinter. No effort had been made to create a homey feel. Unlike Amber’s previous schools, there were no vases of fresh flowers or noticeboards advertising sports fixtures or clubs. She was actually beginning to worry. Maybe getting kicked out of St. Margaret’s hadn’t been the smartest move after all.

Amber’s room turned out to be just as unwelcoming as the rest of the place. It was a tiny, cramped space with high, narrow windows. Peeling wallpaper and a distinctive musty odor suggested there was a moisture problem. The furniture consisted of two narrow single beds, two desks, and two small wardrobes. The walls were bare apart from a No Smoking sign. Her roommate didn’t look like much fun, either. A short, plump girl with huge tortoiseshell glasses, her hair tied back in a severe bun, she greeted Amber with a stony face.

“My name is Eva Mendoza,” she said in precise, over enunciated English. “Eet is good to meet you, Amber.”

The accent confirmed what her South American name and dark coloring had already told Amber.

“Eva is class president,” Mrs. Dauston said proudly. Eva dropped her eyes, seemingly embarrassed by the praise. “She is one of our success stories.”

Amber got the feeling that Eva’s behavior was supposed to be a good role model for her. Oh, great, she thought, eyeing the other girl suspiciously. They’d obviously paired her up with the biggest square in the class. Eva would probably be reporting back whenever she screwed up.

But Amber couldn’t have been more wrong. As soon as Mrs. Dauston left, Eva’s expression relaxed.

“So what are you ’ere for?” she asked, collapsing on the narrow bed. She took off her glasses, shook out her hair, and undid a couple of the buttons on her blouse. Within seconds she was transformed from a plain, serious schoolgirl into a Latin American minx. Amber realized
she’d mistaken to-die-for curves for puppy fat and failed to see through a carefully planned disguise.

“What am I in for?” Amber shrugged. “Just about everything.”

Eva nodded knowingly. “Me, too.” She reached under the bed and pulled out a pack of Camels, offering one to Amber. Amber hesitated. Her gaze moved to the No Smoking sign.

“What about . . . ?”

Eva gave her a sly smile. “There are too many rules ’ere. You just need to figure out how to break them without anyone noticing.”

Amber grinned back. This was turning out to be her kind of place after all.

Eva was the ideal role model for Amber—just not in the way Mrs. Dauston had hoped. The product of a union between a corrupt member of Brazil’s Workers’ Party and a voluptuous film star, she had the smarts and body to get away with whatever she wanted. After she turned five, her parents barely spoke to each other or to her. With little parental interest or control, Eva had grown up wild, doing whatever she wanted with little fear of reprisal. It was something the two girls had in common. Being packed off to Beaumont Manor had been her parents’ way of brushing an embarrassing problem under the carpet, Eva told Amber, without any sense of self-pity. Amber knew exactly what she meant.

Amber had always thought of herself as fairly savvy. At St. Margaret’s she’d been cool, the trendsetter, even among the older classes. But Eva left her in the dust. She was frighteningly knowledgeable about everything. Within a week, she’d introduced Amber to caipirinha cocktails; the wonders of plastic surgery—“I ’ad my breasts and nose done before I was fourteen—everybody does in Rio”; and, most importantly and painfully,
cavados
—or, in English, Brazilian waxes.

“Ow!” Amber yelled as the first strip came off. She was lying spread-eagled on the bed and had never felt so exposed or sore in her life before. She’d always been secretly proud of her white blonde bush, but Eva had insisted everything must come off apart from a small landing strip.

“Shush,” Eva hissed from between her legs. She handed her a piece of cardboard. “Here. Bite down on this. You don’t want Mrs. Dauston to come in, do you?”

Amber bit. It didn’t help much. But at least nobody heard them.

It turned out Eva was experienced, too. She’d lost her virginity to an American college boy during last year’s Carnival. She’d just turned fourteen.

