The Last Beautiful Girl Page 2

  “Mom. We’ve been over this. Izzy is a little girl’s name. I’m almost seventeen.”

  Mom sighs. “Isabella, I’ve always done my best to do things that are in your best interest. I’ve always encouraged you to march to the beat of your own drum, haven’t I? I always wanted you to be an individual, to express yourself and find your voice. Haven’t I?”

  I nod. “And now you’re cashing in.”

  That might have been harsh, however deserved. My mother’s fair skin grows pink, and I almost regret what I said. Almost.

  She’s not wrong. My whole life, she’s always been as much a friend as a mom. Except friends don’t rip your life out by its roots for a bigger paycheck. I mean, there have to be other teaching jobs out there, a bit closer to home. And why on earth did that college in the middle of nowhere choose my parents to court, of all people?

  Taylor sighs. “Isa, I don’t think you realize universities don’t just hand out coveted teaching positions with possibility of tenure. We were extremely lucky—”

  “I beg to differ.”

  “We were extremely lucky,” she repeats stubbornly, “to even be considered. Not to mention lucky to live in that house. When I saw it across that lawn, it’s like—like it was glowing. Like it was calling to me—”

  “That’s not luck,” I sneer. “That’s a quest in a video game.”

  “That’s not fair,” Taylor says. “All I want is for you to at least consider how there might be a silver lining. I mean, you’ll be surrounded by history and culture…” She’s oblivious to my simmering fury. “We’ll live in a historic mansion that once belonged to a famous artist’s model, not to mention your namesake—”

  “Isabella Granger,” I cut in. “Yeah, yeah, I can google, big whoop.”

  “And you don’t find that the least bit interesting?”

  “First, she’s not just an artist’s model. She was a great philanthropist of her times, a patron of the arts. How crass of you to remember her as that chick who posed for paintings.”

  “Isa, I love you, but this is somewhat in bad faith.”

  “Well, I find the whole thing crass. It’s like living at the Louvre. And wiping your ass every day in front of the Mona Lisa.”

  I can practically hear Taylor grit her teeth: crick-squeak. I know I’m only digging my own grave, but I can’t help it. My hands are shaking, and my body is hot all over, and, suddenly, all my strategy is out the window. “I can’t believe you’re doing this. I—I’m the star of the school play, for god’s sake! How could you?”

  And now I’ve done it. Mom’s face hardens. Definitely no longer Taylor the mom-friend. Taylor is full parent. Something I’ve only seen a handful of times, and it never ended well.

  “You surprise me, Isabella. That’s not how I raised you. There’s more to the world than Brooklyn, and you’re coming with us. I think it’ll be an enriching experience, something for you to write about in your college applications…to places that aren’t Amory University, if you must.”

  * * *

  I let my mom think I’m sulking in my room, but there’s no time for sulking. I better find a way to fix this.

  I pick up my phone and text Eve.

  Sorry. Still no. :/

  This can’t be it!!! We’ll think of something.

  My stomach knots. She doesn’t understand, or pretends she doesn’t understand to make me feel better, but it’s a waste of effort. We won’t think of anything. It won’t work.

  I put my phone down. My worst fears are unfolding in front of me: I’m on my way to being forgotten. Like that turn-of-the-century chick whose house we’ll be squatting in. Faded out, her name meaningless.

  I sit down at my computer and look up Isabella Granger once again.

  For someone who lived out in the sticks, Isabella Granger sure had an impressive life. She rubbed shoulders with famous novelists, posed for the most daring artists of her era, and hosted glamorous parties at that mansion of hers, with painters and musicians and writers. She had a prodigious art collection. It seems almost unfair that so much awesomeness was heaped upon just one person. Can you even have a life like that anymore? I’ve never related to those annoying people who whine that they were born in the wrong era—I like my phone and social media and, well, modern medicine just fine, thank you. But I gotta admit, reading about Isabella Granger’s life makes me feel a bit…insignificant. So, I have an Instagram with a couple thousand followers—so does everyone else. So, I went to the music festival last summer—so did everyone else. Especially in Brooklyn, where you can run into “down to earth” celebs while getting your fourteen-dollar vegan burrito for lunch.

