The Slow Rise Of Clara Daniels

1. Palm Springs, 2009

1

PALM SPRINGS, 2009

The last time Clara saw her Aunt April was on her twelfth birthday. She was skipping stones in the desert, when she heard the wheels of the rented Lincoln on the sunbaked gravel of the circular driveway. The sun had been up for hours, and soon it would be too hot to play in the desert any longer. Clara ran into the front yard of her mother’s estate and hid herself behind a pinon tree. Her aunt stepped out of the car, offering the keys to the man whose job it was to park all visiting vehicles in the estate’s ten-car garage.

Clara stood, breathing in the crisp scent of the tree until the man drove away. She emerged then, silently taking in the sight of her aunt. April was even more beautiful than Clara remembered, the milky skin of her face framing her green eyes. April laughed.

“Where did you come from, Clara? You’re as quiet as a native.”

“Which tribe?” Clara asked.

April laughed again but didn’t answer. She put her arms around Clara. The girl stood unyielding until she remembered that to be hugged, one had to hug back. She relaxed and felt the tension run out of her body like water. She wasn’t used to being touched, but she reminded herself that April was different. April loved her.

She pressed her face against April’s silk suit and breathed in the scent of her aunt’s light perfume. The silk against her cheek was the color of the peeled avocados her mother loved.

She knew April had come for her birthday and had wanted to surprise her. Clara gave April one of her rare smiles. Her aunt blinked in the light of that smile, smoothing the girl’s hair away from her face.

“Let’s get out of this heat.”

Aunt April squeezed Clara’s shoulder, and the girl moved ahead of her into her mother’s mansion. The foyer was cool, and the marble floors were polished under their feet. Clara could hear the faint hum of an air conditioner somewhere in the house.

“Where’s your mother, Clara?”

The girl shrugged one shoulder, feigning indifference. “I don’t know.”

“Is she here?”

Clara met her aunt’s eyes. “No.”

April smoothed a strand of hair out of her eye. “Well, we’ll have lunch together, then.”

Clara relished her aunt’s touch as April took her hand.

They sat in the conservatory facing the terraced gardens. The plush furniture had bright white cushions, and the harsh sunlight was filtered by the glass, though the heat wasn’t kept out. It was always hot in the conservatory, but it was Clara’s favorite room in the house. Past the gardens, beyond the lawns and pinon trees, she could see the desert shimmering.

The housekeeper, Carol, brought in sandwiches and lemonade, and Clara asked for slices of the apple cake that the cook had baked for her that morning, along with the herbal tea April loved.

Clara watched her aunt from the corner of her eye. She saw April’s jaw tighten as she looked out over the desert, and she knew that her aunt was angry. She couldn’t read April’s thoughts, though, just as she couldn’t read her mother’s. Beyond the one question that Clara longed to have an answer for, she was sure her mother had no interesting thoughts in her head. However, she wished she could see behind her aunt’s eyes, if only for a moment.

Clara met April’s eyes, and blinked. She had been caught staring.

But Aunt April only smiled. “I’ve brought you something.”

Clara attempted a feeble joke. “A filter I can wear over my head, to keep out people’s thoughts?”

April looked over her shoulder, but no servant was nearby to hear what Clara had said. She knew her aunt had a superstitious fear of referring to the family gift.

“If they ever make one, I’ll order you the first off the assembly line.”

“They’ll never make one. No one knows what we can do.”

April shifted in her plush chair, crossing her legs, and met Clara’s gaze. “No. They don’t know.”

Clara knew she must never speak of her gift in front of anyone, and she never did. Only with her aunt. April was the only person in the world she could trust to always be there and never to betray her.

She looked gleeful, like the child she was. “What did you bring me?”

April smiled, brushing a strand of ash blonde hair back from her eyes. Her long hair was caught up in an elegant twist, but wisps had come loose, framing her face.

“Maybe we should eat our lunch first.”

Clara laughed at her aunt’s teasing. “What did you bring me?”

Clara moved to sit next to her aunt on the sofa, and April stroked the crown of Clara’s head. April reached into the shopping bag leaning against her chair and drew out a box wrapped in fine white paper. A huge pink ribbon covered the front of the package, and Clara glowered. She hated the color pink.

April laughed when she saw her face. “I knew you’d hate the ribbon, but the store didn’t have anything else.”

Clara lifted the present onto her lap as carefully as if it were a holy relic. She didn’t want to tear the paper, but to sit and look at her birthday present, making the moment of anticipation stretch before her. She knew she wasn’t going to get another gift. But Clara also knew that no pleasure was made to last, so with a swift glance at April, she tore the paper.

