CHAPTER TWO
LIZZIE
1992
My fingers touched the black wolf in the picture book I had brought home from school. He was supposed to be the bad one in the story. He was fierce and scary, but there was something pretty about him too. A banging on the door, followed by my father’s angry voice, had me running to the corner. They would start fighting now. He wasn’t here often, but when he was they screamed enough to keep most of the building awake.
“You got what you wanted, my fucking ring on your finger, but not anymore.”
“You’re going to divorce me? You never even lived here, never even gave us a chance.”
“Why the fuck would I?”
“And your firm, those extremely conservative men. You think they’ll be okay with you walking out on your wife and child?”
“They all have at least one mistress. A child out of wedlock, that would have turned their heads, leaving you won’t even make them blink.”
“You can’t leave me.”
“My lawyer is already drawing up the papers. You’re one twisted bitch, bringing a child into this. You were a good fuck and even that got tired after a while. Getting pregnant, did you really think that would turn us into a loving family? The child carries my name so she will want for nothing, but you and me we’re over. You can have this apartment and I’ll keep you in the lifestyle you whored yourself to have, but know I already have another woman warming my bed.”
“You son of a bitch.” Something crashed against the wall.
“That’s it, show your true colors, Norah. I am a son of a bitch. I never pretended to be something I wasn’t. That’s your thing.”
“I’ll ruin you.”
“Don’t threaten me. Remember Heather Craig? That’s right, be afraid. I know where the fucking bodies are buried.”
The door slammed, something crashed against it. I curled up as small as I could make myself in the corner of the room and cried. I was the child, that very unwanted child.
My mother appeared in my doorway. I started to shake. Kids feared the monsters under their beds or in their closets, but my monster was right out in the open. “You ruined my life. I wish you were never born.”
She had said those words to me a lot and still they hurt, but this time I was scared too. When she walked away, I ran to the door and locked it. I grabbed the book, climbed under the covers and wished the big bad wolf were here to protect me…from her.
1997
I should have insisted you wear the pink dress, the black just washes you out. Too late now, changing will ruin your hair. Do not slouch and do not pick on the food. You’re a little wide in the stomach already.”
Cold assessing eyes moved over me. Mother didn’t like what she saw when her perfect lips turned down into a frown. “You are already slouching. Shoulders back, Elizabeth.”
Her fingers bit into my shoulders as she forcibly pushed them back.
“Ouch.”
“Stop being a child. You’re ten today. I had planned to give you your present when your father was here, but if he keeps to his track record, he won’t show for this birthday either.”
It wasn’t a package wrapped in pretty paper with a bow, or one of those fancy gift bags with all that lovely colored tissue paper. There were no balloons or streamers. No candles, just a gray envelope that had Stone Crest Academy written in the top left corner.
“What it is?”
“Boarding School in Vermont. You start in September.”
“Boarding School?”
“Stone Crest Academy is very expensive. For the hundred thousand a year in tuition and boarding you might look a little enthusiastic.”
Being abandoned was being abandoned; I didn’t care how much it cost. “Yes, Mother.”
It was my birthday and Mother was hosting a party. It wasn’t a party for me; none of my friends had been invited, not that I had a lot of friends because Mother didn’t approve of most and the few who actually got an invitation never came back a second time. She had a way of scaring people off. This was a party for her, another opportunity to show off to her friends.
“Do not embarrass me, Elizabeth.” And on that note, Norah Danton turned and walked out.
Happy birthday to me.
I dragged my feet when I left my room and wondered how long I had to pretend. Mother usually drank heavily at these parties, so no longer than an hour. For that hour, I was the perfect little angel to all of her friends. I endured the cheek pinches, the assessing studies, and the comments under their breaths that they didn’t think I heard because I was young, which to them was synonymous with stupid or deaf. When the mood of the party changed, I escaped to the urban garden on the roof of our building. The lights of the New York skyline twinkled in the distance as cars and people moved this way and that. Everyone was heading somewhere in a hurry. Maybe they were rushing to get to a party, or the birth of a child, or maybe it was just their family holding dinner so they could all eat together. Mother didn’t eat, well unless it was in liquid form in a martini glass. My father never visited, but he did send me cards twice a year—one on my birthday and one for Christmas. Mother always opened them. She claimed she wanted to see the sentiment he wrote, not that he wrote any, but she was really taking the money he sent. I heard her on the phone with one of her friends saying she earned the money being stuck with the fat brat. I had been a means to an end, one that didn’t end as she had hoped, so now she was sending me off to boarding school. I guess she didn’t want the burden of a child anymore. I hated living here, but boarding school. My stomach ached thinking about it. I had only eight more years and I would be free. I didn’t know where I would go or what I would do, but I would be free of her. I could endure eight more years, I hoped.
