Sweet Revenge

here on your own,” Phoebe began as they walked into the apartment.
    “I’ve hardly been alone.” After setting down the bag, Adrianne peeled off the jacket of her suit. “Celeste has been staying here more than she stayed at home. She took the fact that you made her my guardian very seriously.”
    Worry flicked back into Phoebe’s eyes. Without the suit jacket, Adrianne looked like a child again. Vulnerable. “I knew she would. I counted on it.”
    “Well, we don’t have to worry about it anymore. Celeste can go back to just being my friend. Oh, Mama.” Adriannehugged her, swaying with the embrace. “It’s so good to have you home.”
    “Baby.” Cupping her face, Phoebe drew away. “Not a baby anymore. You’re eighteen today. I hadn’t forgotten. I haven’t been able to get you anything yet but—”
    “Yes, you did, and I love it. Would you like to see it?”
    Pleased by the laughter in Adrianne’s eyes, Phoebe said lightly, “Oh, dear, I hope it was in good taste.”
    “The very best.” She pulled Phoebe through the foyer and into the living area. Over a small fireplace was a portrait.
    Phoebe had been twenty-two when the photograph it was painted from had been taken. She’d been at the zenith of her beauty, with a face that made men quiver, eyes that made them believe. She was a goddess wearing the jewels of a queen. Around her neck The Sun and the Moon glinted. Fire and ice.
    “Oh, Addy.”
    “Lieberitz painted it. He’s the best, a little eccentric and definitely on the dramatic side, but a master. He didn’t want to give it up once it was done.”
    “Thank you.”
    “It’s my present,” Adrianne reminded her teasingly. “The only thing I wanted more was to have the real thing back with me.”
    “The necklace.” She ran a hand over her neck, down her breasts. “I still remember what it was like to wear it, to feel the weight of it. It had magic, Addy.”
    “It still belongs to you.” Adrianne looked up at the portrait and remembered. Everything. “One day you’ll have it back.”
    “One day.” She smiled, enjoying the moment. “I’m going to do better this time. I promise. No drinking, no pills, no dwelling on past mistakes.”
    “That’s what I want to hear.” She stepped aside to answer the phone. “Hello. Yes. Please send her up.” Adrianne replaced the receiver and kept her smile in place. “That’s the nurse. I explained to you that Dr. Schroeder recommended having her, at least temporarily.”
    “Yes.” Phoebe turned her back on the portrait and sat.
    “Mama, please, don’t feel that way.”
    “Don’t feel what way?” Phoebe hunched her shoulders. “I don’t want her to wear one of those damn white uniforms.”
    “All right. I’ll arrange it.”
    “And she isn’t to stare at me when I sleep.”
    “No one’s going to stare at you, Mama.”
    “Might as well be back at the sanitarium.”
    “No.” Adrianne reached out, but Phoebe yanked her hand out of reach. “This is a step forward, not a step back. She’s a very nice woman, and I think you’ll like her. Please don’t—don’t pull away,” she ended helplessly.
    “I’ll try.”
    She did. Over the next two and a half years Phoebe struggled against an illness that seemed constantly to outpace her. She wanted to be well and strong, but it was easier, so much easier, to close her eyes and drift back to the way things had been. Or more, into the illusion of the way things could have been.
    When she let the reins slip, she imagined she was between jobs, a movie being edited, a new script being considered. She could float for days on the euphoria of the reality she created within her own mind. She liked to think of Adrianne as a blissful young socialite without a care in the world, gliding through life on the wealth and prestige she’d been born to.
    Then the world would turn upside down, dance fitfully over the middle ground until she was mired in a depression so deep, so dark, she lost days at a time. She would imagine herself back in the harem with the same smells, the same dim light, the same endless hours of heat and frustration. Trapped, she would hear Adrianne call to her, plead with her, but she couldn’t find the energy to answer.
    Again and again she fought her way back, and each time it was more difficult, more painful.
    “Merry Christmas Eve.” Celeste glided in, a Russian lynx over her shoulders and her arms full of boxes wrapped in silver paper.
    Adrianne sprang up to