wife, and waiters in dinner jackets were serving champagne on silver trays as the guests arrived, as Gabriella sat hidden at the top of the stairs, watching them. She liked watching the guests when her parents gave parties.
Her mother looked beautiful in a black satin gown, and her father looked handsome and elegant in a well-cut tuxedo. The women's dresses shimmered as they came into the hall, and their jewels sparkled in the candlelight as they took their glasses of champagne, and seemed to drift away toward the voices and the music. Eloise and John loved giving parties. They did it less often now, but they still entertained lavishly from time to time, and Gabriella loved watching the guests as they arrived, and lying in her room afterward listening to the music.
It was September, the opening of the New York social season. And Gabriella had just turned seven. There was no special occasion for the party that night, just a gathering of their friends, some of whom Gabriella recognized as she watched them. There were a few she had always liked, and who were nice to her on the rare instances when they saw her, which wasn't often. She was rarely introduced to their friends, seldom seen, never made much fuss of. She was simply. there, hidden away upstairs, mostly forgotten. Eloise didn't think children should be seen in social situations, and Gabriella's existence in their lives was anything but important to her. Now and then one of her friends asked about the child, mostly at her bridge club, and she dismissed their inquiries with a graceful hand, like an annoying insect that had crossed her path and could be brushed away just as quickly. There were no photographs of Gabriella in the house, although there were many of Eloise and John, in silver frames. There were never any photographs taken of Gabriella. Recording her childhood was of no particular interest to them.
Gabriella smiled as she saw a pretty blond woman walk into the hall downstairs. Marianne Marks was wearing a white chiffon dress that seemed to float as she moved, talking to her husband. She was one of her parents’ closest friends, and her husband worked with Gabriella's father. There was a diamond necklace glittering on her neck, and her hands moved gracefully as she took a glass of champagne from one of the waiters. And then, as though sensing something, she glanced upstairs, and stopped when she saw Gabriella. The woman's face seemed to be suffused with light, and from the glow of the candles in the chandelier, she almost seemed to be wearing a halo, and then Gabriella realized that the sparkle she saw there was from a tiny diamond tiara. She looked like a fairy queen to Gabriella.
“Gabriella! What are you doing up there?” Her voice was gentle and warm, as she smiled broadly, and waved to the child hiding on the top step in her pink flannel nightgown.
“Shhh…” Gabriella put a finger to her lips with a worried frown. If they knew she was sitting there, she would get in terrible trouble.
“Oh…” Marianne Marks understood instantly, or thought she did, as she ran upstairs quickly, on light feet, to see her. She was wearing high-heeled white satin sandals, and made no sound, as her husband waited for her downstairs, smiling at his wife and the pretty child who was whispering now, as Marianne embraced her. “What are you doing up here? Watching the guests arrive?”
“You look so pretty!” Gabriella said with an awestruck air as she nodded in answer to the question. Marianne Marks was everything that her mother wasn't. She was beautiful and fair, she had big blue eyes like Gabriella's and a smile that seemed to light everything around her. She seemed almost magical to Gabriella, as she watched her, and sometimes she couldn't help wondering why she couldn't have had a mother like this one. Marianne was about her mother's age, and always seemed sad when she said that she had no children. Perhaps there had been a mistake somewhere, perhaps Gabriella had been destined for a woman like this, and had come to her own parents by mistake instead… maybe because she was so bad, and needed to be punished. She couldn't imagine Marianne punishing anyone. She was always so kind and so gentle, and she seemed so happy, particularly now as she bent down to kiss Gabriella, and as she did, Gabriella could smell the warm, delicious smell of her