Cutler 02 - Secrets of the Morning

shawl. I'm sorry."
    "Oh dear. You never got to the reception? But how could that be? Surely the taxi took you directly there."
    "No, afterward," I explained. She stared at me and then looked at the glass in my hand.
    "I don't understand," she said, shaking her head. "Why do you have that glass?"
    "I . . . I don't know!" I cried and rushed past her and up the stairs.
    Naturally, Trisha was up and waiting to hear about my exciting evening, but as soon as she took one look at me, her smile turned to a look of shock.
    "What happened to you?"
    "Oh Trisha, I'm so embarrassed. It wasn't a date with Michael. He hardly spoke to me. I ran out of the reception and forgot to give back this glass. Then I got lost and a horrible man came after me so I ran and ran, losing a shawl Agnes had given me as well as breaking off a heel," I cried and fell on my stomach on my bed.
    "I don't understand what you're saying," Trisha said. I spun around and screamed through my tears.
    "I'm saying it's no good to try to be someone you're not. I shouldn't have dressed up like this. I shouldn't have even gone. Grandmother Cutler's right. I'm a nobody who was dropped back on the doorstep of rich, fancy people; but everyone can see I'm not one of them and I don't belong."
    "That's stupid. Of course she's not right about you. Anyone can get lost in New York at night. Stop crying," Trisha demanded. "So you forgot to give back a glass. Big deal. At least you forgot. Other people probably swipe them on purpose, even rich, sophisticated people. Anyway, did Michael Sutton see you run out?"
    "I don't know," I said, grinding back my tears. "So?"
    "I felt so foolish," I repeated. "No one spoke a word to me, not even the people I sat next to. They're all so stuck up. I felt like I was in a room filled with Grandmother Cutlers."
    "They'll be sorry," Trisha said, sitting beside me and stroking my messy hair. "Someday, they will all come to hear you in a recital and you can remind them of this night."
    I looked at her and shook my head.
    "Anyway," Trisha said, taking the glass and putting it up on my dresser, "we have a real souvenir, a memento marking your first night with Michael Sutton, whether he knows it or not."
    She widened her eyes and we both laughed.
    Thank goodness I had Trisha, I thought, the sister I had never known. I would trade Clara Sue for her in a moment. Grandmother Cutler was wrong: blood wasn't always thicker than water.

 
    7
PRIVATE LESSONS
     
    Now that I was a senior, my enthusiasm for beginning my second year at the Bernhardt School was greater than my enthusiasm for beginning my first. When I strutted through the campus and saw the faces of the new students green with anxiety, I couldn't help but feel a sense of superiority. Also, I enjoyed some celebrity as Madame Steichen's star pianist and as one of the six students chosen to attend Michael Sutton's classes.
    I knew that Agnes had done her duty and reported these events to Grandmother Cutler because my mother, during one of her so-called stronger moments, phoned to congratulate me.
    "Randolph has told me everything," she said. "I'm very proud of you, Dawn. It's so reassuring to know you really do have musical talent"
    "Perhaps my father would like to be reassured too, Mother. Why don't you tell me who he really was so I can inform him of my whereabouts and achievements," I replied sharply.
    "Why must you always bring up unpleasant things, Dawn? Will there never be an end to it?" she moaned with emphatic desperation. I could see her going into a faint on the other side of the line. I was sure she was calling me from her bed with her back braced against two large fluffy pillows and the blankets drawn up around her like a snail's protective shell.
    "Knowing who one's father is is not supposed to be an unpleasant thing, Mother," I said with even more viciousness.
    "In this case it is," she replied quickly. Her depth of deep feeling took me by surprise. How could anyone be that bad? I wondered.
    "Mother," I begged, "please tell me about him. It isn't fair. Why is it an unpleasant thing?"
    "Sometimes," she said, dropping her voice and speaking slowly, speaking like someone in a daze, "good looks and charm are only thin, surface deceptions hiding a stream of evil and cruelty. Intelligence, talent, whatever people think are blessings, don't always mean the person is a good person, Dawn. I'm sorry I can't give you anything more than that."
    What strange and enigmatic advice, I thought. It