Never Too Rich

by Judith Gould

  She ducked out of the car. “Hello, Randy,” she said in her alluringly smoky voice. She smiled the kind of brilliant smile that puts sunshine into rainy days, just as the folded tip she slid discreetly into his hand would have warmed the cockles of any doorman’s heart. “Would you mind helping Winston with my suitcases? There are two of them.”

  Randy tipped his hat again. “I’ll have them sent upstairs immediately,” he promised.

  She had an elevator to herself. Eagerly passing her tongue over her magenta lips, she felt a thrill of anticipation as the elevator rose up the south tower and bobbed to a halt on the twentieth floor. Home. Here was the center of her universe, the lavish hearth that was a throwback to warm safe caves, her sanctuary from the hustle and bustle of the naked city, her terraced, landscaped fairy-tale getaway high in the sky.

  The throbbing bass beat of a punk-rock song sounded like the building’s heartbeat as Edwina unlocked her front door and stepped inside the foyer of the duplex. She snap-locked the door behind her and turned slowly around. She frowned deeply. Thundering lyrics which sounded disturbingly like a refrain of “Brain dead . . . dead head . . . gonna be brain dead ...” clashed with the elegant black-and-white marble floor, the wine-colored silk walls, and the huge oval Portuguese painting of flowers over a William Kent table laden with two enormous candelabra and a lavishly expensive arrangement of red and white anthuriums, fragrant white freesia, and long-stemmed white orchids amid a fanning spray of palm leaves.

  On the table there were, as always, four neatly sorted stacks of mail awaiting her. The first was composed entirely of copies of WWD, as well as the January issues of W, House and Garden, Gourmet, Town and Country, Vanity Fair, and other magazines; the second was obviously junk mail; the third consisted of bills and letters; and the fourth, in a Meissen porcelain basket, consisted the heavy, feloniously expensive envelopes which unfailingly held beautifully printed social invitations, of which, as a rule, she received an average of ten each week. Well, she would get to the mail and RSVP’s later. First things first.

  “Ruby!” she called out, peeling off her blue leather gloves and slapping them against the palm of her hand. “I’m home!”

  Ruby bustled in from the direction of the kitchen. The housekeeper did a double-take and her mahogany face broke into a cheerful white smile.

  “My Lord, Miz Edwina!” she cried. “You’re back already!”

  Edwina smiled and stepped forward to hug her. “Ruby, your face is a sight for sore eyes! How I’ve missed you.”

  Ruby made a face. “If you’d called, I’d have told you to stay away a day or two.” She tilted her head back and scowled at the staircase curving gracefully up to the second floor. “Hallelujah, she said she’s sick, so she can’t go to school, and what does she do? Piles up the bed like she was Princess Di and plays that jungle drum music so loud I can’t hear myself think!” She shook her head despairingly.

  Edwina looked worried as she slowly took off her electric-blue mink cape. “Is it anything serious? Does Hal show a fever?”

  Ruby flapped her hand. “If you ask me, she shows a serious dislike for exams, that’s what,” she growled. There was a fierce expression in her brown eyes, but she had the soul of a mothering angel and a heart of gold—and there was something warmly comforting about her big-busted, ample proportions. She moved like the bowsprit of a ship parting the seas.

  “You have a good trip?” she asked, taking the mink cloak and scowling at it. She had long ago made it clear that only fools and pimps sheared a good mink and then dipped it in blue dye. “I just don’t know what’s gotten into that child the last two weeks,” she said disconsolately. “That is not the same girl you left. I don’t think it’s that record that’s brain dead, I think it’s her.”

  Now Edwina was beginning to look very alarmed. “What do you mean?” she asked falteringly.

  “Go up and see for yourself,” Ruby invited darkly, muttering under her breath as she went to hang up the despised blue fur so she wouldn’t have to look at it any longer. “But if you do, take my advice and have yourself a good stiff belt of brandy first.”

  Edwina looked startled. What did Ruby mean? she wondered. What could have happened to her perfect, sweet little girl?

  Only last year Hallelujah had been determined to become a ballerina, the year before that an opera singer. The latest craze had been to become a classical violinist. For the last few months, everything had been Juilliard this and Juilliard that. The apartment had always been filled with the melodious classics.

