Roxanne’s father loved a good fairy tale. He loved them so much, in fact, that he’d make up a new one for his oldest daughter, Roxanne, each night after returning home from the office.
Each story was built upon the same foundation. A bedrock of once upon a time. A fairytale opening for a fairytale life. She loved snuggling up with her father and disappearing into his tales of magical kingdoms and beautiful princesses in stone castles.
The stories themselves were formulaic. Most are. The princess finds herself in some kind of danger, and a brave knight swoops in to save the day. The knights were handsome, strong, and just. The monsters were savage wolves or ogres sent by a greedy witch to wreak havoc upon the world. It was the greedy witch who was the one pulling the strings from behind the scenes, like the great and powerful Oz. For some reason, the witch never scared Roxanne. What frightened her most was the fire-breathing dragons that circled the skies before laying waste to the realm. You just never knew when they would strike. If only her father had warned her, the real monsters didn’t have scales or wings or fangs. The real monsters looked like the handsome knights.
***
Roxanne reluctantly returned home for the first time in years. She wiped the snow from the windshield of her baby blue Corolla. The mansion still looked like a castle from her father’s stories with the iron gates, the stone walls, the palatial façade, and the towering cupola. The last of the sun fell behind the trees off on the horizon. Hundreds of landscaping lights activated, shining spotlights upon the family’s garish affluence. Father used to keep them on all night long. Damn the cost, he’d say. He didn’t want anyone driving by in the darkness to miss the grandeur of all he’d built. It was a rouse though, designed by new money to look like old money.
Stepping out of the car, Roxanne looked at her reflection in the side mirror and fixed her hair. She leaned up against the car, lit a cigarette, and watched the guests arrive. Neighbors, her father’s business associates, and even the board of directors from the county club were all dressed to the nines in ball gowns and tuxedos. Like Roxanne, they came in the hope of leaving a little richer than when they arrived.
Standing outside the magnificent structure, Roxanne looked the part. Her smooth black hair, her emerald eyes, and her long, delicate limbs. If her father were to shine a spotlight upon her, all the passersby would be in awe of such a magnificent façade. But her father couldn’t shine a light on anything anymore because he was dead.
A familiar voice startled her from behind.
“You know what Mom always says about cigarettes?” her younger sister, Janine, asked.
“Jesus, Janie, you scared the shit out of me!”
“She says anxiety belongs in steerage.”
Janine leaned in and snatched her sister’s cigarette. She crushed it out on the brick pavers with the toe of her Jimmy Choos. Janine was the reciprocal presentment of her sister’s elegance, her shimmering golden hair tied back and up in a bun.
Roxanne pulled another cigarette from her purse.
“How’s the big city? Having fun slumming it?” Janine asked, flashing her a wry smile. Roxanne had forgotten that look of restrained resentment that Janine had mastered.
“Do you really care?” Roxanne asked.
“No.”
“So why’d you ask?”
“Why are you here, Roxi?”
“Mom told me they’d be reading the will. She said Dad left me some—”
“You shouldn’t have come back.”
When Roxanne’s black ballet flat touched the Carrera marble floor of the foyer, the cocktail-sipping chit-chat suddenly stopped. The room went silent. All eyes turned her way. She politely nodded to the gawking guests. Something felt wrong here, though. Then she remembered that something had always felt wrong here.
She walked under the Parisian crystal chandelier and placed her black peacoat on the Steinway piano bench in the drawing room. No drawing took place there. From the other side of that vast room, Roxanne’s mother socialized artfully while brushing a few loose, gray hairs behind her ear. Mother was in a flowing black gown with lacing around the shoulder line. The look was the portraiture of a life she had dreamed up for herself. It was a style designed to flaunt the pageantry of her husband’s wealth and status. It was in the gaudiness of the diamonds in her rings and the heft of the pearls in her ears—all necessary tools required to maintain a veneer of superiority.
Mother stood in front of the large oak door that led down to Father’s celebrated wine cellar. Roxanne had never been allowed down there. For some reason, it was always Janine who was sent to retrieve some expensive bottle of this or rare vintage of that.
