Tiffany Girl (45 page)

Cat turned around in a figure eight, butting up against Flossie’s hand. She petted the cat a couple more times, then squatted down and began to pick up the pages. She turned over each one and rotated it so it was facing the right direction. Bending over, she reached for a couple that had slipped beneath his chair, saw her name, and paused.

We had corn on the cob with our meal. Miss Jayne ate hers like a typewriter . . . Someone else is putting questions beneath the plate across from Miss Jayne. I have no idea who . . . I’d forgotten how much of a disruption she is. I won’t be able to include that aspect of Miss Jayne’s personality into my column. No one would believe it.

Frowning, she sat back on her heels. Include it in his column? What did that mean? She continued to skim.

Miss Jayne had a set of wooden castanets which she’d purchased at the fair . . . First her head, then her shoulders, waist, and hips undulated—all in time to the castanets snapping at her fingertips. By the time she finished I could scarcely breathe.

She touched the hollow at the base of her throat. She’d done that? He’d felt like that? Skirts billowing out about her, she turned back to the pages she’d stacked and flipped through them more slowly.

We played The Board Game of Old Maid. As idiotic as the game was, it ended up being a godsend. It mapped out the entire plot of a love story. Now I know exactly what to do with Marylee and Bookish.

Sucking in a breath, she covered her mouth.

Miss Jayne’s favorite thing to paint is portraits. I shall make Marylee a photographer. Close enough.

Flossie’s heart began to pick up speed.

Miss Jayne has been the center of her world her entire life. Perhaps I shall give Marylee that same quality.

Breathing became difficult. She took a deep breath in, pushed a deep breath out. Cat rubbed against her. Flossie pushed the cat out of the way, picking up yet another page.

The Trostles proclaimed Miss Jayne a “remarkable talent.” And because her parents have told her the same thing her entire life, she has no reason to doubt them. I worry what might happen if Bourgeois doesn’t accept her work into his gallery. How can I incorporate this into Marylee’s character?

Her stomach turned sour. She closed her eyes to stem the nausea. When she opened them, Reeve was there, frozen in the doorway.

“You’re I. D. Claire,” she said, her voice sounding funny, even to her own ears.

He looked at the papers in her hand.

“They fell off your desk.” She nodded toward Cat, who now wove between his legs. “I was setting the phenakistascope on your desk. Cat jumped up, knocked off the papers, and I, of course, gathered them.” She swallowed. “Until I saw my name. Then I began to read them.”

He opened his mouth, then closed it.

Looking up at the ceiling, she clenched her jaw, anger seeping into her veins. “You’ve been using me as fodder for your column.”

Still, he said nothing.

She held up the papers and shook them as their contents replayed within her mind. “A disruption to the household? The center of my own world? A remarkable talent in my own eyes?”

“I don’t think that.”

“No?” Pushing herself to her feet, she slapped the papers onto his desk. “You expect me to believe you lie to yourself in your own notes?”

“I wrote those parts before I got to know you.”

“Is that so?” Spreading the papers out on the desk, she rifled
through them in a disjointed and slapdash manner until she found the one she was looking for. “What about this one?”

“Flossie—”

She held up her hand to stem his words, then read from the paper.
“Flossie has aspirations of being a designer. At Tiffany’s. I worry that she learned nothing from the Bourgeois debacle. She is simply so accustomed to having the world at her feet that she can’t seem to formulate realistic expectations. Perhaps I should put Marylee in a position where she cannot order the bad times away. Where she is forced to be realistic.”

He raked a hand through his hair. “I didn’t mean anything by that.”

She pointed to the date, her hand trembling. “That’s the day you saw me sketching my tea screen. The day you kissed me. You wrote that after those kisses, Reeve? How could you?”

He pinched the bridge of his nose. “You’re blowing this all out of proportion.”

“I don’t think so.” Her chest began to ache. “You’ve spent countless weeks turning me into a satire. Poking fun at me. Watching me read out loud about
myself
to the entire household. Facilitating discussions about the merits and the flaws of
myself
 !”

He shook his head. “I didn’t. She’s not . . . you’re not . . .” He took a deep breath. “Marylee isn’t half the woman you are. She’s not even real. She’s a figment of my imagination.”

“A figment based on
me.
” She jabbed herself in the chest. “And clearly, you must think me the biggest idiot you’ve ever encountered.”

“I don’t. I don’t think that at all.”

“Oh, I think you do. Even I can’t misinterpret those notes.” In a burst of anger and hurt, she swept her hand across the desk, scattering the pages. Her fingertips caught the edge of the figurine. It flew out to the side, then tripped across the floor with a succession of clanks. She didn’t even look to see if it had broken.

“
Flossie, please, let me explain.”

“You have an explanation?” She crossed her arms, hugging herself. “And I suppose you think I’ll just swallow whatever it is you feed me? After all that? Now who’s being unrealistic?”

“Just listen, please? I agreed to write the Marylee story for the money. Money to use toward a down payment on a house. Not just any house, but the house I was born in, that I lived in with my parents. If I manage to buy it, it will be the first time since my mother died that I’ll have lived someplace I belong. Not my grandparents’ house, not my stepmother’s house, not my landlady’s house. My house.” He searched her eyes. “I need that, Flossie. I need someplace I belong.”

“Well, bully for you.” She jutted out her chin. “What I’d like to know is just what that has to do with me? How, in all the chum-butted luck, did I get dragged into the whole thing?”

