Choices (A Woman's Life) Read online

  This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales, or organizations is entirely coincidental. All rights are reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission from the author.

  Copyright © 2014 Marie Ferarella

  Cover images from Shutterstock.com

  Choices

  By Marie Ferrarella

  Table of Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Marie's Mailing List

  The Women's Contemporary Originals from Marie Ferrarella

  Chapter 1

  It didn’t feel right. Her life, by every rational assessment known to society, was picture perfect. But it just didn’t feel right, like a blouse that was supposedly made of silk, yet felt scratchy. There was a vague emptiness in the pit of her stomach, as if what she was living wasn’t real. Or maybe she wasn’t the real one and all the rest of this was.

  Why wasn’t she satisfied? Was there something lacking in her? Why wasn’t she happy?

  Because something was missing, some nebulous, unformed “something” was wrong. She could feel it, almost taste it. Almost touch it. But whatever it was, it was just out of reach.

  And she hadn’t a clue as to what “it” was.

  A frustrated philosophy major, she thought with a sad smile, that’s what she was. Maybe this was all just a proverbial tempest in a teapot.

  But she had a feeling that it wasn’t.

  Shanna Brady Calhoun sat very still before the ornate antique vanity table. The table had been a gift from her father on her sixteenth birthday. Everything in the vast, exquisitely furnished bedroom where she had slept until two years ago was a gift, bestowed upon her thanks to the life fate had thrust her into by the whimsical happenstance of birth. She had done nothing more to earn any of this but be born Shanna Brady.

  She knew that millions of women, millions of people would have given anything to be in her place. But this emptiness kept crowding her, ambushing her mind when she least expected it, drumming impatient fingers on her soul. And sitting in this chair, immobile, left Shanna nothing else to do but dwell on it.

  The woman known to an adoring and vastly overcharged clientele as Alexandra was working on her face, making her into something she wasn’t. Alexandra, a gnome of a woman, was a genius with makeup. She could take a plain face and make it beautiful. A pretty face and make it magnificent. She was the typical genius, petulant, opinionated, and exceedingly short-tempered. If Shanna were to so much as blink twice in succession, Alexandra would have interpreted it as being uncooperative and Shanna would be forced to listen to a diatribe on how lucky she was that Alexandra had deigned to make the trip out here personally rather than to leave her to the ministrations of an underling. Alexandra always said exactly what was on her mind. Others might be impressed that Shanna could trace her lineage back to the Mayflower, but it meant less than nothing to Alexandra.

  Which was why Shanna liked her. The woman didn’t see heritage or power by association when she looked at her. Alexandra only saw Shanna.

  So Shanna sat there, motionless, thinking, silently wishing herself somewhere else. Wishing herself to be someone else. Someone with an identity that belonged exclusively to her and not to a surname or to a relative. Nothing but her eyes moved as Shanna passed the time watching dust motes do a lazy minuet within the confines of the sunbeam that shone through the huge bay window to her right.

  If Alexandra wasn’t working on her lips, Shanna would have smiled. She wondered if the dust motes knew they weren’t allowed here. Her mother didn’t tolerate such plebeian things as dust in her house. As if Brady Manor could ever be labeled with a title so benign as “house.” Mausoleum was more like it, a cold, joyless mausoleum. Why her cousin Cydney wanted to be married here was beyond Shanna.

  A lot of things seemed to be beyond her these days, she thought in mild irritation, like a student puzzling over a difficult algebra problem.

  God, she felt so stifled, so directionless. So purposeless. She was going to be twenty-four next January. Twenty-four, going on ninety. At least she felt that way. A ninety-year-old formless lump.

  Looking back, Shanna knew she had always felt that way. In the midst of luxury, in the eye of the public since the day her parents, Rheena Fitzhugh and Roger Brady, the only son of financier Alfred Brady, had announced her conception to a squadron of sensation-hungry reporters and eager photographers, Shanna felt that she had always been struggling to find a proper place for herself. It was a classic case of the poor little rich girl, on the inside looking out.

  Or perhaps it was that Shanna was on the outside looking in. Looking in and searching for acceptance in a world that thoughtlessly would always compare her to her mother. And find her lacking.

  She heard Alexandra hiss between her slightly uneven teeth, her hands incredibly soft and gentle as she touched, smoothed, blended.

  “Raise your chin, child,” Alexandra commanded in a grating, nasal voice that held echoes of her native Poland, even though she had emigrated to the United States more than forty years ago. “I can’t do my work if you’re all hunched up like that.”

  Shanna obligingly lifted her head as she shifted in her chair. Pain danced through her, poking at her with pointy, scratchy fingers. Exercising extreme control, Shanna did her best not to wince. Her shoulder was still sore where she had hit it against the doorjamb yesterday. Her own fault, she thought. She had a habit of moving quickly without looking first.

  “You’re always rushing off without looking where you’re going, Shanna. How did I ever get such a graceless child?”