Mother was sipping on a martini with a half dozen olives while gabbing with the family attorney, Mr. Cartwright. Cartwright looked harmless enough, like Mr. Rodgers, if Mr. Rodgers had been in the midst of a mid-life crisis for the better part of twenty years. He had dark, thinning hair and a sad little ponytail. He wore a cable knit sweater, penny loafers, and a canary yellow bow tie that wasn’t nearly as charming as he thought. Cartwright was all smiles and pleasantries, laughing away while fidgeting with a heavy key that he pawed in his tiny hand. The key was made of iron and looked more like something that belonged to an old pirate than the family attorney. He handed it to Mother before making his way toward Roxanne.
“So you decided to show,” he said. “We were taking bets.”
“I want my money and then I’m going home.”
“Back to the dregs, eh?”
“How much, Mr. Cartwright?”
“How many times have I asked you to call me Ron?” he asked, reaching out for her slender wrist.
“How many times have I told you no?” she said, pulling her hand away. “Two hundred?”
“Roxi—”
“Five hundred?”
“You’ll get what you want after I get what I want. Now grab a drink and wait with the rest of the beggars.”
Mother had watched the exchange and started toward Roxanne with a fresh martini in one hand and a second for her daughter in the other. Roxanne’s martini had extra olives. Roxanne hated olives.
“My dear girl,” Mother said, shooing Mr. Cartwright away.
“Mother’” Roxanne moved closer reaching for her hand. “How are you holding up?”
“You know how it is,” she said, robotically kissing her daughter’s cheek, tilting her face so as not to smudge her makeup. Then Mother pulled back, put her hand on her chin, and studied her daughter’s face like she was looking at a painting in a gallery. “Your eyes, dear. They’re so puffy.”
“I’ve been crying.”
“Right. That’s only natural.” Mother paused. “You know a little witch hazel or some cucumber slices will do wonders.”
“Is there any food at this thing? I’m starving.”
Mother looked Roxanne up and down, “Really? It looks like you could stand to skip a meal.”
“I don’t have time for this,” Roxanne said, turning toward the door. Mother caught her by the wrist.
“Please. Don’t go. I was able to book Chef Andres at the last minute,” Mother said. She sipped her martini and spun her titanic engagement ring around her long finger. “I honestly don’t know how I got so lucky with the short notice and all. He was so broken up about the whole affair that he dropped everything and offered to cater.”
Roxanne had almost forgotten about Mother’s charms. It was as if she played some kind of small-talk magic flute that lulled people off their guard.
“Mother, I just wanted to let you know that….”
“Your sister kept pestering me that I shouldn’t have a sit-down meal. Nag, nag, nag about a buffet—you know how she is.” Mother leaned in and whispered, “What does she know? Am I right?”
Janine was perched on an antique white couch in the living room. The 18th-century piece had been reupholstered at great expense. It looked uncomfortable. Janine also looked uncomfortable, sitting at a right angle like she learned in finishing school. Her nails were bitten down to the nub, her cuticles raw, the skin on her knuckles white and flaky and dry.
Her twin toddlers wore matching floral Dior dresses. They quietly played with a thousand-dollar set of alphabet blocks by her feet. Janine’s oldest, Chloe, a high school junior, was across the room, as far away from her mother as she could get. Chloe swiped away maniacally on her phone, lost in a haze of winky-face emojis and oblivious to the world around her.
Meanwhile, Mother was going on about some gossip she’d caught wind of at her bridge game a few weeks back. Roxanne wasn’t listening. She was focusing on the two handsome strangers fixing themselves drinks at her father’s bar. They were undressing a bottle of rare scotch with their eyes.
Her mother poked her shoulder. “Roxi, are you listening? We didn’t say anything, of course, but we all knew she’d been sleeping with her Pilates teacher.” Either Mother couldn’t tell a lie, or everything that she’d ever said had been total bullshit. After almost thirty years, Roxanne still couldn’t tell.
“He was fit, don’t get me wrong, but—”
“Mother, who are they?” Roxanne pointed to the two handsome men, now with their noses pressed into their snifters. She imagined they were muttering some kind of almost pornographic nonsense to one another about peatiness.
“What do I always say about pointing?” Mother asked.
“You say never point at something unless you plan on buying it,” Roxanne said. “Mother, you told me this would be a small intimate affair with only our—”
“Is that Chef Andres asking for me?” Mother asked, searching the air.
Roxanne didn’t hear Chef Andres asking for her.
“He’s making the roast,” Mother said. “You know the one with the peppercorn reduction?”
