Page 97 - Too Much and Never Enough - Mary L. Trump

CHAPTER EIGHT
Escape Velocity
I sat at the dining room table with the shoe in front of me, trying to figure out what the point of it was. I had looked through the remaining boxes
under the tree, thinking that perhaps the shoe’s twin had been wrapped separately, but no, there was just the one—a gold lamé shoe with a four- inch heel filled with hard candy. Both the individual candies and the shoe itself were wrapped in cellophane. Where had this thing come from? I wondered. Had it been a door prize or a party favor from a luncheon?
Donald came through the pantry from the kitchen. As he passed me, he asked, “What’s that?”
“It’s a present from you.”
“Really?” He looked at it for a second. “Ivana!” he shouted into the foyer. She was standing on the other side of the Christmas tree near the living room. “Ivana!”
“What is it, Donald?”
“This is great.” He pointed at the shoe, and she smiled. Maybe he thought it was real gold.
It had all started in 1977 with a three-pack of Bloomie’s underwear, retail $12, my very first Christmas present from Donald and his new wife, Ivana. That same year, they had given Fritz a leather-bound journal. It looked as though it were meant for somebody older, but it was really nice, and I felt a bit slighted until we realized that it was two years out of date. At least the underwear wouldn’t expire.
On holidays, Donald and Ivana pulled up to the House in either an expensive sports car or a chauffeur-driven limo that was even longer than my grandfather’s. They swept into the foyer like socialites, Ivana in her furs