  The words replayed themselves in Shanna’s head. She had been the object of her mother’s criticism a thousand times during her childhood. And each time disappointment had dripped from every syllable. It was almost the first thing Shanna had ever been aware of: her mother’s vast disappointment in her. Marriage hadn’t altered that, although her mother finally seemed to see the merit in her choice.

  How could she not? Shanna mused even as she searched for the surge of happiness that used to come whenever she thought of Jordan. It wasn’t there, at least, not with the same intensity it used to be.

  Something was wrong with her, she thought in annoyance. She had a good life, a beautiful house, a handsome husband who had singled her out in a crowd of gorgeous, wealthy women. What more was there supposed to be?

  Something else, a small voice whispered within her.

  Shanna bit her lower lip and heard Alexandra grumble under her breath. Not wanting to agitate the woman, she quickly relaxed her expression.

  Yet with all this, her present life felt artificial somehow, like beautiful roses made out of plastic. There was this persistent feeling that what she was living wasn’t real. That it was all mounted on very pretty paper, without depth, with
out substance.

  Maybe she was still suffering from the aftermath of the flu, Shanna thought, almost desperate for a rational explanation to this hollowness that hounded her. The bout she had had at the beginning of the month had left her so weak and miserable she had wanted to die. Depression was known to hang on for a while even after a person recovered. Maybe that was what was wrong with her.

  “Lean back a little, Shanna. You don’t have to sit up so stiff.”

  Shanna obliged on command.

  Like a programmed robot, Alexandra thought as she took out another tube from the creased black leather bag that she always carried with her. It was her one superstition. The bag always had to be within reach. Now crammed with her own special personally mixed makeup, forty years ago it had carried a single change of clothing as she had disembarked from a navy ship bringing European refugees to America. She had been smuggled by relatives from Poland to Germany after the war. Fate had brought her to the New World, where a natural ability and a quick mind had transformed Bella Perkowski into Alexandra, the darling of high society.

  Alexandra looked at Shanna. She had known her, child and woman, for over twenty years, ever since she had been summoned to attend to Rheena’s personal toilette for an inaugural ball. Widowed twice, Alexandra had no children of her own and had never wanted any.

  Children were nasty little problems that grew up into nastier big problems. But there had been something about Shanna, something about her lost, waiflike quality that had won Alexandra over from the very start.

  Shanna let out a long, cleansing breath and suddenly realized just how rigid she’d been. Every muscle in her body was tense, as if she was waiting for something to happen. Lately, she thought, she was always braced, waiting. Anticipating. But she didn’t know for what.

  She closed her eyes, scarcely feeling what the woman was doing to hide the tiny imperfections that her mother always found a way to magnify. She concentrated on Jordan. Sweet, handsome Jordan. If she tried, Shanna could still see him the way he had looked when he had first literally waltzed into her life. That, too, had been at a wedding.

  Yolanda’s. A distant aunt. Being related to the Bradys and the Fitzhughs meant having more cousins than any sane person could ever want. The Bradys, whose ancestors included Diamond Jim Brady, had a certain flash that appealed to the public at large and served them quite well in the realm of politics. Rheena Fitzhugh brought old money and respectability with backing. A perfect marriage. At least on paper.

  Not like her own, Shanna thought with a genuine smile, ignoring Alexandra’s murmur of disapproval because she had dared to change expression. A feeling of disloyalty for her previous petulance washed over Shanna. She should get down on her knees and thank God that she had been finally given something so rare as a stable marriage in this jaded world of politics and cotillions that she existed in. A stable, strong marriage. From the first moment Shanna had seen Jordan looking at her, he had completely taken over her world. She had stood very still, the way they had in the romantic old movies when two lovers find each other, watching as he walked in her direction. As he walked to her. Her heart had hammered so hard, she was certain everyone in the room heard it.

  Silently, smiling into her eyes, he had taken her hand and then in a voice that rippled under her skin, he had asked her to dance. She had just numbly nodded. After that, he hadn’t allowed anyone else to cut in the entire evening. It had all been like a glorious dream. He had been so attentive, so quick to try to please her. Six months later Shanna was having a wedding of her own.

  Her mind drifted back to that day.

  “Are you sure, Shanna? Are you really, really sure?” her mother had asked her sharply, even as the strains of the wedding march were swelling through the vast church that held hulking security guards at every possible entrance to keep out the paparazzi.

  Yes, Shanna had thought then, she was sure. She was in love. Wildly, happily, blindly in love. For six months she and Jordan had been almost inseparable. And he had treated her as if she mattered, really mattered. As if she were a beautiful goddess.

  No one had ever treated her that way, most especially not in her mother’s presence. People tended to ignore her in favor of currying Rheena’s favor. Rheena Fitzhugh Brady, the belle of every ball, the chairwoman of five major charities. The perfect partner for a politically motivated charmer whose eyes looked toward the country’s most-sought-after position. Quick to smile, quick to laugh, her mother had been a raven-haired beauty in her youth and, at nearly fifty-one, was still considered stunning. Indeed, Shanna had heard her mother referred to as the embodiment of the eternal woman. Rheena had a lush figure and lustrous skin that never seemed to age thanks to creams and the clever scalpel of a skillful doctor who was content with his anonymity and his exorbitant fees.

