Saving Julie Westwood

Chapter One: Motherly Love

Mrs. Camille Westwood-Avington stood hunched over and frustrated as her eldest, and only, daughter entered the foyer, setting her coat down on the side table.

"Jean-Claude won't like that, my flower." Her hands, marred from days on her hands and knees, scrubbing floors, brushed across Julie's cheek as the daughter brushed her away and removed the pillbox sitting atop her head, placing it next to the controversial coat before entering the adjacent parlor room and sitting next to the lively fire place.

"Momma, would you rest for a few minutes? Jean-Claude can handle some of this." Camille rolled her eyes, as if her daughter was little more than a waste of time to her. Shaking her head, she returned to the fire, ready to throw another log on the blaze.

"Would you stop?" Julie grumbled, "It's nearly 70 degrees outside!" Her mother's hands shook as the piece of wood tumbled from her hands and onto the floor. How frail she had become in the last 20 years, plagued by constant anxiety. As if he would come sweeping back into their lives.

"Momma..." Julie sighed, watching as her mother receded into the lavish couch cushion, looking far smaller than Julie had ever seen her. The wispy hair on her head looking grayer, although Julie knew she dyed it constantly, "It's alright."

Julie grasped the fingers of her aging mother who nodded in silence, a silent tear streaking down her face, dipping below her chin.

"Are you staying for breakfast dear, he'll be up soon and if you're here...well..." Her eyes brimmed with tears again and Julie shook her head, sighing again as her mother lit up another one of her cigarettes, hands still shaking.

"Has Hugo returned from New York?" Julie questioned before standing and looking at the framed picture of the four of them in Paris nearly a decade ago, "He promised to bring me word of the World's Fair."

"Darling, sweetheart..." Camille chuckled as her daughter looked earnestly, "It's 1962, it won't be for another two years."

Julie smiled unpleasantly at her mother, "Can I just have a cup of tea before I go?"

"Why are you here by the way, we rarely hear from you now?"

"That's because you've sent me away to live in that damned hotel."

"Lovely, aren't you happy with it. Oh, I told Jean-Claude moving you to the Bungalows was a mistake. He didn't think.... oh, goodness, we'll have to move you back up to the suite and then you'll have to move all your things again."

"The bungalow is fine, mother." Julie smoothed out her dress and looked at her mother still engulfed by the lavish couch before she exited the increasingly warm room and headed to the side kitchen where the maid was not yet there, nor the cook. She grabbed the tea kettle on the site of the counter and filled the water quickly, listening attentively as her mother shuffled into the kitchen.

"Darling, Julie." Her mother's hands clutched Julie's slender arm, "If you think for a second you're not as bright or as beautiful as the others that live there...don't think for a second you're not. You are just as beautiful and talented as....as...." Camille couldn't place her finger on the other inhabitants who resided there, but found none.

"As Liz Taylor and Marilyn Monroe, Momma...I don't come from backgrounds like that. I don't want to be like that, 'sides, they aren't there most of the time anyways."

"Julie." Camille's grip tightened around her daughter's arm, "You will appreciate the things that are given to you, all the Jean-Claude has done for us, done for you, and me..." She trailed off before her fingers released from Julie's arm, "You will live this life now, go out, have fun, live a bit...he went to a lot of trouble to get them to transfer you."