Diamond Girl (30 page)

“It’s Yale, and thank you for your kind assessment of my work for your family, Carolyn. We are not, however, discussing me, we are
discussing you, and in answer to your earlier question, should you decide to allow yourself to be a part of this tasteless circus of a reality show, and should you allow the Kelleher name to become a byword for the ridiculous, then we, that is your parents and I, the trustees of your estate, will place an immediate freeze on your trust. The house you now live in, the home you claim to so despise that was purchased by your trust for some three million dollars, will be sold and the proceeds will revert to the said trust of which you will be denied access. Furthermore ...”

“Oh my God, there is a furthermore besides just making me homeless again and stealing every penny I have?”

“Yes, I’m afraid so, though those would not be the terms I would use. I am afraid that your father is so distressed by this possibility that he may find himself unable to see or speak to you for the foreseeable future.” 

I was silent, thinking. Daddy had not come to the airport to see me off when I had been exiled. He had not flown out once to see me in the three years I had been living here. He had only invited me back to see him once. My visit had consisted of a stilted dinner with him and Sarah, not at my former home. I had been put up in a hotel for my two day visit.

Sarah had been kind, Daddy had been nervous, clearly on edge that I would have one of my embarrassing, tearful, breakdowns and reproach him. We hadn’t spent one minute alone together and I missed him with every fiber of my being. I had continual fantasies about him calling me and apologizing for my time in limbo and asking me to come home.

I had taken out my anger on Herbert not because I thought he was doing this behind Daddy's back and without his knowledge, but because I knew he was only acting on orders and it hurt. I was mean to Herbert because I knew he didn’t care about me and because I couldn’t be mean to Daddy. I wasn’t secure enough in my father’s love to chance finding out if he cared for me at all anymore.

I didn’t even bother to consider or ask Herbert whether or not my mother had weighed in with an opinion on the show. It was doubtful that she knew about it. Hell, it was doubtful that she remembered I was still in L.A., or on the planet for that matter. She had called me a total of three times in three years and, on my brief visit home, she had been in Paris. When I spoke I knew Herbert would hear the defeat in my voice and be able to say to himself later on, 'Well done faithful servant of Caesar'.

“Herbert … if I … well, if I say no to the show, do you think you could ask Daddy if I could see him? I …
its been a long time, you know. I … I’d just really ...” It was hard to talk, my throat was swollen so badly it hurt to swallow and I had to use both hands to hold the phone steady. “I’d love to see him.” 

Herbert’s voice was softer when he answered. “I think you’re making a wise decision, Carolyn, and I know Kells will be relieved. I’ll tell you what. The football season is starting up and I know for a fact your father would be delighted if you joined him for a day or two at the Lions training camp. Would you like my office to make your flight arrangements or can you do it yourself?”

I drew in breath and bit down hard on my lip, tasting blood, the pain making the swaying room straighten a little. “No I … well I … I don’t know how to get plane tickets. Maybe you could ...”

“Of course, Carolyn, I’ll be happy to take care of it, and you, young lady, you’re going to be pretty busy as well, I imagine.”

“Busy?” 

“Yes of course. Didn’t you say you wanted a different house?”

“Oh yeah, I guess, I … yeah.”

His tone positively jovial with triumph, Herbert said, “I think that’s just fine, Carolyn. You should use Sotheby’s out there, excellent firm, and I don’t want you to concern yourself with waiting until your present home is sold. I think I can safely speak for the trust when I say that we will be happy to purchase any new home you find that suits you, within reason, of course.”

“Within reason, yes of course, thank you, Herbert. So about Daddy …”

“Absolutely, Carolyn.
Kells is my next call of the day. Carolyn, I think you will find in the long run that you have made the right decision. Family is always more important than any momentary pleasures that we might ...”

“
It’s okay, Herbert, I get it. You don’t have to say any more. I’m sorry I was so ...”