  And now? With this ghastly apocalyptic noise—

  “Brain dead . . .”

  Edwina half ran up the steps, the noise growing more deafening the closer to Hallelujah’s room she got.

  The door to the lacy princess haven with its lace-canopied bed, lace-skirted vanity, and lace curtains was closed. She knocked.

  There was no answer.

  Well, how could there be? she asked herself reasonably. It was a wonder that Hallelujah’s eardrums hadn’t burst already.

  Pressing firmly down on the brass door handle, she opened the door and gasped in speechless horror.

  There was such an air of unreality about the room that she felt as if she had stepped into a Steven Spielberg film, opening a perfectly normal door that led straight into hell.

  What had happened to the beautiful walls that had been hand-stenciled to look like lace? Where were all the Belgian lace skirts, and curtains, and spreads?

  Edwina could only slump against the doorjamb and stare. In the two weeks since she’d left, the expensive lace stencils had become crude black-and-white zebra stripes that crossed even the ceiling, and the exquisite lace-draped furniture had been stripped to its bare essentials and painted acidic enamel colors: the barren four-poster in sizzling pink, the vanity a putrid chartreuse. Leopard-patterned acrylic throws were everywhere—flung over the shapes she vaguely remembered as graceful slipper chairs, spread over the bed as a furry cover, and tacked, like tent flaps, across the windows. The beautiful parquet, which had been hand-painted with a wreath of flowers that went all around the room, was now hidden under a layer of bilious green fake fur—the type usually used to cover toilet seats. And on the television, a violent rock video was flickering; even Edwina, a novice to rock and punk music, could tell that the TV sound was turned down. The video images and the music didn’t mesh: it was the noise from the CD player that was deafening.

  And there, amid it all, was the creature who had been her recently exquisite daughter. Hallelujah Cooper was kneeling in the center of the bed, her long chestnut hair of two weeks ago cut short and standing straight up in black and yellow spikes, her perfect, creamy complexion hidden beneath a mask of ghoulish white makeup accentuated with almost-black lipstick and Marlene Dietrich eyes.

  And her clothes! Edwina shuddered. Where on God’s earth had Hal found these throwaway horrors? Where were her real clothes? She’d never even seen the things Hal had on now—an old scuffed black leather motorcycle jacket, scarlet latex halter top, black lace tights, and dirty white sneakers. And hanging from the jacket’s epaulets, from the belt loops, and from Hallelujah’s ears, wrists, neck, and even from around one ankle, was the biggest collection of rhinestone jewelry this side of Las Vegas.

  Edwina blinked. Caught her breath. Shook her head as though to shake the image away. Ruby, she realized, had for once understated the situation. This . . . this abomination of a . . . girl? . . . could not possibly be her daughter. While she had been gone, goblins had come, stolen the real Hallelujah, and left a changeling in her place.

  Finding her feet, Edwina stiffly crossed the room and switched off the blaring CD player.

  The sudden silence was jarring. The soundless video on the TV continued flickering.

  Hallelujah bounced off the bed. “Yo, Eds!” She beamed at her mother and blew a giant pink bubble of gum.

  Yo? Eds? What had become of “Hi” and “Ma”? She peered more closely at the apparition that wa
s supposed to be her daughter. “Hal?” she asked shakily. “Is that really you?”

  “Like, you know, it should be somebody else?” Hallelujah rolled her tawny yellow-brown eyes. “Give me a break. You think I skipped town and you came back and it’s like: Where’s my little girl?”

  Edwina nodded. “Something like that, yes,” she said slowly. Suppressing a shudder, she sat down on the edge of the bed. Bowing her head to momentarily inspect the chipped polish of a magenta talon, she took a deep breath and then looked back up, meeting Hallelujah’s eyes straight on. “Hal, darling,” she said succinctly, “I think we have to talk.”

  “Oh, Maaa!” Hallelujah wailed, and rolled her eyes expressively again. “You’re gonna get on my case now, right?”

  “I worry about you, that’s all. Darling, Ruby told me you were sick.”