Stone Crest Academy looked just as you’d think; big, old, gloomy and cold. Mother drove down the long drive. “Behave with dignity, Elizabeth, you are a Danton.”
When did I not behave with dignity? She held the reins so tightly I was barely able to think without her criticizing me.
“Will you visit at Christmas?”
“No,” she exhaled on a huff. “I suppose there is no harm in telling you. I’m moving to California. My health isn’t great.”
Panic squeezed my chest hard. “But I’ll be alone.”
“Being alone isn’t a bad thing. You’ll have more time to focus on your studies. The curriculum here is very difficult and you, well, you will definitely be challenged.”
In other words, I was stupid. “Why can’t I go to boarding school in California?”
“Are you talking back to me?”
“It’s a fair question.”
“I’ll make sure Stone Crest knows discipline is both welcomed and encouraged. After everything I have done for you, the sacrifices I have had to make, and this is how you speak to me?” Outside of finding my supposed flaws she did nothing for me. And I hadn’t asked to be born and if I knew to whom I was being born, I would have definitely voted no. I was the consequence of their actions, but the threat of corporal punishment caused the boldness to flee.
She pulled up in front of the large black double doors, the crest of the Academy over them in stone. She turned to me. “Did you ever for a second think you are the problem? Both your father and I…what’s the common denominator? You are, Elizabeth. Some people are impossible to love.” After those brutal words, she climbed from the car. I couldn’t get my hands to work, my stomach twisted and I felt sick. Was she right? Was I the problem? I managed to hide the pain, showing her would do nothing. She pulled my bags from the car, but she didn’t walk me in to the registration office. We stood on the drive staring at each other with about as much warmth as two strangers would feel.
“Behave yourself,” were her final words to me. Clutching my two bags tightly in my hands, I watched as my mother drove out of my life without a goodbye, without a kiss, without a hug. I wouldn’t cry, crying didn’t help, and still a single tear rolled down my cheek. I turned and looked up at the crest and felt a sickening sensation that as bad as my life had been, it was only going to get worse. I could do this, so I pushed my shoulders back and walked on shaking legs into the next chapter of my life.
Pain shot up my arm, but I bit my lip to keep from crying out. The ruler came down again on the same spot; the edges of my vision blackened. It was my third week here and I had dared to reach for a second slice of cake.
“Gluttony, Elizabeth, is a sin. Do you want to be a sinner?”
“No, Ms. Meriwether.”
“Will you reach for seconds at dessert again?”
“No, Ms. Meriwether.”
“That goes for all of you. Not knowing the rules isn’t an excuse. We here at Stone Crest Academy are determined to turn out well-behaved and disciplined young ladies. Let this be a lesson for all of you. You’re dismissed. Not you, Elizabeth. You can clean the dinner dishes as punishment.”
Mindlessly, I started collecting dishes. This wasn’t a boarding school; it was hell. Mother hadn’t been kidding when she threatened to encourage discipline. Ms. Meriwether was the worst of the lot, an apparent convent drop out, she used her twisted version of religion as an excuse to hurt and punish. She was also the headmistress so her attitude trickled down to the rest of the staff. Her methods were wrong but they worked because I wouldn’t be going for seconds again.
It took me two hours to clean up after dinner, which meant I would be up for most of the night doing homework, another punishable crime being up after curfew, but so was not turning in your homework. I was screwed either way. I dropped the dishrags in the basket and made sure all the lights were off before I headed to my room. Halfway there I realized I forgot my sweater. I turned back and noticed a light coming from the direction of the kitchen. My sixth sense was being honed here as well, so I didn’t just march into the kitchen, I peered around the door. The sight that greeted me almost brought forth language that would have earned me soap in the mouth. Ms. Meriwether was sitting at the counter in the kitchen, but it was the two slices of cake in front of her that had me seeing red. If I were bigger and stronger, I’d be very tempted to walk right up to her and punch her in her hypocritical face. So much for practicing what she preached.
