Page 18 of Every Step She Takes
New York, 2005
The weekend before the anniversary party, Isabella declared we needed a girls’ getaway, so she took Tiana and me to buy our party finery. I tried to demur, but she was having none of it. The three of us were going shopping in New York.
I’d watched this scene in movies. The ordinary girl swept into a modern-day fairy tale, where personal dressers rush about to choose her new clothing, stylists find exactly the right cut to suit her face, manicurists and pedicurists and aestheticians and masseuses primp and polish and pummel her until she collapses in a happy heap, eating bonbons and sipping champagne as the day slides into night.
That day, I lived the fairy tale. And Isabella was my fairy godmother, smiling over me and waving her wand and tut-tutting away my protests. Between her and Tiana, they even convinced me to get a bikini for the party.
At the end of the day, we did indeed collapse with bonbons and champagne – a tray of hand-crafted confections from the best chocolatier in New York and a bottle of Bollinger champagne. Even Tiana got a quarter-glass of the latter.
As we lay sprawled across the bed – a California king, Isabella called it, big enough for a family of six – we lounged in our plush bathrobes and talked, and ate, and drank.
After Tiana fell asleep, Isabella and I kept talking, and my half-glass of champagne left me tipsy enough to admit that when I was twelve, I wrote her a letter.
“The only fan letter I’ve ever written,” I said. “I didn’t ever get up the courage to send it, but I wrote it.”
She sat up. “To me?”
My cheeks heated as I nodded.
“Please tell me you still have it,” she said.
I stammered and stuttered something about Mom cleaning my room when I went to college.
“If you find it, will you let me see it?” she asked.
“That depends on how embarrassing it is.”
She laughed and stretched out again. After a minute, she said, “Would you come back next summer, Lucy?”
I rolled my head to look across the bed at her.
She smiled. “Yes, today might have been a teensy bit of a bribe. We would love to have you at the beach house next summer. The kids adore you. Even Colt is comfortable with you. I got more work done this summer than I ever did with nannies. And the kids certainly learned more. Not just music – you found what interested each of them, and you made their summer both fun and educational. They have both, separately, petitioned to bring you to LA with us. I won’t ask that. You have your own career and talents far beyond playing Hollywood governess. But if you’d like to come back next summer…”
“Is it contingent on me digging up that fan letter?”
She laughed. “No, it is not.”
“Then I would love to come back,” I said, my voice cracking a little as my eyes welled. “Thank you.”
“Good.” She smiled at me. “And thankyou.”
Chapter Eleven
New York, 2019
Before the car even stops, I throw open the door and gulp exhaust-thick air, my stomach churning.
I have reason to be angry and hurt, but so does she. Grab a random passerby and ask them to judge who has been more wronged, and they would say Isabella, and I’m not sure they’d be mistaken.
I hurt her. I betrayed her. While my actions weren’t as horrible as the world thinks, that does not leave me blameless. I was young, and I was naive, and I made a mistake, and the moment I realized it, all I wanted was to talk to Isabella – to beg her forgiveness, yes, but also to make sure she knew I hadn’t done what people said. I would never hurt her that way.
I wanted her to know the truth.
And she does. I sent her a letter of explanation, bleeding with every word, starting and restarting it until I hit the right note, the one that accepted my share of the blame and laid none on anyone else. She could infer where else that blame belonged and how to portion it. I would not wail, “It wasn’t my fault.” I wasn’t a child. I made a choice, and it was wrong, and possibly unforgivable, and I would not cower behind the shield of youth and naivete.
I told her the truth, and she spat in my face.
Actually, I wish shehadspat in my face. Instead, she sent that letter, dripping with vitriol and heaping all the blame at my feet.