  I do an image search, and the screen fills with iterations of Isabella Granger by every famous artist of the era, in every conceivable style: here she is in an imitation-pre-Raphaelite painting, looking like a natural with that auburn hair, and there she is in a Klimt-like art nouveau portrait, wearing a low-cut sheath dress that must have been scandalous at the time. Imagine, causing a stir just by showing a knee. I don’t know what you have to do these days to get a reaction.

  There’s no denying that Isabella was beautiful. If anything, it’s she who was born in the wrong era, not me.

  Sprinkled among the paintings are some images clearly taken by an intrusive photographer. In them, she looks a lot less impressive. That sylphlike beauty, pale and thin-lipped, doesn’t translate to 2019. And, in black-and-white, her hair looks plain, her face ashen. I click on the link and read:

  Although Isabella Granger was a passionate supporter of the burgeoning art of photography, few photographs of her survive. The majority of those were taken by her husband, artist and photographer Samuel Granger (1861–19??).

  Clicking on his name, I find myself on a Wikipedia page.

  Samuel Granger was a turn-of-the-century artist who later abandoned painting to focus on the emerging art of photography. Known as one of modern photography’s pioneers, he refined the technique of…

  Blah blah blah. I scroll to the end.

  Samuel Granger died in the early twentieth century. The exact date and the cause of death remain unknown.

  Three

  “That sucks, Isa.”

  Eve is looking good and not terribly broken up about it. Is that the new Kat Von D lipstick? I’m a little bit resentful. Okay, a lot resentful.

  I’m calling her on Skype from my room—or what was once my room, but not for much longer. In the background, I bet Eve can see the bare walls, since all my stuff is already packed. The whole house has been packed up over two and a half agonizing weeks. I never realized we had so much junk—things no one’s used in ages but somehow never thrown away.

  “I tried everything. Taylor says I need to ‘expand my horizons.’”

  “Most people move to Brooklyn to expand their horizons. Not out of it.”

  I scowl. To think Eve always said she was jealous of having Taylor for a mom. “I told her that.”

  “What are we going to do without you at the theater?”

  What, indeed. Someone else will have to pick up the starring role in the production of Yvonne, Princess of Burgundy. Someone whose name starts with an e, maybe, and ends with another e and has a v in the middle.

  Sensing the touchiness of the subject, Eve clears her throat. “I’ll come down to visit you. I’m passing my driver’s license test in, like, a month. I’ll drive down.”

  “Will your mom let you?”

  Eve grimaces. “I’ll find a way.”

  In the Skype window, I can see Eve’s sewing machine in the background and, draped over it, a burgundy velvet dress that looks familiar.

  I don’t want to ask, I really don’t, but the question escapes anyway. “What is that?”

  Eve turns around. Her cheeks turn pink, and her gaze keeps darting away from mine.

  “Oh, they gave it to me.
There were some holes in the lining. And I figured I’ll fix it faster than if they have to send it out somewhere…you know?”

  Oh, I do know. I also know that Eve just happens to be a bit on the short side, and the skirts of most period costumes need to be hemmed so she doesn’t trip.

  I can’t blame Eve, though. I’d have done the same. Not because of some stupid rivalry—girls should lift each other up, not compete with each other—but because the show must go on. The play always comes first, no matter what. If anything, I hope she does great in her new role.

  Still, there’s a lump in my throat, and I worry that, when I speak, she’ll hear the strain in my voice.

  “At least you get to have a whole mansion to yourself,” Eve says.

  I grimace. I’ve seen pictures of the house. Looks like an absolute dump. I shudder inwardly.

  Still—anything is good enough to change the subject. “Yeah,” I say. “It’s this big historical place they’ve restored for us. This artist’s model used to live there.” I catch myself using the same qualifier I’d snipped at Taylor for using. “Apparently, she was a big deal at the turn of the century.”