  Shanna had slowly smoothed down the skirt of her beaded wedding dress, the cost of which, she had thought guiltily, would have fed a small country for a month. Her mother had picked it out for her. Her mother had insisted on it.

  A full head taller, Shanna had smiled confidently for perhaps the first time at her mother. Rheena had been a vision in lavender. The mother of the bride wore deep lavender in order not to be missed, Shanna had thought wryly. As if anyone ever could. But as she looked at her Shanna had been surprised by what appeared to be the flash of concern in her mother’s famous cornflower-blue eyes.

  “Of course I’m sure, Mother. Why wouldn’t I be?”

  Rheena shook her head, mindful not to muss her carefully arranged hair. “I don’t know. Call it a feeling.” She shrugged as an attendant carefully spread out Shanna’s ten-foot train. She offered her only daughter a small, tight smile that hid a caldron of mixed emotions. “I just want you to be happy, that’s all.”

  Do you, Mother? Do you really? Shanna wondered. Or was it just that her mother was jealous that she wasn’t the star of this gathering?

  No, that wasn’t entirely fair or accurate. Her mother was unable to render the fabled “mother love” that Shanna had longed for when she was growing up, but Shanna knew that Rheena cared about her in the only fashion that she was capable of. And there was certainly no denying that her mother would always be the center of attention no matter where she was. Rheena Brady attracted attention the way nectar attracted honeybees. It was as natural as breathing to her. She thrived on it and expected it, never having known another way.

  Shanna couldn’t fault her mother for something she had no control over. She just found an expression of concern about her happiness at this late date difficult to believe, coming as it did from a woman who slipped in and out of her life like daylight savings rime. Periodically, but with little effect beyond the very basic and the very obvious.

  So she had married Jordan despite her mother’s doubts and was, even now, trying very hard to “live happily ever after.”

  Shanna felt her neck cramping up and shifted ever so slightly as Alexandra continued working at her slow, steady pace. With her faded carrot-red hair, Alexandra looked like an extra from a thirties screwball comedy instead of the highly paid artiste she was. It was another thing Shanna found appealing about her. Alexandra didn’t care what people thought.

  Alexandra tapped the girl’s shoulder to get her attention. “This is how you do it, child.” She dabbed something soft and translucent along Shanna’s cheekbone, then blended it upward. “Hides a lot of imperfections you don’t want nobody to see.”

  Alexandra spoke as if the only English she had a nodding acquaintance with was the brand learned on the Lower East Side, but Shanna knew she was capable of speaking the king’s English if she wanted to.

  The woman saw the stubbornness rise in the young girl’s eyes. She recognized resistance when she saw it. “You know, you should try harder. There’s nothing wrong with using makeup to look pretty.”

  Shanna shrugged. The art of illusion had never been a goal for her. She was what she was. “I don’t want to compete with her.”

  They both knew who
she was referring to. “Why not?” Alexandra’s tone was blasé. “Competition is what keeps us all alive.”

  Maybe you, Shanna thought, but not me. “Funny, my father said the same thing about winning.”

  Alexandra nodded sagely, dispelling her comical appearance. “Smart man, your father.”

  “Yes, he is.”

  Alexandra took that as capitulation. “So listen,” she instructed as she launched into a short, precise narrative about makeup application.

  Shanna tried to absorb what Alexandra was telling her. Jordan would undoubtedly appreciate the effort on her part. It meant so much to him to have her looking her best. He was very image conscious, perhaps a little too much so. Being at the right place at the right time with the right people seemed to have become his credo of late. He’d been the one to make her accept this invitation. He had made her accept all the invitations to these gala affairs when all she wanted to do was stay home with him. When it came to attending functions of any sort, Shanna much preferred her father’s political gatherings. There, sharp ideas were exchanged, not meaningless talk about possessions or fashions. Her mind seemed to shut down and drift like a leaf in a summer breeze when she was exposed to that kind of conversation.

  Alexandra frowned as she dabbed more makeup around Shanna’s eyes. With a careful pass of her hand, she applied the final strokes. This, she knew, was as good as it got. The girl had good lines, but she wasn’t a classic beauty.

  “You don’t have your mother’s face,” she said aloud without thinking, committing the same sin that everyone else did around Shanna.

  Surprised, stung, Shanna pulled back a fraction. She hadn’t expected this from Alexandra.

  Alexandra shrugged, her expression never changing, even though she saw the hurt in Shanna’s eyes. She could have bitten her tongue off. She hadn’t meant to hurt the girl’s feelings. “But hey, who does?” she tossed off. “That’s what makes her Rheena Brady and the rest of us peasants.”