Sweet Revenge

waiting at the Pan American counter. As she hurried across the terminal, Phoebe prayed that her friend had come through. At the ticket counter she pulled her passport out of her bag and offered it and her most brilliant smile to the clerk.
    “Good afternoon. I have two tickets, prepaid, for New York.”
    The smile dazzled him so that he blinked. “Oui, madame.” Star struck, he lingered over the paperwork. “I have seen your movies. You are magnificent.”
    “Thank you.” She felt some of her courage return. She hadn’t been forgotten. “Are the tickets in order?”
    “Pardon?
Oh, yes, yes.” He stamped and scribbled. “Your flight number,” he said, pointing at the ticket jacket. “Your gate. You have forty-five minutes.”
    Her palms were clammy with sweat when she took the tickets and slipped them into her purse. “Thank you.”
    “Wait, please.”
    She froze, poised to run as her hand locked on Adrianne’s.
    “You would give your autograph?”
    She pressed her fingers to her eyes, giving way enough for one quick laugh. “Of course. I’d be delighted. What’s your name?”
    “It is Henri, madame.” He handed her a scrap of paper. “I will never forget you.”
    She signed, as she had always, in a generous, looping hand. “Believe me, Henri. I will never forget you.” She gave him the autograph and a smile. “Come along, Adrianne. We don’t want to miss our plane. God bless Celeste,” she said as they walked. “She’s going to meet us in New York, Addy. She’s my closest friend.”
    “Like Duja?”
    “Yes.” Fighting for calm, she looked down and managed another smile. “Yes, like Duja is to you. She’s going to help us.”
    The terminal no longer interested Adrianne. She was afraid because her mother’s face was very white and her hand shook. “He is going to be angry.”
    “He’s not going to hurt you.” Phoebe stopped again and took Adrianne by the shoulders. “I promise you that no matter what I have to do, he’ll never hurt you.” Then the tension of all the days and nights she had waited broke. With one hand pressed to her heaving stomach, she raced with Adrianne into the ladies’ room and was violently sick.
    “Mama, please.” Terrified, Adrianne clung to Phoebe’s waist as she bent over the bowl. “We must go back before he knows. We will say we were lost, separated. He will be only a little angry. It will be my fault. I will say it was my fault.”
    “Can’t.” Phoebe leaned against the stall door and waited for the nausea to pass. “We can’t ever go back. He was going to send you away, baby.”
    “Away?”
    “To Germany.” With an unsteady hand Phoebe found a handkerchief and dried her damp face. “I won’t let him send you away, to marry you off to a man who could be like him.” Steadier, Phoebe knelt and wrapped her arms around her daughter. “I won’t see you live your life the way I’ve had to live mine. It would kill me.”
    Slowly, the fear in Adrianne’s eyes faded. In the narrow stall that still reeked of sickness, they crossed a new threshold in their lives. Gently, Adrianne helped Phoebe to her feet. “You are better? Lean on me.”
    Phoebe was only more pale when they boarded, when at last they sat on the plane with their seat belts in place and listened to the whine of engines. Her heart had stopped beating too fast. Now it was only a drumming in her head, one that reminded her of the harem and the oppressive heat. The taste of sickness was still in her mouth as she closed her eyes.
    “Madame? May I serve you and the mademoiselle a drink after we have taken off?”
    “Yes.” She didn’t bother to open her eyes. “Bring my daughter something cool and sweet.”
    “And for you?”
    “Scotch,” she said dully. “A double.”

Chapter Six
    Celeste Michaels loved a good drama. As a young child she had made up her mind to be an actress—not just an actress, but a star. She had begged, wheedled, sulked, and cajoled acting lessons out of her parents, who indulgently believed their little girl was going through a phase. They continued to think so even when they drove Celeste to auditions, rehearsals, and performances in community theater. Andrew Michaels was an accountant who preferred to look at life as a balance sheet of profit and loss. Nancy Michaels was a pretty housewife who enjoyed making fancy desserts for church socials. Both of them believed, even after theater began to dictate their lives, that little Celeste would