The white paper and pink ribbon fell on the hardwood floor as Clara’s fingers lingered over the box. She took a deep breath, savoring the moment. She opened the box slowly, drawing the tissue paper back gently so she wouldn’t tear it.

Nestled in the paper was a cashmere sweater the same shade of green as her eyes. Clara took a shallow breath, bringing the sweater up to her cheek, the box falling at her feet. She breathed in the scent of the soft fabric, which smelled like her aunt’s perfume.

“Aunt April… it’s beautiful.”

Clara was rarely awed by anything, but the sweater in her hands was the most beautiful present she had ever been given.

“You can wear it when you come back to New York, and we go to the Russian Tea Room.”

Clara didn’t answer but fingered the soft material.

Aunt April slid her manicured fingertips into her leather handbag. “I have something else for you, too.”

Clara’s eyes sparkled as she took the envelope her aunt handed her. She opened it, and an airline ticket fluttered out and landed in her lap. When she picked it up, she saw that it was a one-way ticket to New York.

She looked at her aunt, an eyebrow raised.

April spoke in a rush, her words a jumble of sound. “I want you to live with me.”

The floor opened at her feet as Clara fingered the paper in her hands. It was a way out of her mother’s house. An escape from the man her mother was marrying.

Clara remembered the last time she’d gone to New York. She had flown out alone that Christmas, her mother and her fiancé left far behind in Palm Springs. Aunt April had met her at the airport, and for the entire week of her visit, they had done only things that made her happy.

She looked down at the ticket in her hand. April wanted to give her a new life, a life like the week she’d had in New York.

Clara thought of Darren then, the man her mother intended to marry. He was ten years younger than her mother, with a tennis player’s build and blue eyes. His eyes looked as if they belonged to a man with a soul, unless you could read what went on behind them.

Tears came into her eyes, and for the first time since her father died, Clara couldn’t swallow for the pain in her throat. The airline ticket blurred in her hand. She blinked hard to see past her tears.

She forced herself to speak, though her voice shook. “Does Mom know that you want to take me?”

“We’ll tell her when she comes home.”

Clara thought of her mother’s light laugh, of her clear blue eyes that took the whole world at face value. Jessica almost never looked past a person’s eyes to the thoughts in the mind behind them. Clara didn’t know what would happen to her mother if she had to face wicked people alone. She imagined her mother left alone with Darren, and held herself very still, forcing herself not to breathe so she wouldn’t shudder.

She did not think Darren meant her mother harm. He was walking toxic waste, but she hadn’t seen any evil in intentions behind his eyes when he looked at her mother. But she would never be sure unless she stayed and watched over him.

“I can’t go with you.” Her hand didn’t shake as she held out the ticket.

April looked at it for a long moment, before she took it back.

“Will you think about it, Clara?” Her aunt’s voice was gentle and low. Clara could hear the misery in it.

Pain filled her own vision, burning away what was left of her tears.

Clara hardened her voice to keep from showing it. “I have thought about it. I can’t leave Mom alone with him.”

“Clara, she hasn’t given you a moment’s thought, and she won’t take care of you once he’s in this house. Do you understand that?”

April’s voice was low but took on an urgency that Clara had never heard before—the urgency of desperation. She hadn’t known that her aunt was capable of feeling desperate. For the first time, she understood how much April loved her.

She took April’s hand, careful not to touch the diamonds on her aunt’s fingers, and spoke calmly, as if to a younger child.

“Mom needs me here to take care of her.”

They sat staring at each other over a plate of sandwiches and a cooling pot of tea. April reached out and brushed her fingertips over Clara’s face. “If you change your mind, you can call me anytime, day or night, and I’ll come for you.”

Clara’s stomach clenched, and the pit opened at her feet again. There was finality in her aunt’s voice.

April brushed her well-manicured hands over Clara’s hair, smoothing out the blonde strands. She looked at her niece as if she were memorizing her face.

“I’d better go before your mother gets back.”

Clara heard her own words, and they sounded detached, like the voice of a stranger.

“All right.”

April pulled Clara against her and kissed her cheek. A little of her lipstick came off on Clara’s skin. She didn’t relax against her aunt’s body, but breathed the scent of her perfume, to remember it. She knew April had no intention of ever coming back.

“I love you, Clara. Happy birthday.”

April walked away. Clara listened to the staccato beat of her aunt’s high heels as they struck the marble in the foyer. She heard Carol open the door, and she stood listening for the sound of April’s car as she drove away. The house was silent except for the tick of the grandfather clock standing like a sentinel in the marble hallway.