“I’d never written a line of fiction in my life. I didn’t know the first thing about it. It was my editor who suggested I base the characters on the boarders I lived with.”

Her eyes widened. “We’re all in it? Who is Mr. Bookish?”

“No, no. No one was the least bit interesting, other than you and Mrs. Dinwiddie—and I couldn’t include her or everyone would’ve known I was I. D. Claire. But you, Flossie, you . . .” He looked at her, his eyes pleading. “You made the story come alive. Basing the character on you was a compliment.”

“Compliment? You expect me to believe it was a
compliment
? When you painted me in such an uncomplimentary fashion?”

“Everyone loves Marylee.”

“She’s spoiled and runs everyone else’s lives.”

He rubbed his mouth. “She had redeeming qualities, especially toward the end.”

“You made me a laughingstock, Reeve, and the actual ‘observations’ you took of me are even worse than the ones you fictionalized.” She
pressed her fingers against her temples. “To think you toned me down because you ‘couldn’t include’ my behavior in the column for it was too outlandish. Too unbelievable. Too
infantile
.”

He pulled down his brows. “Now you’re just making things up. I never said that.”

“You didn’t have to.” She fisted her hands at her sides. “It was implied. If you don’t believe me, go back and read it for yourself.” Whirling around, she began to pace. “I should have listened to you from the start. You said you didn’t want a friend. You were fine with your life the way it was. But, no, I had to have compassion for you. I had to make it my mission to befriend you. And that’s just what I did. I poured myself out like an offering—an offering of
true
friendship.” She covered her face with her hands. “Then I ended up offering you even more than friendship, didn’t I? Right here in this very room. And you took that offering and desecrated it in the worst possible way.”

“Flossie, I’d never—”

Shaking her head, she took a step back. “Not another word. I’ve received the message this time. I’ve heard you loud and clear. You can rest assured, Mr. Wilder, you won’t have to
ever
deal with the likes of me again.” She headed toward the door.

He blocked her way. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I’m moving.”

His jaw slackened. “Moving?”

“That’s right. Moving. So you won’t have to worry about me intruding on you or anyone else anymore. For all I care, you can take that loneliness you love so much, wrap yourself up in it, and choke on it. Now, get out of my way.”

He didn’t budge. “Don’t move because of me.”

“I can’t stay here.” Her throat began to clog. “Not anymore. The Trostles were bad enough, but you, Reeve, you’ve made a
joke of me and laid it out in print for my parents, my friends, my housemates, my workmates, and hundreds of others to see.”

“I didn’t, Flossie. You aren’t Marylee and she’s not you.”

She pointed to his desk. “I’ve seen your notes, Reeve. And, and . . .” Her nostrils flared. “I’m not staying. I can’t. I simply—”

“Yes, you are. If anyone leaves, it’ll be me.”

She stared at him, pushing back her tears by sheer force of will. And truth be told, why should she be the one to tuck tail and run? Especially when she couldn’t afford to move. With all the money he’d made at her expense, he ought to be the one inconvenienced.

She swiped her nose with her hand. “I’m going home. I’ll stay at my parents’ house for a week. When I get back, if you’re still here, I’ll pack my things. Now, get out of my way or so help me I won’t be responsible for what I do to you.”

After a slight hesitation, he stepped to the side.

She stormed past him and opened the door to her room, then slammed it behind her.

Annie Belle stood by Flossie’s bed, a hand against her throat.

Flossie took a trembling breath. “I’m sorry I slammed the door.”

Annie Belle shook her head. “I heard every word.”

“What?”

Annie Belle pointed to the wall. “I heard every word. It was as if you and Mr. Wilder were right in here with me.” She looked at the wall, then back at Flossie. “All this time, all these months, he’s heard every single word you and I have ever said to each other. Including these.”

The blood drained from Flossie’s head, then rushed back in. Grabbing a book from her bookshelf, she hurtled it at the wall. “A pox on you, Reeve Wilder, you spineless, arrogant, lily-livered son of a sea cook!”

Annie Belle slapped a hand over her mouth.

Flossie took a deep, gulping breath, then covered her face and sank to the floor.

“You needn’t yell, Flossie,” he said, his voice muffled, but perfectly distinguishable. “I can hear you and I’m sorry.”

“Shut up,” she mumbled, sobs shaking her shoulders. “Just shut up.”

Annie Belle rushed to her, put her arms around her, and held her while she wept silent tears, for she wouldn’t give that beggarly, horse’s backend the satisfaction of hearing her cry.

CHAPTER

64

N
ot another sound came from Flossie’s room. No murmuring, no crying, not even the springs of her bed had squeaked. He’d pulled his notes together earlier that evening so he could burn them in the parlor after everyone had retired. He’d set them on the side so as not to forget. What an idiot.

He picked up the phenakistascope. For a brief moment, one part of his brain—the part that had become expert at pushing aside all emotion—noted that Holliday had done it. He’d actually made a phenakistascope out of photographs. The other part of his brain stared at the pictures.

They were in shades of black, gray, and white instead of the vivid colors that came alive in his memory. The sunny yellow of her gown, the blue of her bows, the brown of her eyes, the seashell-pink of her skin. Nor did they capture the scent of her hair and the warmth of her hand in his. He sighed. Photographs were a poor substitute for having the living, breathing Flossie in his arms.