Did he think she could just knock on Chanel’s door and tell them she would be willing to work for them? Or Armani? They really don’t have a clue, she thought.
She took a deep breath and said, “I’m not going to quit school.”
“Yes, you are,” her aunt snapped. “You do what’s needed for this family. Stop being so ungrateful.”
There it was, that five-dollar word she threw around all the time. Allison wondered how many times she’d say it again before the conversation was over.
“The decision has been made,” her uncle said.
“Who made this decision?” she asked.
“I did.”
Here it goes, she thought. She tried to pull away, but her uncle increased his grip on her wrist. It felt as though he was going to snap her bone in half.
“No,” she said with firm resolve in her voice.
“No? No what?” her aunt asked.
“No to all of it. I don’t care how many decisions you’ve made, Uncle Russell. I’m not going to help you. I’m done.”
Their reaction was almost comical. They looked flabbergasted. Her uncle was the first to recover from his shock. “You are not done here. You’re done when I say you’re done.”
He squeezed her arm again, twisting until it burned. She tried to jerk her arm back, but her uncle held tight until he wanted to refill his glass. He had to let go of her then. Alcohol trumped keeping her captive, she supposed. She watched him pour a generous splash of whiskey and down it in a single gulp, wiping his chin on his sleeve.
She scooted her chair so he couldn’t reach her and said, “I wanted to tell you face-to-face so there wouldn’t be any misunderstanding.”
“Tell us what?” her aunt asked.
“I’m finished.”
Her aunt looked up at her, her eyes flashing with hostility. “What do you mean, you’re finished?”
“I’m not ever coming back here, and it’s my hope that I will never have to see or talk to either one of you again.”
She had rendered them speechless. She knew why. She had never defied either of them before, and now she was severing all connections. She stood and headed to the front door before her uncle could get up from his chair.
“Get back here,” he roared.
She kept right on walking.
Will followed her onto the porch. “I found my passport,” he said to her. He shoved a legal-size manila envelope at her. “This was in the safe, too,” he explained. “It has your dad’s name on it. I figured you should have it.”
“What is it?”
“Looks like legal papers of some kind,” he answered.
“Why are you giving them to me?”
“To piss them off. I heard you tell them you aren’t ever coming back here. Did you mean it?”
“Yes, I meant it.” She started down the steps, then stopped. “I’ll try to help you if I can.”
He shrugged and turned to go back inside. He didn’t say good-bye.
She heard her uncle yelling her name again and continued on to her car. After taking one last glance at the house she’d grown up in, she drove away and didn’t look back.
She felt liberated.
TEN
The euphoric feeling didn’t last long.
Allison was anxious to get back to Boston. She glanced down at the envelope on the seat next to her. She was curious but decided to wait until she was at the house and in her room before opening it. A mile out of Emerson, her phone began to ring. She looked at the screen and saw that the caller wasn’t identified. It was obvious her aunt had blocked her phone number so that Allison wouldn’t know who was calling and would answer. The phone didn’t stop ringing, and within twenty minutes there were eleven messages. When she stopped for gas, Allison listened to each one of them and was thoroughly disgusted by her aunt’s crude remarks and threats.
By the time she reached Boston, there were twenty-five messages. Allison knew her aunt wasn’t going to stop harassing her, so she made a detour to her cell phone store and had her phone number changed. She then called Charlotte and left her new number. She didn’t explain why. There would be plenty of time to talk tomorrow.
She also called Giovanni to tell him she had changed her number. She’d hoped to get his answering machine, but he picked up. He grilled her, of course, and was thrilled when she told him she had cut all ties with her relatives.
“It’s about time you got away from those bloodsuckers. And don’t worry. I won’t give your new number to anyone,” he promised.
Allison was smiling when she ended the call, thinking how lucky she was to have Giovanni in her life. She pictured him sitting in his studio surrounded by fabric swatches and sketch pads. On a plaque above his desk was printed his favorite quote by Yves Saint Laurent: “Fashion fades, style is eternal”—words he lived by. Even when he was working, he was dressed to the nines, typically in a vintage pin-striped suit with the collar up and a richly colored scarf draped under the lapel. He was a creative genius, but more important, he was a good and trustworthy man. He was also a kind friend.
She parked in front of her house and went inside. It was empty, but she knew within an hour the Saturday night ritual of her roommates hanging out with their girlfriends would begin, and the house would become loud with laughter and music. She hurried up to her room and closed the door. Sitting in the middle of her bed, she opened the envelope and looked inside. The first paper she pulled out was a piece of stationery with some handwriting on it. Underlined at the top were the words For the attorney. She wondered who had jotted the notes. Her mother or her father, perhaps? Under the heading was the name of a private school. She recognized it because it had the reputation as one of the best in the city. There were also the names Suzanne and Peter Hyatt with an address and a phone number.
She put the paper aside and pulled out legal-size pages that were stapled together. At the top was the name of an insurance company. Glancing over the copy, she realized it was a life insurance policy for her father. She quickly scanned it. By the time she reached the signatures on the last page, her hands were shaking. She was both astonished and outraged. The policy was worth five hundred thousand dollars, and she and Charlotte were the beneficiaries. Her father had left them a large sum of money, and yet they had never seen a dime. Where had the money gone? She didn’t have to think long for the answer. Her aunt and uncle had somehow gotten their hands on it. Everything was making so much sense to Allison now. It was all about the money. That was the only reason her aunt and uncle had taken them in. They had kept the money a secret all these years. Yet how many times had she and her sister heard they were a financial burden? One big lie.
Allison couldn’t help wondering where it went. It certainly wasn’t spent on Charlotte and her. Any new clothes or essentials were purchased at a discount store, and once the girls were teenagers, they were expected to find ways to pay their own expenses. They had gone to a public elementary school, and when Allison expressed a wish to go to St. Dominic’s for high school, her aunt and uncle refused. She wasn’t deterred. She persisted until they gave in, with the stipulation that she would have to pay the tuition on her own. It wasn’t easy, but she managed to earn the money by working jobs on nights and weekends. Giovanni helped out her senior year.
Her aunt and uncle hadn’t lived a lavish lifestyle. They did, however, like to go out on weekends with their friends. Allison supposed the bars and clubs they frequented had taken a great deal of the money. Pampering Will probably took the rest. There was nothing he ever wanted that he didn’t get.
Allison set the documents aside and picked up the piece of stationery again. Suzanne and Peter Hyatt. The names sounded vaguely familiar, but she couldn’t place them. She stared at them for several minutes, trying to recall where she’d heard them before, but eventually she gave up. There was an address in Houston and a phone number. She wondered, after all these years, if these were still accurate. One way to find out, she thought. She pulled out her phone and tapped in the numbers. After five rings she was ready to give up, but suddenly a woman’s voice came through.
The woman sounded slightly out of breath, as though she’d rushed to get to the phone. “Hello.”