  “That’s so cool,” Eve says, but I get the feeling this is more out of pity than anything else. So I cut the conversation short, knowing full well we might not see each other before I leave Brooklyn.

  I try to tell myself this isn’t a big deal.

  * * *

  The final move takes place on a stifling morning in mid-September. A giant, grimy truck transports our boxes of stuff, overseen by my dad, and Taylor and I follow right on its heels in the new family SUV. I spend most of the trip staring into my phone, and, for once, Taylor seems relieved that I don’t try to talk. What’s there to talk about, anyway? What could I possibly say to make Taylor feel as bad as she deserves?

  Dejected, I open the front-facing camera on my phone, then practice making a face until the result is goofy yet still cute. I snap some photos and fire the best one off on Instagram.

  I watch listlessly as the photo uploads (taking forever, by the way—only two bars of signal out here) and then as the usual parade of likes and comments begins, hearts flying in all directions.

  Everyone secretly feels sorry for me. Bitterness rises to the hollow of my throat. Tears fill my eyes, and I reach for the glove compartment, take out my sunglasses, and put them on so that Taylor, who’s given up trying to cheer me up, doesn’t see the wet tracks beneath my eyes. Then I open the front-facing camera again and take another photo, sunglasses on this time.

  The truck bounces along the bumpy road that runs around the limits of the university campus, right until it pulls up in the shadowy spot near a corner of the house to what probably used to be the servants’ entrance. The paved road leading to the front doors looks brand-new, but there’s a fence blocking it off, so the SUV has no choice but to follow the truck.

  At the side entrance, the head of facilities is waiting, looking smug.

  Before Taylor has a chance to stop the engine, I’m already getting out.

  “Hold on,” Taylor is saying, but I’m already slamming the door behind me. I race around the house to the front so I can see. My almost-new ballet flats sink into the damp grass, but I hardly notice.

  I take off my sunglasses.

  This place is huge.

  The few pictures I hustled up online didn’t do it justice. It’s four stories—what does one person even do with a four-story house?—in a sprawling U-shape. And it’s wide, built in a time when every square foot was not counted as stringently. Sunlight caresses the facade with its giant arched windows and long columns, like something teleported here from Renaissance Italy. The brick has faded, and the carved stone of the decoration above the door is eroding, as are the stairs and railings. But it makes the house look distinguished, not deteriorated.

  “Sweetie,” Taylor’s breathless voice takes me by surprise. My mom and dad, along with the university guy, have caught up to me and are hovering on the periphery. “Wait up. It’s not safe.”

  “The pavement is new,” says the man. Redundantly, because I can see that myself. “And please be careful inside. There are some problems in a few of the rooms. With the floor. But we’re working on it.”

  “Thank you so much,” Taylor gushes, and I don’t understand why she bothers with this pompous, annoying man. “I know it was such short notice.”

  “We finally have someone dedicated and trustworthy taking care of the Isabella Granger house,” he says. “So it’s a win-win situation.”

  In Brooklyn, this house would have been bought by a redevelopment company ages ago, broken up into eighty studio apartments, and rented out for six grand a month a piece. Here, in the middle of nowhere, it’s all going to be ours. I try to wrap my mind around it. Failing that, I raise my phone and take a picture. Then I think of a better idea. I turn around and take a selfie, my arm outstretched until my shoulder threatens to pop so that enough of the house is visible behind me. I start to scroll through filters, but realize quickly that they’re unnecessary.

  The colors and light are just perfect. I’ll do everything in my power to show everyone back home that this place is just awesome and I’m as happy as can be. The photo goes straight to Instagram.

  “Can’t this wait for five minutes?” Taylor speaks up.

  I barely hear her. Phone aloft, I head for the entrance, my ballet flats leaving muddy tracks on the granite stairs. I take a picture of the crumbling carving above the door, which depicts some scene from mythology I can’t make out because of the damage. The door itself is missing, and the empty doorway is blocked off with a single plywood panel.

