The Notorious Pagan Jones. Nina Berry
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It all looked so natural, so real. All the illusion needed now was the right clothes. She thanked Linda and Carol, then let them follow her toward her own bedroom, where Helen waited with a movable rack of clothes on hangers and several things laid out on the bed.
Pagan glanced around the familiar room. She hated its pale lilac walls, the high white canopy bed piled with pillows and stuffed animals, the shelves lined with pretty dolls in frilly dresses, classic children’s books, and official portraits of the family taken over the years.
What if I just painted everything black? she thought, and immediately felt guilty. How disrespectful to wipe away all of Mama’s efforts to showcase the perfect little girl’s life.
Her eye landed on the last family photo Mama had been in. They were all smiling dutifully in front of the Christmas tree. Next to it was a framed shot of Pagan, grinning on Clark Gable’s arm as she held up her Golden Globe award.
Mama had died shortly after that Christmas photo was taken, and Pagan had been so tipsy at the Golden Globe Awards that she’d tripped over her long gown and was hustled into a limousine by her publicist, sent home before the parties were over.
It was all so far away, as if it had happened to someone in a book, not to her. Clark Gable had died of a heart attack last year, and the attorneys had put her Golden Globe and BAFTA in a vault.
The fake glossiness of it all made her a little sick. Then she caught sight of the creation laid out on the foot of her bed and gasped.
Helen, a tall former model type dressed in a sleeveless red shift, clapped her hands together in delight. “Yes! It’s the Dior suit dress Mister Black insisted we get for you. Isn’t it spectacular?”
It was more than spectacular. It was perfection. Somehow Devin Black had obtained a brand-new suit dress from the house of Dior. The rich dark brown wool was sewn to look like two pieces—a full flared skirt that hit around the knee belted wide and tight at the waist, and a body-hugging bolero jacket with a crew neck, two almost invisible chest pockets, and three dark shell buttons down the front. But it was really all one piece, a dress so chic and modern she could barely breathe.
She watched Helen unbutton and unzip the dress for her and remembered now. She’d mentioned the Dior suit dresses offhand to Devin Black when they’d first met. The design was new that year, available only to the very rich and privileged. Soon they’d be copied by the department stores, but for now they had to be special-ordered from Dior at an exorbitant cost. It hadn’t occurred to Pagan to request one for herself. She couldn’t imagine how Devin Black had gotten it here in just a few hours.
As she pulled on the girdle—Lord! How she hated those things—and clipped her stockings to her garters, she couldn’t figure out how to feel about the dress. Was it a kindly gesture, meant to welcome her? Or was it a display of power, a sign that he was paying attention to her every word and could conjure anything he desired at a moment’s notice?
Knowing what little she did of Devin, it was both of those things. And more.
She didn’t look at herself in the mirror until the dress was fully zipped, her feet were slipped into a pair of kitten-heeled Dior pumps, and soft black leather elbow-length gloves were slid on over the dress’s tight sleeves.
The women were shaking their heads in appreciation, eyes wide. She stepped up to see her reflection and stilled. The dress was more than flattering—the warm brown complemented her eyes, the skirt tapered to make her waist look impossibly slender, showing off her calves and knees, and the bolero jacket widened at the bust to give her curves where it counted. This was a dress meant to make things happen, to let her move through the world with confidence and grace.
Her throat tightened. Could she ever be that girl in the mirror again?
Something dark moved in the reflection, and she whirled. Devin Black was leaning against the bedroom doorway, arms crossed, regarding her. One corner of his mouth deepened admiringly. “Glad to see it fits.”
Pagan opened her mouth, not sure what to say, gratitude and resentment battling inside her.
Helen made a tsking noise. “Mister Black, please! Girls only in the bedroom!”
Devin gave her a little bow and faded down the hallway.
Pagan’s eyes filled up, threatening to send mascara dripping down her cheeks.
“Excuse me,” she muttered, and ran into her bathroom, shutting the door and grabbing a tissue. The girl in the mirror looked uncertain now, overwhelmed, and not nearly mature enough for her outfit.
She took another tissue out of the box sitting on top of the toilet tank and had a sudden memory—of sliding a half-empty pint of vodka into that tank, about a year ago. She had concealed bottles all over the house, but that was one of her best hiding places. However much the maid scrubbed the bowl, she never bothered with the tank. No one did.
I’m not going to take it. I’m not going to drink it. I just need to know if it’s still there. That’s all.
Breathing a little harder than she should, Pagan removed her gloves and lifted the top off the toilet’s tank.
Nothing. No bottle of vodka. Just clear water, rods, valves, and the float.
She let the tank lid fall back into place with a clang, then her knees buckled and she sat down on the lilac bath rug.
Someone had found the bottle and taken it away. After the accident and the discovery of her ridiculously high blood alcohol level, her father’s attorney had probably had a team go through the entire house to get rid of any damning evidence.
She wiped her eyes carefully and blotted her wet cheeks with some toilet paper. She looked down at the fluffy lilac rug and a tiny laugh escaped her. How ridiculous she must look.
Get off the floor in that Dior, Mama would’ve ordered, and then would have looked blank when Pagan laughed out loud at the inadvertent rhyme.
She climbed carefully to her feet, smoothing the skirt of her splendid new suit dress. It was unblemished, beautiful.
She looked at her face in the mirror. If she schooled it just right, she almost looked happy.
And she had a job to do. Mama would approve of this refusal to give in to insecurity. Where had Mama gotten that strength, and why had it crumbled so disastrously?
She threw away the tissue and put her shoulders back, chin up. She looked good, strong, thanks to the perfect structure of the dress.
Clothing wasn’t magical. There were no fairy godmothers, and she hadn’t been transformed. But no way was she giving up the Dior suit dress. One day she’d make it fit, inside and out.
In Daddy’s office there was a safe. Once Devin left for the night, Pagan would see what she could find inside. She was on a mission in Berlin. Not only to revive her career, but to learn more about Eva Jones, and maybe, just maybe, feel as happy as she looked.
The door to Daddy’s study was locked. Pagan rattled the doorknob again, not believing it. Daddy had never locked the office after Mama died; it was she who had kept the girls out, saying she didn’t want them spilling things on her important papers. Daddy had liked having them in there, settling Ava on his lap to act as his secretary or helping Pagan build a fort out of books.
It was late, but Devin Black was unaccountably still here. Pagan found him lounging with rather too much ease on the sofa in the living room, feet up on her mother’s rosewood coffee table, reading the New York Times.
“Can I have the key to my father’s office?” she said. “It’s locked for some reason.”
He didn’t look up from the paper. “I don’t have the