“Dad’s favorite.”
“You were his favorite too, you know.”
Father often told the girls he had no favorites. It was a lie—one of many. Roxanne was his favorite. He doted on her, spoiled her, and protected her from monsters.
“I know,” Roxanne admitted.
“We can chat later,” Mother said, taking the olives from her daughter’s empty martini glass.
Roxanne headed over to the bar and slid in beside the two handsome strangers. She fumbled to open a bottle of red wine with an electric corkscrew. Handsome stranger number one moved behind her and placed his large hand on the small of her back. It was a touch too intimate for a stranger but one that this man offered with a cavalier temerity.
“Can I help with that?” he asked, smiling like a used car salesman trying to unload a freshly detailed piece of shit. The man was tall with a muscular build. His voice had a higher pitch than Roxanne expected. He buttoned up his black suit jacket while watching Roxanne wrestle with the corkscrew.
“Sometimes I just get so frustrated with these things that I’d rather just smash the bottle against the wall,” she said.
“You know, glass bottles are much harder to break than most people think,” he said. “You can’t break a bottle over someone’s head like in the movies. Well, I guess you could, but you’d really have to put your back into it.”
He took the corkscrew from Roxanne, flipped a couple of buttons, and opened the bottle with ease. “I’m Brackton James. I was an associate of your father’s.”
“Thanks, I’m Roxanne.”
“I know who you are,” Brackton said, pouring her a glass of red. He handed over the drink and leaned in to catch a look at Roxanne’s cleavage.
“Maybe I’ll see you around.”
“I’m sure you will.”
He placed his hand back on her waist. She squirmed. Roxanne wanted to run, but Mother always said, “Speed is the enemy of grace.” So she stepped softly up the grand staircase. When she reached her old bedroom, she closed the door behind her.
Everything was as she remembered it. The pink wallpaper, the white shag carpet, the cheerleading trophies, and the framed Playbill from the Nutcracker at the National Ballet. Even her Stevenson Academy yearbook hadn’t been moved since she left. Roxanne opened it.
The first photo was one that, of course, starred Roxanne. She was on the dancefloor at Homecoming in that lilac dress she loved, surrounded by a group of young men with lustful looks in their eyes. As a child, she practiced what her mother preached. “One must always present herself modestly,” Mother said. But that demure sensibility only seemed to stir the fragrant elixir that drew young men toward her. No matter how effective her camouflage, the hunters found a way to track her down. Her adult life became one of polite dodging. Dodging the men at work who intentionally dropped folders for her to pick up. Dodging the men who felt entitled to brush up against her on the subway. Dodging the men who smelled her hair while she ordered a latte, or touched her body while handing her a glass of wine.
The bedroom door suddenly opened. Handsome stranger number two leaned in the doorway with his hand perched on the frame. The man was long and lean with a lush head of hair. He rubbed his beard and got into character. Thus began the dance.
“Your mother said you might be up here,” he said with an accent Roxanne couldn’t place. She thought for a second it might be fake. He stepped into the room and unbuttoned his brown corduroy jacket. Placing his scotch on Roxanne’s school desk, he closed the door behind him and started leafing through the books on her shelf.
“Don Quixote. Exquisite. I taught a course last semester on this very text. It was called from Chaucer to Cervantes,” he said, flipping through the pages.
Roxanne finished her wine. “You don’t say?”
“Yes. At Harvard,” he said, taking another step forward. He’d been practicing this dance for years. “You see, I’m a crimson man.”
Roxanne took two steps back. She also knew this dance. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”
“Roxi, you don’t remember me? It’s Winston. Winston Ellis III, we rode together as children. You had that beautiful Mustang. What was her name again?”
“Cosette.”
“Yes, that’s right. Cosette. Did you know that Mustang comes from the Spanish word Mesteno—it means ‘wild’?”
“I didn’t know that, Mr. Ellis.”
“Please call me Winston.”
Roxanne had no earthly idea who this man was, but she had a feeling he was about to tell her.
“I settled into the professorship in Boston after finishing up my Rhodes Scholarship.”
“Impressive,” she said, not at all impressed.
“Then, of course, there was the Fulbright. Now that was something.” Winston continued, falling in and out of his accent.
“Must have been,” she said, looking at her watch.