“No, no, my dear, consider it forgotten. So I should rush off, Carolyn. Is there anything else you might want to
...”

“No, no thank you, Herbert, there’s nothing else I want. Have a good day. Good bye, Herbert.”

Shakily I replaced the cordless onto its handset. No, there was nothing I wanted. I looked around the ugly bedroom with its fake matching cherry furniture that Clara had picked out for me. There was a lot of dust. The daily maid whose name I didn’t know was apparently slacking off without Clara around. I guessed I should look into finding a new assistant, or maybe just find out the maid’s name and ask her to do it myself. I also needed to tell Milan that I couldn’t be a part of the show. I thought that wouldn’t go too well.

I was wrong. She took it easily, too easily. She just shook her head sadly, seemingly unsurprised, and kissed me on my forehead. “It’s all right, Careybeary. I wouldn’t want you to do something you weren’t comfortable with. Don’t worry, I’ll find someone.”

I didn’t bother telling her that I would have been comfortable, joyful even. I’m pretty sure she already knew that. Quiet and depressed, I thanked her and helped her pick up her scattered things as she had decided, after all, to stay with her parents. I didn’t blame her for that either. It’s uncomfortable to be around someone you can’t be honest with and I knew she wanted to be able to talk about her new venture, to be somewhere where it was okay to be thrilled, and she didn’t feel comfortable doing that with me. I know she didn’t judge me; she pitied me. She thought I was weak and pathetic, and if we had been able to talk, I wouldn’t have disagreed with her, but there are some things that even your best friend won’t say to you, even if she should.

Milan didn’t waste any time finding someone to replace me. I found out two nights later while watching Entertainment Tonight. The big haired announcer perkily shared the news that “Famed celebutante
and heiress, Milan Marin, has asked Lyric Daniels, daughter of the legendary multi-Grammy winning Alan Daniels, to be her co-star and partner in crime on her new series,
The Natural Life.
The girls will ...”

I clicked off the
T.V.. Later Milan called me trying to sound apologetic, but I could tell she was excited. Her voice bubbled. “Careybeary, I have news, we just signed ...”

“Yeah, I saw it on T.V.”

“Oh, oh well, I wanted to call you earlier but ...”

“Don’t worry about it, Mills,” I tried to laugh, “
but you gotta tell me, who the hell is Lyric Daniels and where’d you find her so fast?”

“Oh, God, Cares, you know. Lyric! You’ve met her too. Her dad’s an old friend of my parents and
I ...”

“No, I don’t know her, I’ve never
...”

“Yes, you do. You met her the night you met Michael, remember, at Bungalow? She was with that horrible girl K
...”

“Karmen with a K. Yeah, sorry I forgot. Well she was really pretty and sweet. I’m happy for you, Mills, it’ll be huge. Listen I’ve gotta
…”

“Sure, Cares, you must be swamped too.” Her voice lilted hopefully. “It’s pretty exciting, getting to pick out a whole new house. With the filming schedule and everything, I’m probably going to be living with my parents forever. Besides, who can afford anything decent out here?” She laughed.
“But maybe not, huh? I might make a ton of money and then we can still get side-by-side mansions together, right?” 

“Right,
Mills, that would be perfect. Okay, I gotta go. Love you.”

“I love you too, Care Bear, and listen
…”

“Yeah?”

“Nothing, just it’ll be okay, you know. It’s like we used to say in school, it ain’t over till it’s over, right?” 

“Yeah, that’s right, Mills.
Night.”

“Night, Care Bear, sweet dreams.”

The night I met Michael, memories and regrets weakened my legs and I sat on my bed crying and stroking Petal for a long time after I hung up.  It was dark, and when I reached over to turn on my bedside light, the bulb had burned out. I padded out to the living room to find the maid. Petal forlornly following me.

There was no one in the dim house. I opened the front door to look for the gardener but he was gone too. I found out later that without Clara around to pay them, they had eventually gotten tired of waiting and disappeared. Lonely and afraid in the dark house, I went back to my wrinkled bed and clutched Petal.