“It was
sheeet
,” she informed a wide-eyed Amber. “He had a small
cacete
.” She held up her little finger to illustrate. “But don’t worry. It gets better,
saca
?” she said, using the Brazilian slang for “you know what I mean?” It was her catchphrase.

Amber listened attentively, devouring every gory detail.

“I gave him a
boquete
—you do it like this.”

“He put it up my
cu
. It hurt like hell. Next time—no way!”

It was all news to Amber, who had only gotten to second base with Andy Turner from the boys’ school twinned to St. Margaret’s. He’d been the hottest guy in the senior class, but barely more experienced than she was. After some furtive groping during his graduation ball, she hadn’t been especially tempted to go any further. But when Eva talked about it—the different positions, what it was like when a guy went down on you—it made Amber curious to find out what it was all about.

When Amber phoned her mother the first Sunday after she arrived, she was able to truthfully report to Isabelle that she had learned more in the space of four days at Beaumont Manor than she had in an entire year at St. Margaret’s.

_________

“
Salut
, Caitlin!”

A dozen voices greeted Caitlin as she walked into the cramped living room. She tried to muster an enthusiastic response. It had been another late night at college, and she’d gone back to the apartment hoping for some peace. Instead, she’d found Véronique hosting another one of her impromptu parties. Cigarette smoke and laughter filled the air. Empty wine bottles covered the floor. Jules Martel, Caitlin’s one-time suitor, had brought along a guitar. He was sitting cross-legged on a cushion, strumming softly, as a girl Caitlin didn’t recognize crooned along.

Véronique lay stretched across the couch, her head resting on the lap of Lucien Duval. Caitlin smiled to herself. Her roommate was a sucker for brooding, tortured artists, and Lucien filled the bill perfectly. A street photographer, known for his portrayal of modern life in Paris, he was very cool and extremely good looking. Tall, slender, and darkly dramatic, he was a well-known and distinctive figure among the Belleville crowd. Caitlin often saw him in the café, usually with at least one or two adoring females in tow.

Word had gotten out a couple of weeks earlier that he had broken up with his latest girlfriend, one of the models who worked at l’École des Beaux Arts. Véronique had immediately turned her attention to him. Looking at them now, Lucien stroking her hair, Caitlin guessed she was already halfway there.

Véronique stretched lazily, extending her long legs for Lucien’s benefit. “Grab a glass and come join us, Caitlin.”

Jules stopped playing and scrambled to his feet. “You can sit here, if you like.”

“Thanks,” Caitlin said. “Maybe in a bit. I’m going to get some food first.” Seeing the look of disappointment on Jules’s face, Caitlin felt bad. He seemed like a nice guy, but she simply wasn’t interested.

She disappeared into the tiny kitchen. It was Véronique’s week to shop, which meant there was nothing in the fridge—she lived on coffee and cigarettes, so why shouldn’t everyone else? However, after a quick rummage in the cupboards, Caitlin found some pasta and an open jar of pesto that didn’t smell too bad.

With the pasta simmering nicely, she pulled a chair up to the window and climbed out onto the roof. It wasn’t strictly designed to be a terrace, but it was the only outside space the apartment had, so the girls made use of it. Véronique sunbathed there whenever she could, while Caitlin often sat out in the evenings, making the most of the refreshing night breeze, drawing and reading in the half-light from the other buildings. Now, she took out her sketchpad to study what she’d been working on earlier that day.

She’d only been there for a little while when she heard a noise from inside. It was the chair creaking. She looked up and saw a man climbing out to join her. At first she thought it was Jules, but then he straightened up. In the half-light from the kitchen, she took in the dark clothes, deathly pale skin, and jet black curls falling over his shoulders. It was Lucien. She couldn’t help feeling relieved. She wasn’t in the mood to deal with Jules again tonight.

“What’re you doing out here?” she asked.

He held up a pack of cigarettes, and she smiled a little. He was the only one of their friends who had the courtesy to come out here to smoke. In the grand scheme of things it made no difference—the place stank already. But Caitlin appreciated the gesture.

