The lady of the house was in the kitchen washing dishes, or that was what she called herself doing when Stephanie approached her. Stephanie and the other housekeepers would always have to go back over any cleaning job she did.
“Ma’am?” Stephanie spoke to Cat’s back.
Hearing Stephanie’s voice, Cat turned around, and when she saw the housekeeper’s plump frame behind her, she gave her best fake smile.
“Hey, Stephanie,” Cat said, drying her hands off on the dishrag that hung by the sink. “Does Tiara need anything?”
You’re her mother. You should know what she needs, Stephanie thought and wanted to say, but she didn’t.
“Why don’t you know what your own child needs?”
“Because that’s what I pay you for,” Cat said, making a face at Stephanie.
“Well, she didn’t come out of my vagina.”
“Does anything come out of your vagina?”
Stephanie took in the image of the beautiful five-foot-four woman before her and wished she could just snatch the smug smile from off of her face. That was the issue with women who had money. They thought they were invincible. Stephanie knew she could take her, but the love she had for Tiara wouldn’t allow her to lay a hand on Cat’s head. She couldn’t risk leaving the poor child alone with a mother like the one she had. The Christian Dior heels that Cat wore gave her a few more inches of height, and the sleek beige pantsuit clenched onto her fit body for dear life. Cat’s face was blemish free, and although she was in her mid-thirties, she didn’t look a day over twenty-five. Stephanie could not say that Cat was not beautiful. She felt as though that was all her head was wrapped around. The reason she never had another child was because she didn’t want to ruin her body. She said it took her too long to bounce back after Tiara, and that she refused to put her body through that again.
“Um, kind of,” Stephanie said. “Tiara does need something.”
“Well,” Cat put her hands in the air for emphasis, “what is it?”
“Tiara has been acting different ever since she started the eighth grade. Her teachers keep calling home and saying she’s being a distraction in class. There have even been some fights. The only reason she hasn’t been suspended or even expelled is because of who her father is and how much money he gives the school.”
“OK, Stephanie. She’s a kid. That’s what kids her age do; they like to talk, and they fight.”
“Yes, ma’am, I understand that, but the way she acts is not okay. The way she speaks, it’s not right or appropriate for a girl her age to talk the way she does.”
“Well, as you can see, Tiara isn’t a normal girl her age.”
“All I’m saying, ma’am, is that you and your husband might want to spend some quality time with her while you still can. I think you should form a better relationship with her.”
Cat looked at Stephanie like she was a fly on the wall.
“Who do you think you are? Coming in here and telling me what I should do with my child? Are you her parent? And if it so important to you, why don’t you just tell her this?”
Stephanie finally had enough. She looked at Cat with the same type of contempt in her eyes.
“No, but I might as well be! I have been taking care of her since she was a baby, and it is the truth when I say that all the things you take credit for, I taught her! These last few years of her life I have watched her grow, and each day she becomes sadder and sadder. If you paid half as much attention to her as you did to that foundation you put on your face every day, you would see this!”
Cat tried to speak, but Stephanie held her hand up to her to shut her up and continued speaking herself.
“Now, I can talk to that girl until I’m black and blue, but you see she didn’t come from my womb, so I don’t think it has the same effect. She doesn’t feel loved, and she feels pushed to the side. This is the last year that you’ll have her until she’s gone to you forever. Once high school gets a hold on her, and she has that attitude? Not even the fact that her father is the most deadly man in this state will be able to put fear in that child’s heart.”
Stephanie left Cat standing there looking dumbfounded and went back upstairs to check on a sleeping Tiara. She could only hope that she’d gotten through to Cat and maybe she would pass the message on to Blake, but the next few weeks showed her that her words had once again fallen on deaf ears. The saying you could lead a horse to water but you could not force it to drink was absolutely true. The warning Stephanie had given was one that should have been heeded.