The next morning, before I could begin to pull my life together, Daddy called me. His beautiful voice sounded better than anything I had ever heard. He said he missed me and invited me to spend the week with him in North Carolina for the Lion’s training. He said he was sending the plane for me. 

Smiling into the phone, I asked him if I could bring Petal because there was no one to leave her with. I told him my help had disappeared and he roared with laughter. He said to just get to the private hangar at Orange County, and by the time I got back, Herbert would have it worked out. I could have said no, that I wanted to handle it myself, but I didn’t really, and besides I had a plane to catch.

Chapter 33

There’s this old saying, 'a fool and his money are soon parted', and blah blah blah. I’m not saying it isn’t true, but I could make up a better one: this fool and her money were welcomed everywhere.

I don’t know if what I did was so wrong or if I was always supposed to end up here. I was just trying to be happy that whole crazy year, when Milan moved out here and I got and lost the opportunity of a lifetime, and it seemed like Herbert had sort of given me a blank check, which, of course, he hadn’t. It was from my own money but since my so-called trustees kept threatening to take it away, it didn’t really seem like my money, so I thought it was okay to buy things. Or maybe I did it because of the great week I had spent with Daddy, where he had treated me like his little princess again, that made me feel stupidly secure.

The money I spent the summer I turned twenty-five felt like revenge and it felt like a return to the only power I’d ever had, being Carey Kelleher, adored heiress to Kells V. Thinking about it now while I’m laying in cold urine and most likely getting rabies from rat bites, it all seems pretty crazy, but at the time it felt so good.

People are your very bestest friends when you are buying stuff from them and I guess I always knew, even from my first magic shopping spree with Aunt Georgia, that the only reason all the pretty girls and boys in the shops treated me like I was so amazing and beautiful and witty, no matter what I said, was because there was no limit either on my own excess or on Daddy’s credit.

I get that it wasn’t real, but then not much in my life is real, so I don’t think it’s strange that shopping is what I did when I needed affection and approval. Where else had I ever gotten it? 

My summer of serious shopping started off with the biggest purchase I had ever gotten to make on my own, a house. Shopping for a house, I found out, gives you a whole new level of warmth and intimacy with your salesperson.

Shopping for a house in Beverly Hills makes your real estate agent, who is just another personal shopper but one who is going to get a really sweet commission, take sucking up and charming the client to a whole new level. Sotheby’s is a firm that made it to the top by finding out everything they could about we rich, and then applying it to the psychology of selling us things, whether we could afford them or not, by picking the right real estate agent/best friend - possible fiancé in my case - salesperson and setting them loose on us. 

After I made the call to their Beverly Hills office, I set off a chain reaction. The sweet gushing British receptionist asked me few questions, my name and my stupid vague statement about how I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for being more than enough to set off whatever their office’s version of the ‘all hands on deck’ signal was. 

Two hours later I was on the patio of the Ivy, drinking Mimosas and having my hand held by Stephen, a gut punchingly handsome Aussie who was like everyone else in this town, a wannabe actor. Normally I would have scorned this ambition but his resemblance to Russell Crowe, albeit Russell Crowe in a Zegna suit, made me nod adoringly instead of rolling my eyes as he explained that real estate was merely his pastime.

“Though, now, sitting here
with a lass as beautiful as you, Carey, I think maybe real estate is my calling. I can’t tell you how much pleasure I’m deriving at the idea of helping you find your ideal home, a home that I hope will have a rather ideal en-suite bedroom that ...” here he paused to give my palm a one finger stroke which made my nearly virginal body shake with lust since it had been so long, “will be the perfect room for you to awaken in each morning.” Since after that I was fairly certain that whatever house I did buy was going to be
our
house where we would live happily ever after, at least until the children came and then we would get a bigger house, I decided to let Stephen guide my purchase.