Page 3 of Tell Me Softly
I washed my face and brushed my teeth and combed my hair slowly, watching my face. I liked what I saw, but I’d have been happy not to look so much like my mother. I had inherited her blond hair, but mine was a little wavier. We both had the same dimples in our cheeks. At least my eyes weren’t like hers; hers were sky blue, mine brown like Dad’s, with long, thick lashes. I’d been lucky enough to only have to wear braces for a year, and I’d had perfect teeth since I was in seventh grade. That didn’t mean I didn’t have my issues, and naturally my mother did nothing to help them. Like when I turned fifteen and started getting acne. Every girl does at that age; some of my friends are still dealing with it. Obviously I hated having those red dots that had just shown up one day on my chin and forehead, but my mother went overboard. She took me to five dermatologists, changed my diet, forced me to get a treatment that cost a fortune.
Two years later, my skin was smooth as silk, but she still made me put on makeup before I went to school. God forbid someone notice my freckles or the bags under my eyes. Kamila Hamilton always had to be perfect, just like her mother, the ice queen—tall, blond, thin, elegant, and obsessed with her appearance. She wasalways calm, no matter whom she was with. I’d never seen her lose her cool. Or just once. That one time when I’d opened Pandora’s box…
Next to the makeup table by my closet was a mannequin with a sea-blue dress draped over it. I loved it; it was simple but expensive, like most of the garments packed inside my closet. It was perfect for a fancy dinner or a party, but not for the first day of class. That’s how my mother was, though. Everything she bought me came with conditions, and a common one was that she got to decide when and where I’d wear it. And there was nothing I could do to change her. She felt the need to keep up appearances no matter what, and I was too tired to fight with her.
I put on my makeup and got dressed. Thankfully, the fabric was light and the cut summery because it was almost a hundred degrees out. I paired it with pretty white sandals that complemented my tan.
I looked in the mirror and liked what I saw, but I didn’t like the person staring back at me. Why was I so sad? Was it because of Danny?
Danny and I started going out on my fifteenth birthday. I hadn’t kissed anyone since kissing Thiago when I was a kid. I hadn’t wanted to until I met Danny. We were inseparable from that day forward, but what had started as a typical high-school relationship had turned ridiculous, like some kind of lifelong commitment with our families planning our lives and telling us what we had to do at every hour of the day.
Danny was the mayor’s son, and my father was the lawyer who managed the mayor’s gigantic fortune. My father had studied at the best universities, graduated from Yale summa cum laude, and earned a doctorate in management at NYU’s Stern School of Business. He managed a lot of people’s money, including the few wealthy businessmen in our small town of Carsville. He traveleda lot, and we rarely saw him, but he was the man I loved most in the world.
Everything was about appearances for my mother, and to have her daughter going out with the mayor’s son was like living in a Disney film. I liked it at first because I’d finally done something that had made her happy, but as time passed, my relationship with Danny turned into a jail cell, and I had no power at all over my own life. Danny tried to ignore his parents, but the pressure started to get to him too. He had started off as a sweet guy, very handsome. I was crazy about him, but his need to impress everyone brought out a nasty side of his character, and besides, all he could ever talk about was sex. I loved him—I really did, but I wasn’t in love anymore. Especially not after what had happened the last time we saw each other.
I closed my eyes and tried to forget that last memory and the voice of my conscience reminding me that I’d have to talk to him sooner or later. The summer had been the perfect excuse to get the distance I needed, but we’d left a lot of things unsaid, and…losing my virginity to him and then running off to the shore had left so much unanswered.
I remembered that last day lying next to him.What is it?he had asked me as soon as he’d finished.
We’d done it in his bedroom. His parents were away for the weekend, and after two years, our expectations for the first time were enormous.
But I was crying. I was crying because even if Danny loved and respected me, I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about someone else: the person I had never forgotten and was still in love within the deepest depths of my heart.
My brother, Cameron, walked through my bedroom door and shattered my moment of distraction.
“Mom told me you’d take me to school,” he said. I turnedto him with a scowl. My brother’s school was next to mine, in a building connected to the high school by a long hallway that was used for exhibitions. Because it was registration day, I had to go in an hour before him, and that’s why Mom was supposed to take him in. He was little, and he needed all the sleep he could get.
He had so much stuff, he looked like he was going to camp instead of to school. His backpack almost cast a shadow over him. In one of his arms was his iguana, Juana, and hanging from his belt were a canteen, a flashlight, and who knows what else.
“Cameron, you can’t go to school with all that,” I said patiently.
“Why not?” he asked, indignant, furrowing his blond brows and squeezing his iguana tighter. That creature was repulsive, and it was getting huge, but Cameron adored it, so I guess I had to love it too.
“They won’t let you onto the playground like that,” I said, kissing the top of his head and grabbing my bag and my car keys. “Have you had breakfast?” I asked, walking out of my room with him in tow. My brother was six, almost seven, but for me he was basically still a baby—just as cute and every bit as annoying.
“Yeah, like an hour ago. You took forever to wake up…Mom’s gonna be mad.” He nearly tripped over one of the pieces of junk he was carrying around.
“Give me that,” I said. I hadn’t even realized he was carrying a frog gig. “Cameron, are you serious?” I couldn’t believe him. “Go put all this stuff back in your room.”
“Fiiiiiiine,” he said, stretching the word out for a good thirty seconds before vanishing through his bedroom door. I walked down the long stairs. When I was little, I used to love climbing up on the banister and sliding down. For a second, I had the crazy idea of doing it again.
“What are you doing, Kamila?” a soft, cold voice asked. Ilooked down to find my mother waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. I sighed and walked the rest of the way down. Anne Hamilton was, as I’ve said before, a beauty and one apparently impervious to time’s passing. Every day, she looked younger than the day before, thanks to the thousands of dollars she spent on her appearance. She looked closer to twenty than forty.
“Good morning, Mom,” I said, walking past her to the kitchen.
“Boy, that dress looks good on you, doesn’t it? I told you it was a good idea to wear it for the first day of class.” She followed me into the kitchen. “It’s too bad you didn’t inherit my height. But you’ve still got time to grow.”
I flipped the switch in my head that tuned her out when she started with that same old song and dance. There was no need for me to listen. I knew perfectly well what she would say. I could sum it up in just a few words:You’re not perfect enough. Not for me.
The kitchen was big, just like every other room in the house. On one wall was a giant window that let in tons of sunlight. Through it you could see the gorgeous fields around the property. Prudence, our cook, was there. She’d been working for us as long as I could remember. She was so genuinely nice that I couldn’t help but smile when I saw her.
“Hello, Prue,” I said, noticing what she was making: scrambled eggs and bacon. Mmm. My mouth was watering.
“Good morning, Miss,” she said. She was being formal because Mom was around. “The usual?” she asked, referring to my breakfast.
“What else?” I answered, rubbing my chin as I watched Prue cut a grapefruit in half and offer it to me along with a cup of coffee. What I wouldn’t give for a plate of those eggs! But Mom said they’d be bad for my figure.
“Kamila, I need you to take Cameron to school, and on theway back, come by the club and help me set up for the tennis club cocktail hour,” my mother said, ignoring my sigh.
