The Property of a Lady - Elizabeth Adler [202]
A week before the wedding, Missie decided she could stand it no longer and followed her up the stairs. Azaylee was lying fully dressed on the bed, clutching her favorite little French doll O’Hara had given her all those years ago on the trip to New Jersey. She thought guiltily, That’s what’s wrong. She loved O’Hara. He was her papa.
“Don’t you want me to marry Zev?” she asked, sitting on the bed and stroking Azaylee’s hair back from her hot forehead. “I thought you liked him.”
“But I do, and of course I want you to marry him. I want you to be happy, Missie, truly I do.”
Missie could tell she meant it, but there was that old fey look in her eyes that put her warning signals up. “Then tell me what is wrong, milochka,” she said softly. “You know I’ll understand.”
“It’s nothing … except …” Azaylee sat up, her pansy eyes wide and staring. “Everyone has different names here. No one is who they really are. Isn’t that true, Missie? Even C. Z. is really Zev. And I’m Marietta as well as Ava Adair and Azaylee, and before that I was some other girl….”
“That’s the way it is in Hollywood,” Missie replied quickly. “Actors like to choose prettier names than the ones they were born with, and immigrants like Zev change their names to make them sound more American. It’s just easier, that’s all.”
“That’s not what I mean,” she cried despairingly, sinking back into the pillows and clutching her doll. “Sometimes it just makes me wonder who I am, Missie, as if there were two of me—a bad girl and a good girl—”
“A bad girl,” Missie echoed, shocked. “Why, Azaylee, you were always the most angelic child, everybody said so. And look at you now, working hard and behaving like a perfect lady on the set. You never give anybody the slightest trouble.”
Azaylee turned her face away again, staring out of the window vacantly. “I remember Papa,” she said in a faraway voice. “His chin was rough when he kissed me and he was very tall with a quiet voice. And I remember my big brother … so much bigger than me … but that was when I was someone else, wasn’t it, Missie?”
Missie hesitated and then she took her hand and said, “We changed your name to save you from being killed. Your real name was Xenia.”
“Xenia Ivanoff,” she said slowly, “now I remember. She was a fairy-tale child in a storybook land where everybody loved her, especially her papa. He’s not dead,” she added, looking at Missie strangely. “Truly he’s not. I know because I have seen him.”
“In your dreams, Azaylee. Only in your dreams,” Missie murmured unhappily. “Your papa is with your mother and grandmother Sofia in heaven.”
Azaylee gave Missie a wistful little smile and said, “I guess I’m just tired, that’s all.”
“You’ll need another little holiday after Marietta in the Mountains,” Missie said, wanting to please her. “Maybe we all could go back to Agua Caliente. You liked it there.”
“No!” Azaylee shot up in bed, panicked. “I never want to go back there again,” she exclaimed passionately.
“Very well,” Missie agreed, surprised. “Now, why don’t you take your bath and I’ll bring you a glass of hot milk with cinnamon, the way Grandmother Sofia used to make it. You know you always like that.”
Azaylee took her bath and drank her milk obediently. When Missie tucked the girl in bed and kissed her good night, she thought that in her white cotton nightdress with her hair pulled back into a braid she looked like a sleepy, innocent child.
The wedding day was cloudy with a promise of rain, but that did not affect the radiance of the bride or the happiness of the groom as they stood before the judge and promised to love and care for each other forever. Missie looked lovely and elegant in an expensive aquamarine silk dress with a small matching hat and a corsage of lilies, and Zev Abramski looked a man of the world in a light-gray custom-tailored suit. A delicious wedding lunch was served by