yself.
Maybe that was the ultimate lesson or power Mrs. Brittany had provided: Never feel sorry for yourself. That was when you became most vulnerable. And she was right, wasn’t she? It was a hard, bitter, and highly competitive world out there. It was no place for weak sisters. I had vowed when I arrived and I was vowing now as I left. I wouldn’t be a weak sister, ever.
The boutique hotel Mr. Bob brought me to was on the Upper East Side of Manhattan, a very upscale neighborhood of very expensive apartments in high-security buildings, with doormen and private garages, expensive classy restaurants and cafés, designer shops and boutiques, and probably the cleanest streets in the city. The hotel was called the Beaux-Arts and consisted mainly of luxury apartments. It didn’t have a big or ostentatious lobby, and one look at the staff told me that discreetness and privacy were paramount. Mr. Bob had all the keys I needed before we arrived. No one was introduced to me formally, but I could see that everyone involved knew I was the new tenant. I wondered what name I was registered under and asked Mr. Bob when we stepped into the elevator, for which you had to have a key. My things were being brought up on another elevator.
“No name,” he replied. “Just an apartment number, 3C. No one calling you will be connected through a hotel switchboard. You have your own private line.”
“Mrs. Brittany doesn’t own this hotel, does she?”
“Let’s just say she has a majority interest. She usually does with anything and everything she depends on,” he said.
“That’s a careful woman.”
“She wouldn’t be where she is otherwise,” he said.
Where was she? I wanted to ask him. She was a woman without a real family. She had lost her husband, her daughter, and now her granddaughter. The family she had was the family she manufactured. Of course, at the moment, I couldn’t claim to have much more.
We stepped out of the elevator. I could see that there were only three apartments on the floor. Mine was the one on the right. It had a short marble-floored entry with a small but expensive-looking teardrop chandelier. There was a coat closet on the immediate right and a work of art on the opposite wall. It was a picture of a flower cut out of black velvet with pink cloth petals. There were artificial flowers everywhere.
Fleur du Coeur, I thought. The room was designed to fit my new image.
The entryway opened to a surprisingly large living room, with elegant leather and wood furniture. The centerpiece was a softly curved, L-shaped sectional that consisted of the sofa, corner back, and love seat. Directly across from it was a swivel accent chair with a round-bottom frame. Accent pillows were on everything. A matching coffee table and end table filled out the center of the room. To the right was a large panel window that looked east, and down from it was another, smaller panel window. A set of four different versions of what looked like the same flower was hung high on the far wall. The walls were faux-painted white with swirls of soft red and pink. The wooden floors were covered with a very large area rug that matched the furniture.
My eyes took in everything quickly—the sculptures, the lamps, and the bouquets of artificial flowers, and a fresh real plant at the center of the coffee table.
“They look like hearts,” Mr. Bob said.
I laughed. “Don’t you know my signature name?”
“Oh, right. Fleur du Coeur. Mrs. Brittany thinks of everything.”
“I guess so. They’re called Dicentra or bleeding heart.”
He looked at me. “Well, aren’t you the impressive one now.”
I shrugged. It did feel good to have knowledge, to be confident about things. Why didn’t I understand that when I was in school?
I continued to look at my new home. The floors were marble everywhere except in the living room, and the walls were faux-painted with the same white with pink swirls.
“It’s a beautiful place,” I said.
“Actually, it’s the biggest apartment in the hotel. Mrs. Brittany saw to that.”
“Are there any other Brittany girls here?”
“If there were and she wanted you to know, she would have told you.”
“Right,” I said. “We’re the CIA love machine, on a need-to-know basis only.”
He laughed. “Don’t lose your sense of humor,” he told me.
“Is that what it is?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Roxy, Roxy, Roxy,” he chanted as we went through the hallway to the living room. He showed me the dining room and the kitchen, where everything important—numbers, my schedule of doctor and dentist appointments, even my first manicure and pedicure appointment—was pinned on a board. He glanced around at the very modern, up-to-date appliances.
“What a waste of machinery,” he said.
“Why?”