The Housekeeper by Natalie Barelli

Author:Natalie Barelli
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780648225980
Publisher: The Last Bureau

Chapter Nineteen

Philippa Davenport and I had been best friends since third grade. We’d sit on her pink satin bedspread and do each other’s nails and listen to Mariah Carey on repeat. She had a cook called Anna who would bring us crepes with Nutella and ice cream and slices of strawberry cheesecake. We were in love with Justin Timberlake and Harry Potter, and we spent countless hours planning our weddings in minute details, from tiaras to profiterole cakes (we were obsessed with profiterole cakes).

Philippa’s fourteenth birthday party was to be held at the Pierre Hotel, in a sumptuous, grand circular ballroom. The theme for the party was the Debutante Ball, which to us was the most exciting thing in the world. The real Debutante Ball is an invitation-only formal affair, where young ladies of distinction from upper-class families are presented to high society. We were all such young ladies of distinction, and the real ball was still at least three years away for us, but this was the next best thing.

Philippa and I prepared for it for months. We talked nonstop about what we would wear, even though it was a given that every girl would wear more or less the same thing: a white satin gown and matching gloves that went all the way past our elbows.

Hannah had been and gone from our lives by then. There had been some confusion as to why, having made such a fuss of coming to New York, she’d only stayed for a week before begging to be sent home, but I wasn’t interested. She was a blip on our landscape, a kink in our road. As far as I was concerned, she may as well not have existed at all.

The adults were also invited, but at the last minute, my father didn’t come. Something about him not feeling well, and I was vaguely aware of something going on at home—hushed voices behind closed doors, my mother looking teary, my father shaking his head a lot. My mother and I walked in the gorgeous room lit by enormous chandeliers, like a rain of crystal drops cascading from ornate glass frames and adorned by a series of painted angelic scenes in gilded frames, as exquisite as if Raphael had descended from the heavens to paint them all himself. The room was enchanting and the most glamorous room I’d ever stepped in.

My mother joined the adults for cocktails while I went searching for Philippa. There was a photo to be taken of all of us girls, and I was instructed to join the others. I saw them giggling and jostling each other as the photographer and Philippa’s mother organized everyone. I had never felt so beautiful in my life, in my white dress like a soft cloud and my blond hair in soft curls held up with diamanté combs.

When I think about that day, I try to stop there, before the titters of laughter that had begun farther down the line reached me. Before I

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