Petals on the wind

part 2

School Days Renewed
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There came a day in January when we had to part. We'd taken exams to grade our abilities, and, much to Chris's surprise, and mine, we'd all done extremely well. I qualified for the tenth grade, Carrie for the third, and Chris for a college-prep school. But there was no happiness on Carrie's face when she screamed out, "No! No!" Her foot was ready for kicking, her fists balled to do battle with anyone who tried to force her. "Don't want no private ole school for funny lookin' lil' girls! I won't go! You can't make me go! I'm gonna tell Dr. Paul, Cathy!" Her face was red with fury and her weeping voice was a siren's wail.
I wasn't overjoyed by the idea of putting Carrie in a private school ten miles outside the city. The day after she left, Chris would be leaving too. I'd be left alone to attend high school—and we'd sworn a solemn vow never, never to part. (I'd forced myself to put back the hidden cache of food—and no one knew about that but Chris.) I lifted Carrie onto my lap to explain to her how Dr. Paul had selected this very special school and had already paid an enormous tuition. She squinched her eyes shut and tried not to hear. "And it is not a school for funny little girls,
Carrie," I said soothingly and then kissed her forehead. "It's a school for rich girls with parents who can afford the best. You should feel proud and very lucky to have Dr. Paul as our legal guardian." Did I convince her? Had I ever convinced her of anything?
“still don't wanna go," she wailed stubbornly. "Why can't I go to your school, Cathy? Why do I have to go off all alone with nobody?"
"Nobody?" I laughed to hide what I was feeling, a reflection of her own fears. "You won't be alone, darling. You'll be with hundreds of other girls near your own age. Your school is an elementary one; I have to go on to high school." I rocked her to and fro in my arms, and stroked her long, shining cascade of hair, then tilted her piquant dollface to mine. Oh, she was a pretty little thing. Such a beauty she'd be if only her body would grow in proportion to her large head. "Carrie you have four people who love you very much. Dr. Paul, Henny, Chris and me. We all want what's best for you, and even though a few miles separate us, you'll be in our hearts, in our thoughts, and you can come home every weekend. And, believe it or not, school is not such a dreary place, it's fun, really. You'll share a lovely room with a girl your own age. You'll have expert teachers and, best of all, you'll
be with girls who will think you're the prettiest thing they've ever seen. And you must want to be with other children. I know that being with a great many girls is loads of fun. You play games, and have secret societies and parties, and whisper and giggle all through the night. You'll love it." Yeah. Sure. She'd love it.
Carrie acquiesced only after she'd shed a waterfall of tears, her pleading eyes telling me she was going only to please me and her big benefactor whom she loved well. She'd sleep on nails to please him. And to her that school for girls was a bed of nails to endure. Just in time to hear, "Am I gonna stay there a long, long time?" Paul and Chris entered the living room. The two of them had been sequestered in Paul's study for hours, with Paul coaching Chris on some of the chemistry he'd neglected studying while locked away. Paul gave Carrie just one glance, saw her misery, then headed for the hall closet. Shortly, he was back with a big box wrapped in purple paper and tied with red satin ribbon three inches wide. "This is for my favorite blond," he said kindly.
Carrie's big, haunted eyes stared up at him before she smiled thinly "Oh!" she cried in delight to open her gift and see the bright red leather luggage,
complete with a cosmetic case outfitted with a gold comb, brush, mirror and little plastic jars and bottles, and a leather stationery case for writing letters home to us. "It's bea-u-ti-ful!" she exclaimed, won over at once by everything red and so fine. "I never knew they made red suitcases and put gold mirrors and things in them."
I had to look at Paul, who certainly didn't think a little girl needed makeup.
As if he read my thoughts, he said, "I know it's rather adult, but I wanted to give her something she can use for many, many years. When she sees it years from now, she'll think of me."
"That's the prettiest luggage I ever saw," I said cheerily. "You can put your toothbrushes, your tooth-paste, your bath powder and your toilet water in your makeup case."
"I'm not gonna put no nasty toilet water in my suitcases!"