Every week mail was delivered and every two weeks we were allowed calls from home. Sitting in the dining hall, week after week, watching as the other kids received letters and packages from home was hard. On my birthday and Christmas my father continued with his tradition of sending me a card with money. I knew it was his assistant that arranged for the cards and still I kept them. The money I put in a sock under my mattress. I didn’t have a roommate and no one came to my room, so it was safe.
My mother never called and she never wrote. She had quite literally washed her hands of me. Dumped me here and started over. I often wondered what she told my father because he was footing the bill for the place. Did she claim I was a problem child? That I was unruly and needed discipline? Most likely. Sometimes I thought to call him and set him straight, but he didn’t care any more than she did. Sure he was paying for the school, but from what my mother told her friends he didn’t feel the hit of my tuition and it was money that kept her and me out of his hair.
I often replayed my mother’s parting words that the problem was me not them. I knew it wasn’t true and still a part of me wondered. One day, maybe I’d find where I fit. I’d find a home. Maybe I’d even find someone who loved me. For now, I had to survive eight years of hell.
Strolling down the hall on the way to class, I wasn’t paying attention and almost ran into someone.
“Sorry…” Nadine. She made the staff look nice.
“Watch where you’re going, bitch.”
“I’m sorry. I didn’t see you.”
“What are you, blind?”
“No.”
“So you hit me on purpose.”
Sweat dripped down my back. This was how it worked here. If it wasn’t the staff, it was the older kids picking on the younger ones. Violence was fostered here, honed like a weapon. Her hand curled into a fist. I didn’t run because that would only make it worse. I doubled over in pain when her fist connected with my stomach. My lunch rushed up my throat. She jumped back then started laughing, drawing the attention of others.
“Enough. Get to class. Elizabeth, clean this up.” Ms. Beddle didn’t reprimand Nadine, didn’t ask what happened. That was how it worked here too. Don’t ask; don’t tell.
Nadine walked past me, shoving me with her shoulder. “See ya around.”
For the next few years until Nadine graduated, she would go out of her way to bully me, but no one helped, no one ever stood up for me, no one cared.
2003
Drawing became my passion and coping mechanism. Any free time I had I used sketching. I learned that there was more to people than what you saw and I found translating that onto a canvas very therapeutic. Many of my images were of faces…dark, haunting images with empty eyes because there were a lot of those at Stone Crest. Sometimes when I looked in the mirror I even saw that emptiness staring back at me. The human spirit could take only so much before it broke and I could acknowledge my life to that point had broken a part of me.
I also learned I preferred being an observer to life rather than a participant. It was safer in the shadows, safer to document life but not actually live it. And with the life I had lived so far, I was ready for a little safe. My hope was one day to turn my observer ways into a career.
2007
I was going to throw up. My art professor entered one of my paintings in a contest and it won. It was a self-portrait. I called it ‘Voices’. After I graduated from Stone Crest, I used the money my father had been sending me as the deposit on a studio in a building one step up from being condemned. I had to work double shifts at the diner to afford the place, but the lighting was perfect for painting. I worked and I painted until I had a portfolio to apply for art school. I wanted to get a formal education on technique. I had done it. Long hours, late nights and pinching pennies but I had gotten into night school. And now here I was, at an exclusive gallery where my painting was being shown. My professor was with me, but she was mingling. I was too nervous to mingle. I stood in a corner, watching as the who’s who in the art world of Manhattan strolled around, many of whom stopped to study my work.
“Why did you call it ‘Voices’?”
I almost jumped out of my skin before turning to the man who asked the question. He was older, probably in his fifties. Kind brown eyes looked back from a face that had lots of laugh lines.
“Your piece is exceptional, but I’m curious about the name.”
“It’s my interpretation of the inner struggle we all face at some point, the angel and devil on your shoulder trying to sway you to do right or wrong and how the line between the two gets blurred.”
He touched his ear and I realized he was communicating with someone. Some collectors sent representatives to showings. His attention shifted back to me when he guessed, “Sounds personal.”
“It is.”
