Grandpa’s mansion is no home. And it never will be but simply this: an expensively built dollhouse made of marble, and she, a prettily painted porcelain doll propped on the highest shelf within its great and terrible walls, along with the rest of Grandpa’s private collection of the finest artworks. 

So she runs away. Well, it’s not exactly running away. 

She will eventually return to the mansion because he always finds her. 

He always does. 

She doesn’t make it difficult for him either. 

Like in the fairy tales, she leaves a trail of breadcrumbs: a pair of pink Manolo Blahnik pumps on the side of the road; an impression of her painted red lips on the glass of the nearest bus shelter; a slightly deflated Happy Birthday balloon with 20 on the other side tied to a coat rack in the diner she often frequents—after she buys a chocolate cake, of course; her Saint Laurent scallop lace-trimmed panties on a spike of the wrought-iron fence enclosing Grandpa’s private cemetery. 

In their game of cat and mouse, she’s his little mouse. 

He will find her. 

She wishes to be found.

The cemetery at night is a quiet city of the dead. And Jenny haunts the grounds ghostlike. She truly is a sight in nothing but a white silk nightgown with side slits, a pair of dirtied white ruffle socks, and a faux fur moss-green coat. She moves in a daze in the small-scale labyrinth of the few tombstones tactically scattered about and statues of naked figures standing erect, on guard, their carved eyes staring with a warning. They stare at her. 

Grandpa’s mausoleum, the miniature version of the mansion on the green hills, becomes visible in the fog. It stands melodramatically, grand as a palace, fit for an emperor; Grandpa thinks himself an emperor. 

She shakes her head in disapproval. 

Grandpa hides behind opulence. He is afraid, especially when it comes to death. It is too final, he once told her. And in a more serious tone added he would have his bones painted gold and his pockets stuffed with dazzling gems as if God will be persuaded otherwise and let him in through the pearly gates. The devil will appreciate the sentiment and save him a seat in hell, but Grandpa will probably go for the devil’s throat for the throne.

The trees thin out, and the tombstones become fewer. In the moonlight, a statue of a weeping angel with arms outstretched welcomes her. She still isn’t entirely sure where her parents’ gravesites are; Grandpa had made it abundantly clear that burying them in his private cemetery without markers was already too great an act of kindness. The angel must simply do, and she sits at its stone feet and digs into her chocolate cake with a plastic fork. 

“Happy birthday to me,” she whispers. 

No one whispers back but the wind.  

She falls asleep counting stars, the darkness in the sky spilling into her mind like ink. It is a dreamless sleep, which scares her most of all. She is never alone in her dreams; her family often visits, faceless and blurry; they wait for her. But not tonight. 

An owl is heard hooting from a crooked branch of a crooked tree. 

Jenny startles, waking, stiff and achy, the fallen leaves prickly beneath her, the blades of grass an unfitting makeshift bed. She keeps her eyes shut, the cool wind caressing her eyelids. She whimpers, not exactly cold, but desperate for touch, for a warm hand to wrap around her neck and squeeze, for someone to have mercy and beg her to breathe. 

Familiar footsteps sound. And her lips upturn into a small smile. 

“There you are.” The voice is rich like whiskey, unforgivable like sin. 

Here I am. 

She opens her eyes and meets a pair of pretty ones. 

Donald.

He towers over her, more solidly built than the statues in the cemetery, like a bored god in true form. He looks like a god. Like he stepped right out of a fashion magazine. Tonight, he wears what he almost always: neatly-pressed and ironed black trousers; a starched white shirt buttoned to the neck; a fitting vest; polished leather shoes; and shoulder holsters that house his firearms. His luscious black hair is sexily pushed back. He has a beautiful, strange face only a cubist artist could dream up with a paintbrush. 

He is, what Grandpa says to friends, a gentleman with great promise. To enemies, he is a monster with great aim; Grandpa will have him no other way—his perfect, pliable right hand, his second-in-command. 

He easily scoops her up in his arms and carries her to his sleek and shiny black car, the newest model of Ties, the Whisper, Grandpa’s present to him, parked right outside the gates, her very own Cinderella carriage. 

She holds him tight and buries her face in the crook of his neck, smelling him; expensive cologne, and cigarette smoke. He smells good; he doesn’t smell like the silk-stocking, well-heeled crowd. He smells cool. 

He’s so cool.

He tucks her into the passenger’s seat without saying a word and shuts her door. He lights a cigarette outside and smokes it, leaning against the hood, in no real hurry. She squirms in her seat as she watches him through the windshield, impatient, tired, and starved for his attention. When he finally climbs in, he takes one last drag, flicks the cigarette out the window, and blows, smoke curling around their necks. It’s like she’s falling from the sky, tumbling through the clouds fast. She’s really just unbuckling her seatbelt, leaning over the gear shift console, and resting her head on his thigh while the engine purrs, and the radio plays classical music; she thinks it’s Claire de Lune.

He rests his big hand on her cheek. “You have chocolate on your face,” he murmurs, rubbing the pad of his thumb across her chin, but he doesn’t stop there and skims along her bottom lip.

“Had chocolate cake.” She wraps her lips around his thumb and sucks. 

He leans back against the headrest and sighs. “You ate an entire chocolate cake? All by yourself?” 

“Mmm-hmm.” 

“Didn’t save a slice for me?” 

“Nuh-uh.” 

“Insatiable brat.” 

She hums. 

“Jenny.” 

She sucks his thumb deeper. 

“What is this? The third time this month you’ve run away from home?” 

She sucks harder.

“Jenny,” he grabs her chin abruptly, forcing her to open her eyes and look up at him. “I’m done chasing after you, baby girl.” 

Pop— she releases his thumb, a dribble of saliva at the corner of her mouth. She smiles. “Are you tired, old man?”

He lightly smacks her cheek, then, rather helpless to the simplest of temptations, caresses her. “These children’s games are getting old, Jenny.”

“Don’t be mad,” she says. “It’s my birthday.”

He looks at her intensely, her neck, her chin, her cheeks, her eyes, her parted lips. 

“Open,” he says and slips his thumb back inside her eager mouth. He can never stay mad, not at her.