That made all of us laugh. Then I was up and running toward the stairs, hurrying to my room to fetch a small box that I rushed back to Carrie. Gingerly I held that box in my hands, wondering if I should give it to her and awaken old memories. "Inside this box are some old friends of yours, Carrie.
When you're in Miss Emily Dean Calhoun's School for Properly Bred Young Ladies and feel a little lonely, just open this box and see what's inside. Don't show the contents to everybody, just to very special friends."
Her eyes grew large when she saw the tiny porcelain people and the baby she'd loved so much, all stolen by me from that huge, fabulous doll house that she'd spent so many hours playing with in the attic. I'd even taken the crib.
"Mr. and Mrs. Parkins," breathed Carrie, tears of happiness shining in her big, blue eyes, "and little baby Clara! Where did they come from, Cathy?"
"You know where they came from."
She looked at me, holding the box full of cotton to cushion the fragile dolls and handmade wooden crib, all priceless heirlooms. "Cathy, where is Momma?"
Oh, God! Just what I didn't want her to ask. "Carrie, you know we are supposed to tell everybody both our parents are dead."
"Is Momma dead?"
"No . . . but we have to pretend she is."
"Why?"
Once again I had to explain to Carrie why we
could never tell anyone who we really were, and that our mother still lived, or else we'd end up back in that dreary northern room. She sat on the floor near her shiny new red luggage, with the box of dolls in her lap, and stared at me with haunted eyes and no comprehension at all
"I mean this, Carrie! You are never to mention any family but Chris and me, and Dr. Paul and Henny. Do you understand?"
She nodded, but she didn't understand. It was in her lips that quivered and in her wishful expression—she still wanted Momma!
Then came the terrible day when we drove Carrie ten miles outside the city limits of Clairmont to enter her in that fancy private school for the daughters of the affluent. The building was large, painted white, with a portico in front and the customary white columns. A brass plaque near the front door read, ESTABLISHED IN 1824.
We were received in a warm and cozy-looking office by a descendant of the school founder, Miss Emily Dean Dewhurst. A stately, handsome woman with startling, white hair and not a wrinkle to betray her age. "She's a lovely child, Dr. Sheffield. Of course we'll do what we can to make her happy and
comfortable while she learns."
I leaned to embrace Carrie who trembled and I whispered, "Cheer up, make an effort to enjoy your-self. Don't feel abandoned. Every weekend we'll come to take you home with us. Now is that so bad?"
She brightened and forced a smile. "Yes, I can do it," she murmured weakly.
It wasn't easy to drive away and leave Carrie in that beautiful, white, plantation house.
The very next day was Chris's time to depart for the boy's prep-school, and oh, how I hurt to see him pack up his things. I watched but couldn't speak. Chris and I couldn't even bear to look at one another.
His school was even farther away. Paul drove thirty miles before we reached the campus with buildings of rose-colored bricks and, again, the obligatory white columns. Sensing we needed to be alone, Paul made some flimsy excuse of wanting to inspect the gardens. Chris and I weren't really alone, but in an alcove with big bay windows. Young men were constantly passing by to glance in and stare at us. I wanted to be in his arms, with my cheek against his. I wanted this to be a farewell to love, so complete we'd know it was forever gone, at least forever gone from being wrong. "Chris," I stammered, near tears,
"whatever am I going to do without you?"
His blue eyes kept changing colors, jumbling his kaleidoscope emotions. "Cathy, nothing will change," he whispered hoarsely, clinging to my hands. "When next we see each other, we'll still feel the same. I love you. I always will—right or wrong, I can't help it. I'll study so diligently I won't have time to think about you, and miss you, and wonder what's going on in your life."
"And you'll end up the youngest graduate from med school in the history of mankind," I chided, though my voice was as hoarse as his. "Save a little love for me, and store it away in the deepest part of your heart, the same as I'm going to store my love for you. We can't make the same mistake our parents did.'
He sighed heavily and hung his head, studying the floor at his feet, or maybe he was studying my feet in the high heels that made my legs look so much prettier. "You'll take care of yourself.'