Winston’s eyes brushed over Roxanne’s face. He stared over her shoulder at her childhood bed. She had seen this monster before—like the wild wolf who roamed the outskirts of the village looking for a wayward child to pounce on.
“Your mother says you’ve been living in the city.”
“About ten years now,” Roxanne explained, slipping to the side and standing with the desk behind her.
“She said you’re writing for The Times. Impressive.”
“Nothing quite as grand as that, I’m afraid. Just some online blogging.”
“But enjoying the city life, I’m sure,” he said, pacing in front of the bed while Roxanne crept toward the door.
“Look, I’m not sure what my mother told you, but I live in a studio apartment that’s probably smaller than your closet. The roaches live in my shoes. I only have hot water on Tuesdays and Thursdays. And the only reason I came back to this place was because of the will.”
Winston Ellis III watched her hands, seeming to admire the way Roxanne’s fingers danced as she spoke, as if she were conducting an orchestra only she could hear.
“The will?”
“Yes, the will,” she said. “What are you doing here, Winston Ellis III?”
“Your mother invited me. She mentioned that you mentioned that you’d love to see me.”
He moved closer, reaching out and taking hold of Roxanne’s arm. She quickly pretended to sneeze, wrenching her hand from his grasp to cover her mouth. It’s a move she’d perfected and one that had allowed her to escape such unwanted advances with a delicacy that saved these men from embarrassment and saved herself from any further aggression.
“I’m sorry, Winston. I think I hear my sister calling me. We’ll catch up another time, perhaps.” Roxanne wanted to run. But “speed is the enemy of grace.” So she walked gracefully through the hall as if the attempted violation had never occurred. Easing down the grand staircase, Roxanne could see Janine and Mother speaking outside the kitchen.
To the casual observer, their voices might appear courteous, their mannerisms restrained. To the casual observer, the two could be discussing something as innocuous as the weather. But Roxanne was no casual observer. They were screaming at one another with their eyes. But just as she got close enough to make out the nature of the conflict, she was pressed firmly into a dark corner of the hall by Brackton James. He locked her slender wrists in his strong hand and pressed her against the wine cellar door. A new dance began. A dance with a far more threatening rhythm.
“I’ve heard you’re looking for a nice guy to settle down with,” Brackton whispered while his thumb traced the curvature of her neck.
Tilting away from his advance, Roxanne asked, “Where’d you hear that?”
“Your mother,” he said. “Why else would I be here?”
Roxanne’s blood boiled. She tried to push him back into the light of the hallway. With some force, she was able to move him some. But she was a little drunk and tired from the drive, and he was as strong as the ogres from Father’s stories. His firm body didn’t budge much.
“My mother?” she asked. “I thought you were here for the reading of the will.”
“The will?” he asked. “Look, I’m here for whatever you want me to be here for.”
He shoved Roxanne back into the darkness. She could feel the heaviness of the cellar door against her back. It was cold. Roxanne had heard this song before and had danced with enough men to know which ones wanted to lead and which ones wanted to be led.
She leaned into him and whispered, “I know what you want.”
“Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. And I’m going to give it to you, Brackton. But you’ve got to wait for it.”
“I like this game.”
She looked down seductively at his pants and said, “I can tell you do. Go into the gardens out back. Find the gazebo. Wait for me there.”
“It’s raining, and this is a five-thousand-dollar suit!”
“I’ll meet you there,” Roxanne said, running her finger down the buttons of his shirt and pressing her lips to his stubbly cheek.
That was all it took to send the ogre scampering off into the damp evening, a victorious smile plastered across his face. He ignored the storm and his expensive suit. He was lost in the story that he’d tell “the guys” back at the tennis club.
It would start something like this, “Once upon a time…”
By the time Roxanne reached Mother and Janine, the argument had already reached its passive-aggressive conclusion. Roxanne heard Mother say as she arrived, “Janie, be a doll and fix us martinis from the bar.”
“But Mother,” Janine protested.
“I’m sorry. I thought that was a statement and not a question, Janie.”
Roxanne removed a stray hair from her mother’s dress. “Looks like I missed the fireworks,” she said.
“Roxi, a little tact, dear, is all I ask. Don’t be such a busybody,” Mother instructed while playing with her necklace.
“I learned from the best.”
“Enough, dear. Mr. Cartwright was just saying how lovely it is to see you. He went on and on about how ravishing you look given you’ve been gone for so long,” she said. “He’s right, it’s been too long.”