  Hallelujah averted her gaze. “Well ... I didn’t feel too well. It was, like I was coming down with something? You know?” She sneaked a sideways peek to test the waters.

  From her mother’s expression, they looked chilly. Positively freezing.

  “Indeed?” Edwina asked coldly. “And would you care to elaborate on what you were coming down with, young lady?”

  Hallelujah set her square chin firmly. “Oh . . . you know . . .”

  “Hal,” Edwina said carefully, the only outward sign of her inner consternation being a vein she was unable to keep from throbbing at her temple, “I thought we’d agreed to come to decisions together.”

  “Oh-oh.” Hallelujah went on full alert. “This sounds like it has all the beginnings of a major lecture coming on.”

  Edwina ignored her and arranged herself into a stiffly formal posture. “First of all, about this room—I can’t say that it doesn’t come as somewhat of a shock. You should have talked it over with me before going ahead and ...” She was at a loss for words. “... and, well, trashing it.”

  “Ma,” Hallelujah said in a voice of weary exasperation, “you never listen! I told you on the phone last week that I wanted to redecorate, and you said, ‘That’s nice, darling!’ So I naturally thought—”

  “You mean, you conveniently thought. But you knew better. Well, what’s done is done.” Edwina compressed her lips. “Now, about these clothes . . . and the makeup.” She paused, frowning, and tilted her head questioningly. “Has your father seen you like this?”

  “Like what?” Hallelujah was suddenly all innocence.

  “Cut the bullshit, kiddo.”

  “Really, Ma! What’s gotten into you? I mean, you’re really coming down strong on me, you know?”

  “That’s because you’ve taken steps you knew would invite that. If you’re old enough to strike out on certain paths, then you’ve got to face the music as well.”

  “You’re treating me like a child.”

  “If you want to be treated like a grown-up, then you should act li—”

  Hallelujah suddenly spied something on the TV and let out a screech. Lunging for her remote control, she turned the sound all the way up. Edwina stared at the TV to see what had electrified her daughter.

  On-screen, a blond-and-black-haired youth with the same spiky hair as Hallelujah’s, the same makeup, and nearly the same leather-and-tights outfit, launched into the very number she had just switched off on the CD player.

  “Brain Dead.”

  “It’s Bad Billy!” Hallelujah squealed excitedly, shouting to make herself heard above the raucous noise.

  Edwina ground her teeth. So that was the inspiration for Hallelujah’s hideous new outfit!

  Hallelujah waited until the song was completely over before she switched the sound back off. She was positively glowing.

  Edwina wasn’t. Her ears were ringing, and she tried to blink away the nightmarish images of the video. Bikers, vampires, vultures, mad doctors, and Bad Billy as a kind of punk Frankenstein. She shuddered. It really did make you yearn for The Sound of Music or Bambi. Saccharine or not, she would take Julie Andrews over Bad Billy any day.

  Hallelujah’s eyelashes fluttered. “Isn’t he just the sexiest thing alive?” She sighed dreamily.

  Whoa! Edwina looked startled. Since when had Hal begun using words like “sexy” to describe a man?

  She took a deep breath and strove to make her voice sound neutral. “You’ve got to understand, darling. I’m just trying to be a good mother. It isn’t an easy job, you know.”

  Hallelujah sighed. “Neither is being a kid.” She blew a half-hearted bubble.

  “No, I don’t suppose it is.” Edwina knew her words sounded lame and trite, but they expressed what she felt. She sighed to herself. If only Hallelujah knew that she really did understand. Her own upbringing had been far from conventional; in fact, it had been downright bizarre.

  Edwina had been born in New York. She never knew her father, and her mother, Holly Robinson, never talked about him. About all she had ever learned was that her father’s name really was Robinson and that her mother’s perverse sense of humor showed on her 1956 birth certificate and would haunt her to her grave: Edwina Georgia Robinson.

  Edwina G. Robinson.

  It didn’t take long before everyone took to calling her—what else?—”Eds.”