"Of course. You take care of yourself. Don't study too much. Have some fun, and write me at least once a day; I don't think we should run up phone bills."
'Cathy, you're awfully pretty. Maybe too pretty. I look at you and see our mother all over again, the
way you move your hands, and the way you tilt your head to the side. Don't enchant our doctor too much. I mean, after all, he's a man. He has no wife—and you'll be living in the same house with him." He looked up, his eyes suddenly sharp. "Don't rush into anything trying to escape what you feel for me. I mean it, Cathy.
"I promise to behave myself." It was such a weak promise when he'd awakened that primitive urge in me that should have been held back until I was old enough to handle it. Now all I wanted was to be fulfilled and loved by someone I could feel good about.
"Paul," Chris said tentatively, "he's a great guy. I love him. Carrie loves him. What do you feel for him?"
"Love, the same as you and Carrie. Gratitude. That's not wrong."
"He hasn't done anything out of the way?" "No. He's honorable, decent."
"I see him looking at you, Cathy. You're so young, so beautiful, and so . . needing. ' He paused and flushed, looking away guiltily before he went on. "I feel ugly asking you, when he's done so much to help us, but still, sometimes I think he took us in only
because, well, only because of you. Because he wants you!"
"Chris, he's twenty-five years older than me. How can you think like that?"
Chris looked relieved. "You're right," he said. "You are his ward, and much too young. There must be plenty of beauties in those hospitals who'd be happy to be with him. I guess you're safe enough."
Smiling now, he pulled me gently into his embrace and lowered his lips to mine. Just a soft, tender kiss of good-bye-for-a-while. "I'm sorry about Christmas night," he said when our kiss was over.
My heart was an aching ruin as I backed off to leave him. How was I going to live without him nearby? Another thing she'd done to us. Made us care too much, when we should never have cared in the way we did. Her fault, always her fault! Everything gone wrong in our lives could be laid at her door!
"Don't overwork yourself, Chris, or soon you will be needing to wear glasses." He grinned, promised, made a reluctant gesture of farewell. Neither of us could manage to speak the word "good-bye." I spun about to run out, with tears in my eyes as I raced down the long halls, and then out into the bright sunshine. In Paul's white car I crouched down
low and really sobbed, like Carrie when she bawled.
Suddenly Paul showed up from nowhere and silently took his place behind the wheel. He switched on the ignition, backed the car out and turned to head for the highway again. He didn't mention my reddened eyes or the sodden handkerchief I clutched in my hand to dab at the tears that kept coming. He didn't ask why I sat so silently when usually I teased, and gibed, and rattled on nonsensically just to keep from hearing silence. Quiet, silence. Hear the feathers fall, listen to the house squeal. That was the attic gloom.
Paul's strong, well-cared-for hands guided the car with an easy, casual skill, while he sat back relaxed. I studied his hands, for, next to a man's eyes, I noticed his hands. Then I moved my glance to his legs. Strong, well-shaped thighs which his tight, blue knit trousers showed up well, perhaps too well, for all of a sudden I wasn't sad, or gloomy, but felt an onrush of sensuality.
Giant trees lined the wide, black road, trees gnarled and dark, thick and ancient. "Bull Bay magnolias," said Paul. "It's a pity they aren't in bloom now, but it won't be too long. Our winters are short. One thing you must remember: never breathe on a magnolia blossom, or touch one; if you do it will
wither and die." He threw me a teasing look so I couldn't tell whether or not he was speaking the truth.
"I used to dread turning onto my street, before you came with your brother and sister. I was always so alone. Now I drive home happily. It's good to feel happy again. Thank you, Cathy, for running south instead of north or west."
As soon as we got home Paul headed for his office and I headed upstairs to try to work off my loneliness by exercising at the barre. Paul didn't come home for dinner, and that made it even worse. He didn't show up after dinner either, so I went to bed early. All alone. I was all alone. Carrie was gone. My steadfast Christopher Doll, gone too. For the first time we were to sleep under separate roofs. I missed Carrie. I felt awful, afraid. I needed someone. The silence of the house and the deep dark of the night were screaming all about me.
