The Beekeeper's Daughter Read Online Free Page A

you became a millionaire, with thousands of fans shouting your name and singing your songs, selling records all over the world.’
    ‘I love your enthusiasm, Trixie. We’re doing our best.’
    ‘What do they think of you in England?’
    ‘Not enough.’
    ‘So that’s why you came here?’
    ‘Of course. Everyone wants to make it in America.’
    She laughed. ‘Not everyone wants to make it in Tekanasset!’
    ‘I have a connection to this place. My grandparents had a house here. A long time ago. It seemed a good place to start.’
    ‘Why not make it in England first, like the Beatles did? Don’t you want to be big in your own country?’
    He sighed and looked pained. ‘Because my mother would murder me for the shame.’
    Trixie screwed up her nose. ‘You’re kidding, right?’ He shook his head. ‘Your mother disapproves?’
    ‘Of course she does.’
    ‘And your father?’
    ‘Dead.’
    ‘Oh, sorry.’
    ‘Don’t be. We didn’t have the best relationship. He was a military man, as was his father before him. He didn’t understand music: at least, not my sort of music’
    ‘How narrow-minded! He should have been proud of your talent.’
    ‘He saw no talent in me, Trixie. But that’s OK. I’m the second son. All the responsibility sits on my brother’s shoulders, and fortunately he’s big enough and conventional enough to carry it.’
    Trixie laughed. ‘So you’re free to be whatever you want to be.’
    ‘That’s right.’ He grinned. ‘With whomever I want to be with.’
    ‘That’s me.’ She looked at him coquettishly from under her fringe.
    ‘That’s you, sweetheart,’ he replied.
    ‘You know what? One day I’m going to be successful, too,’ she told him. ‘But in a different field.’
    ‘What are you going to be?’
    She drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them. ‘Editor of a well-known magazine.’
    ‘Like Diana Vreeland?’
    ‘People will say, “Who’s Diana Vreeland?” because my name will be so much more famous.’
    ‘Infamous, I think is more likely,’ he teased.
    ‘Well, I’m going to work in fashion. I love clothes and I have a good sense of style, I think. I’m not going to stay here in Tekanasset, waiting on tables for the rest of my life. There’s a big world out there and I’m going to see it.’
    ‘I’m sure you will. I think you can achieve whatever you set your heart on, Trixie Valentine.’
    ‘I think so, too. I’m going to travel to all the fashion shows. I’m going to explore the world. I’m going to hang out with all the greats like Andy Warhol and Cecil Beaton and party at Studio 54 in New York with Bianca Jagger and Ossie Clark.’ She laughed and the light of the joint danced in her eyes. ‘I’m going to be a career girl.’
    ‘Most girls want to marry and have children. I know my sisters do.’
    ‘But I’m not most girls. I thought you’d have figured that out by now. I want to be free, like you, and be whoever I want to be.’
    ‘Then do it. There’s nothing stopping you.’
    ‘Only my father.’ She sighed heavily. ‘He’d like me to go to college and finish my education, but I doubt he could afford it anyway. He says there’s nothing more unattractive than a stupid woman.’ She laughed. ‘I’m a lot smarter than he realizes, but I’m certainly not going to college. I want to get out there and start living. This place is stifling and before you arrived it was deadly dull!’
    ‘Will he support you?’
    ‘Look, he came over from England with nothing but a good brain and made a success in business. If he’d stayed in England, ruined by war with no jobs anywhere, he’d still be a farmhand. I think he’d admire me for wanting to make something of my life – isn’t that the American Dream everyone talks about?’
    ‘And your mother?’
    ‘Mom would support me in whatever I decide to do. She just wants me to be happy. She didn’t have a good education, but her father was an intellectual and read everything under the