“What?”
“It’s like there’s someone else inside me making me eat all the wrong things,” she said. “Your sister is really very beautiful. If I could be that beautiful, I wouldn’t care if I was an escort or whatever she’s called. I bet she’s having a good time.”
“I don’t know. Maybe she’s like someone’s slave or something.”
“You’ve got to talk to her, Emmie. I’m sure there is lots you can learn from her. It’s stupid. Your father is just being a pighead. Don’t listen to him.”
“I can’t do that,” I said. “If he found out, he’d disown me, too.”
“Just for that? I doubt it.”
“You don’t know my father. I told you, we can’t even mention her name.”
She stopped walking and leaned against the side of the building at the corner just below the boutique and looked thoughtful.
“Okay,” she said. “Then you have no choice but to keep spying on her and following her. How else will you learn anything about her? Someday she might move away from New York, and the chance for you ever to get to know her will be lost forever and ever.”
“I know.”
She was telling me something I thought often.
“She’s out of the shop,” Chastity announced with renewed excitement, and stepped forward. Roxy was headed our way.
“Let’s go,” I said, panicking. “She’s sure to see me standing here.”
“No, quick,” Chastity said, seizing my hand to pull me a little way down the side street. “You look the other way,” she ordered. “I’ll watch for her.”
I had no choice but to do what she said.
After a moment, she said, “Okay, she went by. C’mon,” she urged, taking my hand again.
I put up some resistance, but the truth was, I wanted to go and learn as much as I could about my forbidden sister.
3
After another block and a half, Roxy stopped at a restaurant. Less than a minute later, she and another young woman were led out to a table on the sidewalk. Again, I pulled back into a storefront entrance quickly. Chastity did the same.
“Do you know who she’s with?”
“How would I possibly know that, Chastity?” Was she just thick, or did she really believe I wasn’t telling her everything I knew?
“She’s very pretty, too. I bet she’s also an escort. Do you think she’s an escort, too?”
“I don’t know. I told you, you know as much about my sister now as I do.”
“Who else would she hang out with? She must be another escort. They’re probably comparing notes. I wonder if they work for the same service. How do you get into such a thing? How much money do they make?” She rattled off all her questions in one breath and then turned to me, expecting answers.
“Don’t you hear me? I don’t know any more about any of this than you do, Chastity.” I was no longer hiding my annoyance with her.
She nodded, disappointed. From the way she was looking at my sister and her friend, I could see how much she longed to be as attractive as they were.
“I bet they have interesting lives,” she muttered. “Just as I said, I bet they even know celebrities and go to exotic places. Just think of it. Lots of movie stars don’t want to be followed and have their picture taken every time they go out. What’s better than an escort service? She must know lots of famous people.”
What a strange thing was happening, I thought. I didn’t bring Chastity along to get her to idolize my sister. I needed company. If anything, I had expected she would get bored and want to do something else. Now it looked as if I would have trouble getting her to leave. Before I could suggest that we do leave, someone else arrived at my sister’s table.
He was an elegant-looking man, probably about fifty, dressed in a dark blue velvet sports jacket and a blue tie. Even from where we were standing, we could clearly see that he was tan and handsome. A diamond pinkie ring caught the late-afternoon sun. Both my sister and her friend rose to greet him and be kissed on both cheeks.
“Is he French?” Chastity asked.