Never Too Rich Read Online Free PDF Page B

they did it behind closed doors.
    She lived happily with them for close to two years.
Before the first day was up, she’d dropped their “uncle” prefixes
and simply called them Joe and Al, and they were like doting
brothers with a young sister. It was Joe, an Off-Off Broadway
costume designer, who helped her sew the designer copies for her
dolls. And it was the slightly more serious Al, a photographer, who
made sure she went to school and picked her up after classes. Above
all, Al and Joe put a measure of stability into her life, and they
both cared for her deeply and lavished boundless love upon her. She
still spent nights crying for her mother, but at least she had a
family of sorts.
    But all good things had to end—for a while, at
least. A new downstairs neighbor—a fat, mean, sharp-tongued gossip
who hated Al and Joe—called the Department of Social Services on
them.
    Almost immediately a rigid, frowning social worker
in a sharply tailored mannish suit and a sour expression appeared,
lectured the “uncles” severely, and after a brief but fierce
tug-of-war triumphantly took Edwina with her. On the way to a city
shelter, the social worker told her that a beautiful girl needed to
be raised “right” and “normally” and that she was going to find a
nice home for her.
    Edwina had cried that she didn’t want a nice
home—she wanted Al and Joe. But the lady smiled with smug
superiority and told her she should be grateful.
    Edwina had just turned nine.
    The childless family in which she was placed lived
in the far reaches of the Bronx. They were very young, bright, and
groomed to within an inch of their lives.
    “ You will answer to the name
Vanessa,” the woman said. “We once had a ba . . . Never mind.” The
white-white shark’s teeth gleamed and the straight-combed blond
hair swayed like a curtain. “Vanessa. Now, say it. Va-nes-sa. And
you will call me Ma-ma.”
    Edwina stared at her with loathing. She wanted to
run away on the spot.
    Three days later, the opportunity presented itself.
In the middle of the night she sneaked into the master bedroom,
stole a twenty-dollar bill, and showed up at Al and Joe’s at five
in the morning.
    Her “uncles” knew their priorities. Al fled with her
to a midtown hotel while Joe stayed behind and pleaded innocence to
the social-services people. Less than a week later, a new apartment
in a different neighborhood was found, no forwarding address was
left, and the movers came with the pedestals, the plaster bust of
Madame de Pompadour (now Day-Glo green), and all the Indian
fabrics.
    Life went on happily for another three years, during
which time Al and Joe taught her all about style and doted on her
shamelessly. They dressed her up like a princess, took her to art
openings and the theater, and even to the Pines for the summers,
where she was quickly dubbed “The Princess of Fire Island.”
    Then, just as Al’s fashion photography was taking
him into the big time, Joe fell head-over-heels for a handsome
model Al was using, and vanished with him. Al was heartbroken for
months, and to keep his misery at bay, he threw himself into his
work.
    Before long, Alfredo Toscani broke through the last
of the barriers and became New York’s most celebrated fashion
photographer, earned gobs of money, and lived and worked out of a
brownstone in Murray Hill with his “niece.”
    By this time Edwina had long been infected with
fashion fever. It was Al who sent her to the Fashion Institute of
Technology, from which she had dropped out to become Duncan
Cooper’s wife and Hallelujah’s mother.
     
    “ Ma!” Hallelujah said sharply,
giving Edwina a poke. “Like, are you here or what?”
    Edwina jerked herself out of the past. “Of course
I’m here, darling,” she said in a startled voice. “I was thinking
about when I was your age.”
    “ Oh, Ma,” Hallelujah said
despairingly, “I bet you were born old.”

 
    Chapter
4
     
    Slam, slap, hump hump hump.
    Gasps of