“Not long enough if you ask me.”
“I didn’t ask you! Always playing the role of the petulant child. You could’ve at least thanked me,” Mother said with an exaggerated wink.
“Thanked you for what? For cutting me off when I needed you most?”
“For Mr. James and Mr. Ellis. Two handsome and successful bachelors like that served up on a silver platter for you. You’re welcome.”
“The only reason I’m here is for the will. You said Father left something sizable. Now, when exactly will Mr. Cartwright be getting to that part of the evening?”
Mother looked around the room. “Your sister has finally returned with the cocktails. Why Janie, I thought you’d gotten lost,” she said.
“Sorry I took so long, Mother.”
“Jesus, Janie,” Roxanne said. “Kiss a little more ass why don’t you?”
Roxanne took her martini and slammed it home. She handed Janine the empty glass and swapped it with her sister’s full drink.
“Would you shut it already, Ms. Cosmopolitan? Nobody asked you to be here,” Janine said. Roxanne could see the lightning strikes grow more frequent from the front hall window.
“Mother asked me here,” she said. “And Dad would’ve wanted me here too. That’s why he left me—”
“Left you? Whatever he left you, I better get more. After all that man put me through,” Janine confessed.
“Cry me a river, Janie. Your life was just as privileged as mine.” Another powerful clap of thunder rumbled the ground beneath them.
“You have no idea, Roxi,” Janine said, shaking her head. “I’m not talking to you about this. That’s what mom pays my shrink for.”
“Ladies, ladies, you’re making a scene,” Mother interrupted. “At a time like this, a time of mourning, this is no place to discuss a will.”
“It’s exactly the time and place,” Roxanne said.
“We’ll get to all of that. But first, dinner is about to be served, and I could use a couple of bottles of your father’s Chateau Lafite. Andres thinks that wine would make a lovely pairing with the roast.”
Mother turned her attention towards Mr. Cartwright, sitting over at the Steinway. The legs of his beige corduroy pants were crossed, and his foot was tapping riotously on the antique Persian rug while he stared at young Chloe across the room.
“Mother, don’t,” Janine warned. Her mother pulled Mr. Cartwright’s cast iron key from her purse and eyed the cellar door. Roxanne had always been curious about what treasures her father had hidden down. She’d never been allowed in. It was always Janine.
“Roxi, maybe four or five bottles of the ’61,” Mother said, presenting Roxanne with the key.
“You sure you want me, not Janie?”
“Yes, Roxanne. Go ahead, dear.”
“Roxi, don’t,” Janine warned.
“Don’t what, Janie? Jesus, don’t be so dramatic.”
“Don’t go down there,” Janine warned again.
Mother stared down her youngest daughter while addressing her oldest, “If it’s too much trouble, Chloe could fetch those bottles for us. Couldn’t she, Janie?”
“It’s no trouble at all,” Roxanne said.
The door to the cellar was heavy. Roxanne descended the old staircase into the musky darkness. A heavy staleness lingered in the air. Her father often boasted that this collection of vintages was the greatest achievement of his life. A few sad light bulbs flickered, hanging limply from the exposed wooden beams overhead. The beams served as the structural foundation for the opulence above.
The cellar housed twenty shadowy stacks, all holding hundreds of bottles. Roxanne ran her fingers over the dusty labels. She searched and searched until she found, all the way in the darkest corner of the cellar, a single bottle resting by itself atop what appeared to be some kind of handmade wooden altar. It was swaddled in a small blue cloth.
She could no longer hear the storm outside. She could no longer hear the guests jabbering away upstairs. She could no longer hear anything until a familiar voice startled her.
“That was your father’s favorite,” Mr. Cartwright said, stepping toward her.
“Jesus! You scared me,” Roxanne exclaimed, stumbling to brace herself against the wall. “You’ll have to excuse me, Mr. Cartwright. I’m a little drunk.”
“I know. I’ve been watching you.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’ve been watching you eye that masterpiece,” he said. “That’s the 1811 Chateau d’Yquem. That bottle is the most expensive bottle of wine on the face of the Earth.”
Roxanne picked it up and blew the dust off the label.
“Over two hundred years old—can you imagine? The wines, you know, they grow more valuable as they age?”