Lucien leaned against the wall and lit up. He smoked in silence. Not that there was anything unusual about that. He wasn’t exactly a big talker. Caitlin reckoned in the two years she’d known him he’d spoken a dozen words to her, if that. Which was why she was surprised when he gestured at her sketchbook. “May I see?”

Usually she hated people looking at her work, but she was so taken aback by the request that she found herself agreeing. “All right.”

Resting his cigarette on the wall, he took the book from Caitlin and
began to flip through her sketches. Her current project was on the influence of film on fashion.

“I’m using
Shoot
as my inspiration,” she said, naming the latest Hollywood blockbuster. It revolved around a gangster living in Chicago in the 1930s, and the movie’s presence could be seen in her drawings, which included high-waisted, wide-legged zoot suits adapted into sharp office wear for women, as well as pretty evening dresses inspired by flapper girls.

“Your designs are very theatrical,” he observed. He looked up, seeming genuinely interested. “Is that what you want to do?”

“Yeah, I guess so. If I can.”

He finished looking through the sketchbook and handed it back to her. “I am sure you will. From what I have seen here, you have real talent and originality.”

“Thanks,” Caitlin mumbled, feeling a little embarrassed by the praise. But she was pleased, too. It was quite a compliment coming from someone who was acknowledged to be one of the foremost emerging artists in Paris.

Lucien picked up his cigarette, took one last drag, and stubbed the remains out on the wall.

“I’ll see you back in there,” he said, before disappearing inside.

Just after he’d gone, the timer on the stove went off. Caitlin finished preparing her dinner, then brought the plate in to join the others. She had a couple of drinks and slipped off to bed. As she left the room, Lucien had started to give Véronique a foot massage. It didn’t take a genius to figure out where the night was going to end.

But the next morning, when Véronique came into the kitchen looking for coffee, she was alone.

“Where’s Lucien?” Caitlin asked. “The way you two were together last night, I thought for sure he’d still be here.”

Véronique gave an unconcerned shrug. “Me, too. But he had to go. Next time, eh?”

Next time wasn’t long in coming. A few nights later, the girls were working late together in the café. It was a Tuesday evening and the place was dead. Alain had gone home an hour earlier, leaving them to lock up. There were only two customers left, Lucien and Jules. Caitlin was sitting at the bar, sketching. Across the room, Véronique had
joined the boys at their table. The three of them were drinking pastis, chatting, and flirting.

“Come and join us!” Jules called to her.

But Caitlin wouldn’t. “I’ve got too much to do,” she told them.

By eleven, she was thinking seriously about bed. When Véronique came over, Caitlin hoped she was going to offer to lock up, but her roommate had other ideas. The two men were heading over to La Flèche d’Or, a nearby club. They had invited her along, and she wanted Caitlin to come, too, as Jules’s date.

“Please say you’ll do it.” Véronique lowered her voice. “This might be my only chance with Lucien.”

Caitlin sincerely doubted that. In all the time they’d been living together, she’d never known Veronique not to get her man in the end.

“Please,” the girl wheedled. “Jules is a sweetheart, I promise.”

Caitlin glanced over at Jules, who smiled shyly back. A rather fresh-faced young man, he was far less intimidating than Lucien. Caitlin was sure she could handle him.

“Okay, I’ll come,” she sighed.

“Formidable!”
Véronique gave her friend a warm embrace.

Laughing, Caitlin pushed her away. She took off her apron, shoved it under the counter, and ran a hand through her short, dark hair.

“Right.
Allons-y!
Let’s go.”

Véronique cast a doubtful look at Caitlin’s jeans and tank top, her face devoid of makeup. “Aren’t you going to at least change? I have a dress you can wear . . .”

Caitlin glowered at her roommate. “Veronique,” she said warningly. “Don’t push your luck.”