Gold and smoke. That's how I saw myself in ten years. I'd be on that stage just like my mother, hair glinting in that spotlight. People would sit at those tables - fine gentlemen in their expensive suits, the women with the flattering dresses and gleaming jewels.
At nine years old, I was nothing of the sort. Pudgy limbs, awkwardly proportioned. My hair, though the same dark color as hers, was more like braids of frizz or coarse thread. My brown eyes were not sultry, and their shape was too wide, my face too round and open to ever inspire curiosity.
"Morning, Ingrid," greeted a familiar face. He was what I'd heard the other women call my mother's flavor of the month. He was a little taller than she was, with slicked back blonde hair and blue-sky eyes. He was Jacob Hamilton, "of the Bakersville Hamiltons".
"Hi."
I didn't like him. There something off about that million-dollar smile and the way he touched my mother, as if she were property, gripping her arm hard enough to make her cringe.
Until she saw me watching anyway, and then she'd fix her face back to its original beauty. Jacob would smile back, tight-lipped and staring right at me.
"How would you like to go for a ride?"
There are some things you get used to, and some things you don't.
Like the screams of your mother as she's being dragged away by two big men – whose badges flash in the dim light of the place you call home.
"Don't you worry your pretty little head, baby," My mother had said, cupping my face in her hands. Mascara was drying on her dark cheeks, her eyelashes sticking together. "They're going to come and take Mommy-"
I protested, shaking my head violently. "No, no. No! They can't take you; you can't leave me!"
"Sh, sh, shh," she cooed, pulling me tight to her chest. "It won't be forever, cher. Listen to me. There's something I wanted you to do for me."
Through blurry eyes, I nodded. My heart shook in my ribcage, echoing in my ears.
She could have asked anything of me then, and I would have said yes. She only smiled, wiping my eyes with her thumbs. "While I'm away, you're going to live with a friend of mine. My friend will be here soon, and I need you to be a good girl until I get back."
I nodded again and wrapped my arms around her, inhaling her scent. She was the earth; the smell of cocoa butter lotion stuck to my clothes, my skin. I squeezed tighter. "Why are they taking you away?" I asked against her shoulder.
She sighed. "One day you'll know the whole story, baby, just know that mama trusted her instincts, okay?"
And they busted down the door. The men were shouting, their deep voices plowing through the quiet chaos of the moment. "Nicolette Vaughan, we have a warrant for your arrest! Put your hands above your head!"
"Remember what I said," she whispered in my ear before they grabbed her by the arms. The grabbed her like Mr. Hamilton grabbed her. They yanked her back and I lost it.
I shrieked and threw my fists into the shortest cop's side. "Let her go! Let my mama go!"
"Somebody shut that kid up," the short one hissed.
Another cop grabbed me up and tried to pull me back into living room – maybe so I wouldn't see, maybe so my mother couldn't see me. My mother wailed and I heard her screaming for them to get their hands off of me.
Get their hands off her daughter.
I choked on my protests as the cop set me in a chair and felt my head swim. My lungs hurt, each breath coming out in short, shallow gasps. The cop tried to calm me, cooing at me that everything would be fine.
The loud whirring of sirens on the street below struck my eardrums, piercing them and sending a sharp pain through my head. I felt myself dissolve in the chair, my soul trying to go with her.
"Get your hands off of her," someone told the cop, and a warm, rough hand pulled at my own tiny one. "It's all right, young one. Your mother sent me after you. I only wish I'd gotten here sooner."
Nothing about the man was familiar, except his voice. Something I'd heard a long time ago. But, as the man tightened his hand around mine, something in the air changed. The cops stopped staring at me, as if I'd done something too. The sound of my mother's screams and protests stopped, and the man walked us out of the apartment.
"I can't promise you everything will be fine today, or even tomorrow," the man said, giving my hand a squeeze, "but I need you to know that your mother is a good woman. No matter what you see, or what you hear, she is a good woman."
I nodded – more sure about that than I was about anything else. Nicolette Vaughan was a good woman. No matter what she'd done.