Chester was right about that. Don't you remember? It was always Chester who did the important things for you, not me. And you spent most of your childhood next door with Arlene and George."

"Papa George died, Mommy," I said sadly.

"Did he?" She nodded. "He was pretty sick when I left. I didn't think it would be too much longer.

You see," she said, snapping her head up and firing a look of fear my way, "you see how short life is, how quickly your chance to do something fades? I won't get a second chance out here, Melody. This is it for me. That's why I did what Archie suggested when the accident happened."

"I don't understand, Mommy. What happened?"

"Archie was really in an accident," she said, waving her cigarette. "He was returning from a party at a bar where there-was supposed to be a gathering of producers and agents. He had one of his younger clients with him. The girl was really very young, but had everyone fooled, except Archie of course.

Anyway, he had me lend her my identification for the night. On the way back, Richard, as you know he's called now, lost control of the car and as soon as it crashed, it caught fire. He was thrown, but the girl was trapped and killed.

"When the police found the body and my identification, Archie and I discussed it and decided it would be better if I took advantage of it to cut myself off from family. So I took on a new identity. I'm Gina Simon, Gina Simon, do you hear? Everyone here thinks I'm years younger than I am!" she added in defense. "I can't get anywhere unless I'm this young, so I did it. Don't look at me like that," she fired. "I knew you were doing well and you were with family.

It wasn't as if I left you stranded somewhere."

"Family," I said, my face twisting with rage.

"You left me with a family that you knew disliked you."

"Yes, but you're not me," Mammy said. "I figured that in time they would see that and not punish you for being my daughter. And they're all well off, even Jacob."

"Not anymore. His business is struggling and it's hard work and now that he's very sick-"

"You can't live with me. Why did you come here? How can I take you in? Go back and wait until I get established and make a lot of money and then I'll send for you," she promised. "You've got to go before anyone realizes who you are. Where are you staying?"

she asked quickly, realizing there might be people who already knew.

"I'm staying with Holly Brooks's sister, Dorothy Livingston, but not after tonight," I said.

"Holly Brooks? I know that name."

"She's a friend of Kenneth's."

"Oh. Oh yeah. Is she living with him?"

"No, she lives in New York City. She's been very nice. She helped me get here."

"And this Dorothy . . . what does she know about us?" "Just what I've told her . . . how you pretended I was someone you didn't know."

"Good. Go back and tell her you came here again and you had made a mistake. Then go back to Jacob and Sara."

"I can't go back to Jacob and Sara," I said. "If I go back, I have to live with Grandma Olivia."

"Olivia? Why?" she asked. I sat on the sofa and began to tell her the story of my discoveries, how I had visited with her mother, my grandmother Belinda, and how I had learned that my mother's father was really Judge Childs.

"I finally understood why Kenneth and his father don't get along. He blames his father for his losing you," I said.

Mommy smiled.

"Kenneth," she said softly, reminiscing. "I suppose if things had been different, he and I would have married.

You don't know how handsome he was and bright. All my girlfriends were crazy about him. He was always different, always exciting to be with." Her smile faded. "But when I learned the truth and brought it to him, it was as if I had hit him with a sledgehammer.

"They're all so prim and proper on the outside, the blue bloods who made me feel inferior. I was the poor, discarded little girl, the waif living off of Olivia's kindness and generosity. How she continually reminded me of it. She took me in just to reduce the embarrassment, but she hated every moment I was there and she brought her boys up to think of me as contaminated. Only I fooled her, didn't I? I won Chester away from her and for that, she hated me forever.

"Was she smiling at my funeral? I wish I had been there just to watch the hypocrites," Mommy said and puffed her cigarette violently.

"No, she wasn't smiling. She was dignified. It was a very nice funeral. Kenneth was there, too."

"Poor Kenneth. Was he very upset?"

"Yes."

She sat back, pleased.

"It's not so bad to bury yourself once, especially when you're burying the ugly past too." She stared blankly at me. "But that's all gone, six feet under, Melody. You can't dig me up. It's not fair. I've finally thrown off the chains, the weight of my past, and I have opportunities now, new friends . . ." She gazed around. "This is just temporary. After my next few jobs, I'll be living in a plush condo, maybe in Brentwood. Archie assures me," she said.

I looked down, my heart so heavy I thought it might fall out of my chest.

"Why does Olivia want you to move in with her now?"

"Because Uncle Jacob's so sick and because she wants to keep the lid on any scandal. I told her I wanted to live with Kenneth since he's really my uncle, but she says that will only stir gossip."

"Oh, she's right about that. Olivia knows her territory.

Maybe it's not a bad idea anyway. It's a beautiful house. I did enjoy living there when she wasn't breathing down my neck or screaming at me for one thing or another."

