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After my shower Mommy came in to do her hair and make-up beside me at my vanity table. Now that we were side by side, giggling excitedly about the upcoming extravaganza, I could see why most people thought we looked more like sisters than mother and daughter. Of course, Mommy had been so young when she had had me. She was only in her early thirties now, and she had the sort of face and complexion that would take centuries to show her age. I hoped I would look just like her forever and ever, but at this moment, with our faces next to each other in the glass, I could vividly see the differences, differences that had to be attributed to my father. I paused in brushing down my bangs.
"What did he look like, Mommy?" I suddenly blurted.
"He?"
"My real father?" I said. Somehow, gazing at each other through the mirror made it seem as if we were speaking to each other from a distance and that distance made the questions and the answers easier to ask and to answer. I was hoping Mommy would seize the opportunity to tell me now the things she had promised she would tell me tonight.
"Oh," she said and continued to brush her hair for a few moments. I thought she wasn't going to answer. Then she stopped. "He was very handsome, movie-star handsome, with broad shoulders and dark, silky hair," she said, her voice quiet and sounding far-away. "He always looked elegant and he had these dark blue eyes that sparkled with an impish glint." She smiled at her memories. "All the girls at the school were totally in love with him, of course. And he knew it!" she added, brushing her hair harder. "You will never meet a more arrogant . . ."
I held my breath, afraid that if I moved or spoke, she would stop.
"I was just another one of those wide-eyed, foolish teenage girls he took advantage of easily. I'm sure to him I was a sitting duck, swooning, believing everything he told me, walking around with my head in the clouds."
"Do I have his eyes then?" I asked cautiously.
"Yours are the same color, but his were usually oily slick and full of false promises."
"I must have his mouth," I offered. She studied me a moment.
"Yes, I suppose, and your chin is shaped like his. Sometimes, when you smile . . ." She stopped as if coming to her senses.
"Was he always terrible, even in the beginning?" I asked quickly, hoping that she would keep talking about him.
"Oh no. In the beginning he was beguiling, charming and loving. I believed everything he told me, swallowed a feast of his lies eagerly. But," she added, tilting her he
ad, her eyes suddenly growing sad, "you have to remember, I was a young girl without any real family to call my own. Grandmother Cutler had agreed to send me to New York, mostly as a way to get rid of me, and my mother was incapable of helping herself, much less me. I was truly an orphan.
"Then along came this devastatingly handsome, world-famous music star showering his attention on me, promising me I would someday sing alongside him on the world's greatest stages. Why wouldn't I fall head over heels and believe every promise? Like a vulture of love, he sensed that," she added bitterly.
"And no one knew?" I asked intrigued with the mystery. Despite Mommy's hardships afterward, the adventure of such a romance fascinated me.
"We had to keep everything a secret. He was a teacher and I was his student. Grandmother Cutler had her spies, just hoping to find some reason to hurt me. I even lied to Aunt Trisha until I could lie no longer," she said. "I was pregnant with you."
"What did he do when you told him?"
"Oh," she said, brushing her hair again, "he made new promises. We would get married and have a mother's helper and travel. I would still be a musical star." She paused and smirked. "As long as I continued to keep everything a secret so he could safely finish his tenure at the school.
"Then," she added, gazing into the mirror with her eyes so narrow and cold, it was as if she could see him there, "he simply sneaked off. Trisha came home one afternoon, full of excitement because Michael Sutton had abruptly ended his teaching career, supposedly because he was called off to London to star in a new production.
"All lies," she added, shaking her head. "He had deserted me."
"How horrible," I said, my heart pounding. I wondered what I would have done in such a predicament.
"I couldn't confide in my mother and I knew Grandmother Cutler would gloat at my disaster. I went mad, wandered the city streets in the midst of a snowstorm and was hit by a car. Luckily, it wasn't a serious injury, but it ended all the lies; only afterward, I was left even more vulnerable than before and completely at the mercy of Grandmother Cutler, who moved swiftly to have me transferred into the hands of her witch sister Emily back at their family plantation, The Meadows.
"The rest of it is too awful to tell," she concluded.
"I was born there?" I asked.
"Yes, and stolen away from me. But Jimmy arrived and thank God, we were able to get you back," she said, her eyes so filled with warmth and love that I felt that finding me was the best thing that had ever happened to her. "There now," she added, kissing me on the cheek. "You've made me tell you all of our sad history on your special birthday."
"But you haven't told me all of it, Mommy. And you promised," I cried.
"Oh Christie, what else must I tell you?" she asked, the corners of her mouth drooping.
"Once my father came here, right?"
"Not here," she said. "He called from Virginia Beach. He begged me to bring you to see him, claiming that was all he wanted—to set eyes on his daughter. What he really wanted was to blackmail me and get some money, but my attorney frightened him off.