“I’ve heard,” she said. “But don’t tell my mother. I don’t think she subscribes to that logic.”
Mr. Cartwright chuckled. “No, I imagine she doesn’t,” he said, taking another step forward. He perused the collection and asked, “Can I help you find something?”
“Mother asked me for the ’61 Chateau Lafite. I don’t even know where to start,” she admitted.
“The Lafite is in the back. There were many a night your father and I shared a bottle of that very wine in my study. We shared a great deal, him and I.”
“In the back?” Roxanne asked, staggering into the darkness.
“He treasured this house, Roxanne. Almost as much as he treasured this collection. But then again, there is so much in this house to treasure. All of this beauty. Who could blame him?”
By the time Roxanne felt his breath, it was too late. He was upon her. Cartwright was no wayward wolf. Cartwright was no drooling ogre. He was something far more menacing. He was the dragon who circled over the kingdom for long enough to know precisely when to strike.
Cartwright thrust Roxanne up against the cold cement of the cellar walls. He held her arms firmly behind her back. She felt his hot breath on her neck as he maneuvered his hand under her dress. After a moment of desperate struggle, she wiggled her arm free, free enough to smack Cartwright. But the action only further enraged him. He pulled her closer, then slammed her struggling body back against the cement wall. A gash opened on Roxanne’s left shoulder, and she bled from a wound on the back of her head. Cartwright continued to paw and fondle her twisting body. She screamed out. He tightened his hold. She screamed again. He removed his hand from beneath Roxanne and covered her mouth. Licking her cheek with his slimy old tongue, he whispered, “Nobody can hear you up there, Roxi.” He squeezed her bruised flesh and muttered, “It’ll all be over quick, my dear.” Then he unzipped his fly.
Desperately, she got into character. She offered a submissive nod and then waited until she could see the lustful delight in his eyes before thrusting her knee upward into his groin. He fell over.
“You spoiled little bitch!” he shouted from the cold cellar floor.
Panicked, she searched for a way out, but Cartwright was already starting to rise, starting to steady himself on a rack of octogenarian Chiantis.
“You want your money?” he asked. “Then stop fussing ’til I’m done with you.”
She reached blindly into the darkness and grabbed hold of the first bottle she could find. The old man was hunched over on one knee, looking up at Roxanne with watery eyes.
“Your mother said you’d play along.”
“My mother?”
“Why do you think we’re here?” he asked. “We had a deal.”
“What deal?”
“Give me what I want, and you can have it all,” he said.
She held the neck of the bottle firmly. It was the 1811 Chateau d’Yquem—her father’s great treasure. Roxanne smashed the bottle over the old man’s face. It didn’t break. Glass bottles are harder to break than people think. She watched him moan and apply pressure to a bleeding hole that opened under his left eye. She swung the bottle down again. This time it shattered. The old man’s blood and the priceless vintage pooled beneath him.
Staggering up the stairs, Roxanne was lost in the fog of unprompted violence. The cellar door felt heavier than she remembered. Bloody, weeping, and disheveled, she heaved it open and wandered into the foyer. The guests, mouths agape, looked on as Roxanne stopped underneath the crystal chandelier. Janine was back on the fancy couch in the living room, a blank look on her face.
Roxanne saw Mother silently motioning for her. But Mother had gone too far. Roxanne spun around and sprinted from the mansion as fast as her legs would carry her. Mother caught up with her on the main lawn. “Roxi, wait!”
“No, Mother!”
“Roxi—”
“No, Mother, it’s my turn to speak!” Roxanne’s screams were like an avalanche. Fractured sheets of a layered past, powerfully unleashed after years and years of freezing below the surface. “I should’ve seen it! My God, poor Janie. I should’ve stopped you years ago! But I left. I ran.”
“Roxi…”
A crowd gathered outside to watch as the landscaping lights illuminated Roxanne. She screamed from her lectern, “It’s people like you. Powerful women who enable powerful men to do terrible things. How many Cartwrights have you sent down there after Janie for all these years? Five? Ten? A hundred?”
“Roxi, please—”
“What, mother? What can you possibly say after sending that monster after me?”
“Oh, my dear girl,” Mother began, her arms falling limply and her eyes seeming to soften.
“What?” Roxanne yelled.
“Just a little witch hazel or cucumber slices will do wonders for those bags under your eyes.”
