was rail thin, and her heavy, jaw-length dark brown hair needed a good trim. She was also plain, with pale, dull skin that looked as if it had never seen the sun and small, unremarkable features.
'How are you doing, Molly?'
'Fine.' She didn't look up from the book that lay open in her lap.
Phoebe sighed to herself. Molly made no secret of the fact that she hated her guts, but they'd had so little contact over the years that she wasn't certain why. When Phoebe had returned to the States after Arturo's death, she'd made several trips to Connecticut to visit Molly at school, but Molly had been so uncommunicative she'd eventually given up. She'd continued to send birthday and Christmas presents, however, along with occasional letters, all of which went unacknowledged. It was ironic that Bert had disinherited her from everything except what should have been his most important responsibility.
'Can I get you anything? Something to eat?'
Molly shook her head and silence fell between them.
'I know this has been tough. I'm really sorry.'
The child shrugged.
'Molly, we need to talk, and it would be easier on both of us if you'd look at me.'
Molly lifted her head from her book and regarded Phoebe with blank, patient eyes, giving Phoebe the uneasy feeling that she was the child and her sister the adult. She wished she still smoked, because she was in desperate need of a cigarette.
'You know that I'm your legal guardian now.'
'Mr. Hibbard explained it to me.'
'I think we need to talk about your future.'
'There's nothing to talk about.'
She pushed a wayward blond curl behind her ear. 'Molly, you don't have to go back to camp if you don't want to. You're more than welcome to fly to New York with me tomorrow for the rest of the summer. I've subleased an apartment from a friend who's in Europe. It has a great location.'
'I want to go back.'
From the pallor of Molly's skin, Phoebe didn't believe her sister enjoyed camp any more than she had. 'You can if you really want to, but I know what it's like to feel as if you don't have a home. Remember that Bert sent me to school at Crayton, too, and packed me off to camp every summer. I hated it. New York is fun during the summer. We could have a great time and get to know each other better.'
'I want to go to camp,' Molly repeated stubbornly.
'Are you absolutely sure about this?'
'I'm sure. You have no right to keep me from going back.'
Despite the child's hostility and the headache that was beginning to form at her temples, Phoebe was reluctant to let the issue pass so easily. She decided to try a new tack and nodded toward the book in Molly's lap. 'What are you reading?'
'Dostoyevski. I'm doing an independent study on him in the fall.'
'I'm impressed. That's pretty heavy reading for a fifteen-year-old.'
'Not for me. I'm quite bright.'
Phoebe wanted to smile, but Molly had delivered the statement so matter-of-factly that she couldn't. 'That's right. You do well in school, don't you?'
'I have an exceptionally high IQ.'
'Being smarter than everyone else can be as much a curse as a blessing.' Phoebe remembered the trauma of her own school days when she'd been brighter than so many of her classmates. It had been one more element that had made her feel different from everyone else.
Molly's expression never altered. 'I'm quite grateful for my intelligence. Most of the other girls in my class are dolts.'
Despite the fact that Molly was acting like an obnoxious little prig, Phoebe tried not to judge her. She, of all people, knew that Bert Somerville's daughters had to find their own way of coping with life. As an adolescent, she had hidden her insecurities behind fat. Later, she had become outrageous. Molly was hiding behind her brains.
'If you'll excuse me, Phoebe. I've reached a particularly interesting section, and I'd like to get back to it.'
Phoebe ignored the child's obvious dismissal and made another attempt to convince her to come to Manhattan. But Molly refused to change her mind, and Phoebe eventually had to concede defeat.
As she got ready to leave the room, she stopped at the door. 'You'll call me if you need anything, won't you?'
Molly nodded, but Phoebe didn't believe her. The child would eat rat poison before she'd come to her disreputable older sister for help.
She tried to shake off her depression as she headed back downstairs. She heard Viktor on the living room telephone with his agent. Needing a moment alone to collect herself, she slipped into her father's study, where Pooh was asleep in one of the armchairs that sat in front of a glass-fronted gun cabinet. The poodle's fluffy white head shot up. She sprang from the chair, her pom-pom tail wagging, and raced across the carpet to her mistress.
Phoebe sank to her knees and gathered the dog to her. 'Hey, sport, you really did it today, didn't you?'
Pooh gave her an apologetic lick. Phoebe began to retie the bows that had come undone at the dog's ears, but her fingers were trembling, so she abandoned the effort. Pooh would just work them loose again anyway.
The dog was a disgrace to the dignity of her breed. She hated bows and rhinestone collars, refused to sleep on her doggy bed, and wasn't the slightest bit picky about food. She detested being clipped, brushed, or bathed and wouldn't wear the monogrammed sweater Viktor had given her. She wasn't even a good guard dog. Last year when Phoebe had been mugged in broad daylight on the Upper West Side, Pooh had spent the whole time rubbing against the mugger's legs begging to be petted.
Phoebe buried her hair in the dog's soft topknot. 'Underneath that fancy pedigree, you're nothing but a mutt, aren't you, Pooh?'
Abruptly, Phoebe lost the battle she had been fighting all day and gave a choked sob. A mutt. That's what she was. All dressed up like a French poodle.
Viktor found her in the library. With more tact than he usually displayed, he ignored the fact that she'd been crying. 'Phoebe, pet,' he said kindly, 'your father's lawyer is here to meet with you.'
'I don't want to see anyone,' she sniffed, searching futilely for a tissue.
Viktor extracted a plum-colored handkerchief from the pocket of his gray silk jacket and handed it to her. 'You'll have to talk with him sooner or later.'
'I already did. He called me about Molly's guardianship the day after Bert died.'
'Maybe this has to do with your father's estate.'
'I'm not involved with that.' She blew noisily into the handkerchief. She had always pretended that being disinherited didn't bother her, but it was painful to have such clear and public proof of her father's scorn.
'He's quite insistent.' Viktor picked up the purse she had left in the chair where Pooh had been sleeping and opened it. It was a gently used Judith Lieber clutch he had found in a consignment shop in the East Village, and he gave Phoebe a disapproving glance as he spotted' a Milky Way nestled at the bottom. Pushing it aside, he pulled out her comb and restored her hair to order. With that done, he extracted her compact and lipstick. While she repaired her makeup, he took a moment to admire her.
Viktor found the off-kilter features that had inspired some of Arturo Flores's best work far more appealing than the puffy-lipped faces of the anorexic models he posed with. Others had, too, including the famous photographer Asha Belchoir, who'd recently done a photo session with her.
'Take off those torn stockings. You look like you belong in the chorus of
While she reached under her skirt to do as he said, he returned her makeup to her purse. Then he straightened her fig leaf belt and walked her to the door.
'I don't want to meet with anybody, Viktor.'
'You're not going to back down now.'
Panic filled her amber eyes. 'I can't pull this off much longer.'
'Then why don't you stop trying?' He brushed his thumb over her cheek. 'People may not be gloating as much