  “You have to go around,” that guy—the head of something or other—calls out, but I’m already on it. The back door is unlocked, and, with nary a whisper from the newly oiled hinges, the house lets me in.

  Despite the stifling heat outside, in here the air is beautifully cool and crisp. The slanting sunlight that falls through the windows is luminous but not hot. Its rays bounce across the crystals of the giant chandelier hanging over the main staircase, like something out of a Disney movie. I picture myself at the top of these stairs, my elegant, gloved hand resting lightly on the carved banister as I overlook my guests below, all waiting for me to make my grand entrance. Fanfare announces it at last, and everyone turns to look at me and gasps.

  The vaulted ceiling is painted with other scenes from mythology: Aphrodite, the goddess of love, if I know anything of Greek myths. Unlike the plump, pink, and fair-haired depictions in Renaissance art, this Aphrodite has heavy auburn locks in the pre-Raphaelite tradition. The more I look, the more I realize it’s not the only difference. The lines of her face are so clean that they must have been restored—I don’t see how they could have survived like this for more than a hundred years—and something about her face strikes me as odd. It looks…different, not like you’d expect on such a fresco. Modern-looking, not softly rounded with a tiny bow-mouth, but sharp and shrewd. Her piercing green eyes gaze straight at me, defiant. Challenging me. Mirror, mirror on the wall—

  A heavy hand lands on my shoulder. The echo of my yelp races through the room.

  “Mom!” I snap, embarrassed.

  Taylor is beaming. “It’s nice, isn’t it?”

  “It’s interesting.”

  “You must be wondering about the ceiling. The woman who stands in for Aphrodite is Isabella Granger herself. Every woman in every painting in the house is Isabella, and the frescoes are no exception.”

  I look up once again. It makes sense: once I peer closer, the face does look like the one in the paintings and photographs I’ve seen online. But maybe the light has changed, a thin cloud has covered the sun outside, because now it looks different. Still very much Isabella, but no longer alive. The green eyes are flat, just paint on plaster—well-applied paint, sure, but nothing more than that.

  �
��How do you know all that?” I ask Mom. “I spent half a night googling, and—”

  “Not everything can be found on the internet, Isa. There’s still such a thing as libraries.”

  “For now,” I say, grinning, egging Taylor on. She returns the grin, and, for a moment, it’s like the good times, before this whole mess with the move.

  “Let’s go pick out your room,” says Taylor.

  “I can have any room I want?”

  “Yeah. Heck, you can have more than one—we’ll never be able to fill them all. Well, except in the wing that’s shut down on the fourth floor. It hasn’t been renovated yet. Apparently, the ceiling had collapsed in places, the floor is damaged, and it’s still a little unsafe.”

  Taylor starts up the stairs, but I fall behind. I snap a picture of the frescoes, another one of the chandelier, one of the grand staircase itself. But, before I post them, I send them to Eve.

  Except, instead of the normal whistling chime that means the photos have arrived safely on Eve’s phone, there’s nothing. An annoying loading icon.

  “Mom?” I call out. “There’s no—”

  “Oh, yeah,” comes Taylor’s distracted voice from the second floor. “There’s no Wi-Fi for now. But don’t worry. The company is coming to install the satellite in a few days.”

  “A few days?!”

  “Is it such a big deal? Use your data. There’s enough on the plan to last the week.”

  “There’s no signal,” I fume and give the phone an impatient shake. Indeed, there’s only one bar of signal, and even that keeps flickering out. “The walls are too thick or something. Nothing gets through.”

  “Even better—look up from that phone of yours for a change. And there’s a café on campus, not too far from here, that I’m sure has Wi-Fi. You’ll get to know your new town a little more. Now, are you coming to choose your room or not?”

  I curse under my breath. If this is how it’s going to be, I might as well be in the 1920s myself. Soon I’ll be writing mournful letters to my friends back home with a quill on parchment, like the heroine of some second-rate Victorian Gothic. Seeing that the lone signal bar reappeared, I tap the screen—only for the red alert of death to pop up.