  An odd name hadn’t hurt Edwina, but her mother’s absences did. Holly Robinson was the original party girl. She loved to play and travel, and moved on the edges of the jet set, relying on the generosity of men and the invitations and gifts from friends and acquaintances to get by. She was showered with both, because she was ravishingly beautiful and her razor wit and bubbling personality brought life to any party. She was a fixture at all the fabulous playgrounds of the world: Paris, Sardinia, Monte Carlo, London, the Caribbean. Wherever the jet set descended, so too did Holly. There was never any real money, and she and Edwina often had to move from one residential hotel to another, sneaking furtively out at night without paying their bill. But there was never a shortage of gowns and furs and jewels, charge accounts and airline tickets, and constant house-party and yachting invitations. Holly Robinson’s beauty and personality were her ticket to another world. But it was a ticket for one: children weren’t included.

  When Edwina was two, Holly left her with a childless couple, a school friend and her young doctor husband. “I’ll only be gone a few days,” she promised them vaguely. “I mean, what’s there to do on Mykonos? You’ve seen one island, you’ve seen them all.” Then she blew kisses to her daughter, waggled her fingertips to her school friend, and didn’t return for nearly three months.

  It was the beginning of a pattern.

  When Edwina was three, she spent more than half a year being shuttled between Holly’s various friends. And never the same ones twice. One long visit, and they all knew better.

  When Edwina was four, the half-year turned into nearly nine months.

  And when she was seven, Holly, running out of homes to stick Edwina in, left her with two men who lived together in Greenwich Village.

  “This is Alfredo, and this is Joseph,” her mother had said in her whispery, breathy little-girl voice. “They are your uncles, darling. Be good, and Mama will be back soon.” Holly blew Edwina the by-now-familiar kisses, wrapped herself in her newest sable, and was gone to a party in a chateau halfway around the world.

  She never returned to claim her daughter, nor did she reach the party. Her plane crashed in the Alps, and Uncles Alfredo and Joseph found themselves with a seven-year-old on their hands.

  They lived on the fifth floor of a run-down walk-up on Bleecker Street. But Edwina didn’t know how seedy it was, and even if she had, she couldn’t have cared less. The tenement building might not have been much better than a slum, but the railroad flat with the tub in the kitchen was spotlessly clean and furnished on a far grander scale than it deserved. The linoleum was bright red. Huge twin tubs of rhododendron leaves stood on pedestals to either side of the crumbling fireplace. Colorful Indian fabric draped the run-down furniture, and a plaster bust of Madame de Pompadour, sprayed silver, was crowned
with a straw hat. Pink silk scarves were thrown over every lampshade, and the softened light hid cracks in the plaster and the constant movement of roaches. Soft zither music and pungent incense kept the city at bay.

  Uncle Joe and Uncle Al were the first people Holly had dropped her off with that Edwina really liked. She was too young to understand that “normal” men didn’t live together and hug and kiss each other the way Al and Joe did; but whatever else they did, it had to be said that they did it behind closed doors.

  She lived happily with them for close to two years. Before the first day was up, she’d dropped their “uncle” prefixes and simply called them Joe and Al, and they were like doting brothers with a young sister. It was Joe, an Off-Off Broadway costume designer, who helped her sew the designer copies for her dolls. And it was the slightly more serious Al, a photographer, who made sure she went to school and picked her up after classes. Above all, Al and Joe put a measure of stability into her life, and they both cared for her deeply and lavished boundless love upon her. She still spent nights crying for her mother, but at least she had a family of sorts.

  But all good things had to end—for a while, at least. A new downstairs neighbor—a fat, mean, sharp-tongued gossip who hated Al and Joe—called the Department of Social Services on them.

  Almost immediately a rigid, frowning social worker in a sharply tailored mannish suit and a sour expression appeared, lectured the “uncles” severely, and after a brief but fierce tug-of-war triumphantly took Edwina with her. On the way to a city shelter, the social worker told her that a beautiful girl needed to be raised “right” and “normally” and that she was going to find a nice home for her.

  Edwina had cried that she didn’t want a nice home—she wanted Al and Joe. But the lady smiled with smug superiority and told her she should be grateful.

  Edwina had just turned nine.

  The childless family in which she was placed lived in the far reaches of the Bronx. They were very young, bright, and groomed to within an inch of their lives.