He was silent for a moment before he turned and extended his hand. “Alistair Duncan. My client wants the painting.”
“It isn’t for sale.”
“He’s willing to make you an offer.”
I hadn’t thought of selling my portrait. I loved it. It was my most favorite piece, but making a sale, my very first, it could be my foot in the door of a very difficult world to enter let alone be successful.
“He’s prepared to pay $125,000.”
My legs went weak and I almost sank to the floor. Alistair smiled. “I’ve shocked you.”
“I’ve never sold my work before.”
“His offer is more than fair.”
“I know.” I looked past him to my painting. As much as I wanted to keep it, I liked the idea of it going to someone who understood it and liked it enough to pay well over what it was worth.
“Thank you, Mr. Duncan. Please tell your client he has a deal.”
“Excellent.”
“May I ask who he is?”
“I’m sorry, my client likes his anonymity.”
I understood, most collectors did. I learned that in art school, still it would be nice to know where my painting was going. “I hope he sees something new every time he looks at it.”
“I’ve no doubt. Thank you, Miss Danton.”
“Thank you.”
As painful as it was to part with ‘Voices’ that purchase was the start of my career, the next chapter in my life.
2009
It was late; thank goodness the diner was still open. I had just finished a painting, an alley not far from my apartment in the garment district. It was like any other of the countless alleys in the city. There was something about the lighting from the streetlight when dusk fell, shining on the stones that made up the buildings along the alley, how the light reflected off the mica chips was beautiful.
The pancakes hit the spot. I hadn’t eaten at all today. That happened when I was really moving on a painting. The coffee was hot and would probably keep me up, but then I’d be up anyway. A painting was never done after the last brushstroke for me. I stepped back, left it so I could return to study it with fresh eyes. I always found something I wanted to add.
Signaling the waitress for another coffee, a woman entered the diner. It was after eleven and she looked like she had just stepped off a fashion runway with her perfectly coiffed hair, her expertly applied makeup and her suit that was tailored just for her. She strolled through the diner on four-inch heels, an impressive sight. She scanned the diner until her eyes landed on me. It was tempting to glance behind me when she headed in my direction. Without a word, she slid into the booth across from me.
“Lizzie Danton?”
“Yes.”
She extended her hand. “Cait Allen.”
My painted covered hand curled around her French manicured one. “Hi.”
“Your work is brilliant.”
I had three showings since my first painting sold two years ago. They were small showings, but I couldn’t describe how amazing it was when people not only showed up but also actually studied my work.
“Thank you.”
“You’re booking in small, off the beaten path galleries, where you’re not the featured artist. I want to help you become the main attraction.”
“How?”
“It’s all about who you know.”
Any artist worth her portfolio would jump at an opportunity like the one Cait Allen was offering, but in my experiences no one did anything for free. “What do you want?”
“I want to rise with a rising star.”
At least she was honest. “Why me?”
“Because the first time I saw one of your paintings I cried. I don’t cry, but there is something haunting about your work, something unique, and I know I can sell the hell out of that.”
It sounded too good to be true. I told her as much.
“We can negotiate my fee. I just ask that you give me a chance.”
The idea of my own showing, that was too tempting to turn down. “Okay.”
Her face lit up. “Seriously?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t be sorry.”
My feet ached, my face hurt from all the smiling, but I had just spent the night as the featured artist at the Coquette Gallery on Fifth Avenue. Cait sat next to me on my sofa, our shoes kicked off, our feet up on my coffee table.
She dropped her head back on the sofa and stared up at the ceiling. “How fucking awesome was that?”
“I’m still riding the high.”
Her blue eyes found mine. “You sold out, not just the show but all of your paintings.”
“I’m still trying to get my head around that.”
“It is just the beginning.”
“I never would have been there tonight if not for you.”
“You would have gotten there eventually. You’re extremely talented; you just needed someone to market that talent, to push you into the spotlight.”
“Thank you.”
“My pleasure.”
“Do you want to sleep here?” Cait had slept here often, working until the early morning developing marketing plans and scheduling, so she had clothes here and a toothbrush. In the year and a half we’d been together she wasn’t just my agent. She had become my friend.
“Yep. Let’s watch a movie. A scary one.”
Thanks to Cait, I had started a new chapter in my life and so far I really liked this one.