"She wants to find a proper school for me and she said I have an inheritance from Grandma Belinda's half of the Gordon fortune."

"That's great. So you see, you should go back and quickly."

"But . . . it's not money I want or a snobby girl's school, Mommy. Olivia isn't my mother. She's not even my real grandmother. I'm afraid to live with her, afraid she'll make my life as miserable as she made yours."

"She wasn't completely at fault. I brought a lot of it on myself," Mommy confessed. "I was angry at them, all of them, and I wanted them to pay for my unhappiness."

"They'll always see you when they look at me,"

I said. "Olivia does, no matter what she tells me, and Uncle Jacob certainly does. Even Kenneth," I added and she perked up.

"Oh?"

"He had me model for him just the way he had you model," I said.

She widened her eyes.

"Really? And you did it?"

"Yes. He's created a wonderful new piece of sculpture. He says it's his greatest work, Neptune's Daughter. But the face on the sculpture is more your face than it is mine," I told her. I saw she liked that.

"Stand up," she asked suddenly. I did so. "You really did fill out. You're a very attractive young girl.

Kenneth doesn't miss much." She thought again for a moment. "Didn't you like it at all back there, meet anyone nice?"

"Cary's nice, very nice. I miss him and I love May, but I've missed you, Mommy. I really have. I don't like being . . . alone. It's not fair."

She nodded and crushed her cigarette.

"It did bother me to leave you, to lie to you,"

she said. "Maybe not as much as you would have liked it to have bothered me, but it did. I didn't like leaving you behind, but there was just no other way to do all this. You understand?"

I nodded, even thought I really didn't.

"I had to listen to Archie. He's had much more experience with all this," she said in defense. "What are we going to do?" she asked herself.

"Please, let me stay with you, Mommy."

She gazed at me and smiled.

"You were always a sobering influence on me, weren't you, Melody? When I stayed at Frankie's bar and grill too long in Sewell and came home, I would take one look at your face and feel so damn guilty I lost my buzz in an instant. I hated you for that, too,"

she admitted, "but later, I would love you for it, as much as I could love any child, I suppose."

She straightened up.

"I don't have very much here, yet," she said.

"It's not even a drop in the bucket compared to what Olivia has and what she can offer you."

"I don't care about that, Mommy. I should be with you."

"You can't be-with me," she whined. "I just can't have a daughter your age."

I thought quickly, remembering what her friend Sandy had thought.

"I could be your younger sister. You told people you had one," I suggested quickly.

"How do you know that?"

"I met some woman here the first time I came.

Her name was Sandy and she thought I was your younger sister surprising you," I said.

"She would." She smiled and looked at me.

"We do look like sisters. I mean, I look young enough to be your sister, don't' I?"

"Yes, Mommy, you do."

"See," she pounced jabbing her forefinger at me. "That's just the problem. You can't call me Mommy. A younger sister doesn't call her older sister Mommy, does she?"

"I won't.

"You'll forget."

"I won't," I insisted.

She relaxed as she thought about my suggestion.

"If I had a younger sister here, it would certainly make everyone believe me even more," she thought aloud. "That's right, it would," I said nodding.

"You can only call me Sis or Gina. You can't even forget and call me Haille."

"I never did, Mommy."

"Mommy!"

"Well, there's no one here right now," I said quickly. "Archie's not going to like this. He'll be furious with me," she said with a shake of her head.

"He has no right to be furious with you. You've done everything he wanted, haven't you?"

"Yes, yes I have," she said. She stared at me and then she smiled. "He won't be unhappy when I tell him he has another prime client anyway," she said.

"Another prime client?"

"You, silly. You're beautiful. You can become a model and an actress, too. We'll tell everyone I called you out here to develop your career. Just like me.

Then we really will be sisters!" she exclaimed.

"Maybe we'll even get to do something together."

I shook my head.

"I could never-"

"Sure you could. It's so easy. You smile when they want you to smile and you bat your eyelashes when you have to and before you know it, you have an assignment and they're paying you hundreds of dollars an hour just to pose."

"I don't know if I can do that," I said, recalling what I had learned from Spike already about the business.

"Believe me, you can do it," she said. "Okay, you can have the second bedroom and we'll try it. If it doesn't work out, you have to promise you'll return to the Cape and go back to school. Well? You wanted to be with me, this is how you can be with me. Make up your mind."

I stood there, speechless for a moment. Could I really turn down a chance to be with Mommy again?

To wait for the perfect opportunity to find out who my father was? Before I had a chance to really think about her suggestion, we heard the doorbell.

"Who the hell is that so early?" she muttered and rose to go to the door. It was Sandy Glee.