Alone, alone, you are alone, and nobody cares, nobody cares. I thought about food. I'd worried that I hadn't kept a big supply at hand. Then I remembered I needed some warm milk. Warm milk was supposed to help you fall asleep—and sleep was what I needed.
Enchantress . . Me?
.
Soft firelight glowed in the living room. The gray logs had guttered into ashes in the hearth, and Paul, wrapped in his warm red robe, sat in a wing-backed chair and slowly drew on a pipe.
I gazed at his smoke-haloed head and saw someone warm, needing, wistful and yearning, as I yearned, and I wished. And being the fool I often was, I drifted toward him on bare feet that didn't make a sound. How nice he'd wear our gift so soon. I wore a gift from him—a soft, turquoise peignoir of airy fabric that floated over a gown of the same color.
He started to see me there, so near his chair, in the middle of the night, though he didn't speak to break the spell that was somehow binding us together in a mutual need.
There was a lot I didn't know about myself, nor did I understand what impulse lifted my hand to caress his cheek. His skin felt raspy, as if he needed a shave. He put his head back against the chair and tilted his face to mine.
"Why are you touching me, Catherine?"
His question was asked in a tight, cold voice, and I could have felt rebuked and hurt, but his eyes
were soft, limpid pools of desire, and I had seen desire before, only not in the kind of eyes he had. "Don't you like to be touched?"
"Not by a seductive young girl wearing flimsy clothes who is twenty-five years my junior."
"Twenty-four and seven months your junior," I corrected, "and my maternal grandmother married a man of fifty-five, when she was only sixteen."
"She was a fool and so was he."
"My mother said she made him a good wife," I added lamely.
"Why aren't you up in your bed asleep?" he snapped.
"I can't sleep. I guess I'm too excited about school tomorrow."
"Then you'd better go to bed so you'll be at your best."
I started to go, really I did, for the thought of warm milk was still in my head, but I had other thoughts, too, more seductive. "Dr. Paul . . ."
"I hate it when you call me that!" he interrupted.
"Use my first name or don't speak to me at all."
"I feel I should show you the respect you deserve."
"A fig for respect! I'm not any different than
other men. A doctor isn't infallible, Catherine."
"Why are you calling me Catherine?"
"Why shouldn't I call you Catherine? It's your name, and it sounds more grown up than Cathy."
"A moment or so ago, when I touched your cheek, you flared your eyes at me, as if you didn't want me to be grown up."
"You're a witch. In a second you change from a naive girl into a seductive, provocative woman—a woman who seems to know exactly what she's doing when she lays her hand on my face.
My eyes fled before the onslaught of his. I felt hot, uneasy, and wished now I'd gone directly to the kitchen. I stared at the fine books on the shelves and the miniature objets d'art he seemed to crave. Every-where I looked was something to remind me that what he needed most was beauty.
"Catherine, I'm going to ask you something now that is none of my business, but I must ask. Just what is there between you and your brother?"
My knees began to click together nervously. Oh, dear God, Did it show on our faces? Why did he have to ask? It wasn't any of his business. He had no right to ask such a question. Common sense and good judgment should have glued my tongue to the roof of
my mouth and kept me from saying what I did in a shamed, lame way. "Would you be shocked to hear that when we were locked up in one room, always together, four of us, and each day was an eternity, that sometimes Chris and I didn't always think of ourselves as brother and sister? He attached a barre in the attic for me, so I could keep my muscles supple, so I could keep on believing someday I'd be a ballerina. And while I danced on that soft, rotten wood, he'd study in the attic schoolroom, poring for hours over old encyclopedias He'd hear my dance music and come and stand in the shadows to watch. . . ."
"Go on," he urged when I paused. I stood with my head bowed, thinking backward, forgetting him. Then he suddenly leaned forward, seized hold of me and yanked me down onto his lap. "Tell me the rest."
I didn't want to tell him, yet his eyes were hot, demanding, making him seem a different person.
Swallowing first, I continued with reluctance, "Music has always done something special for me, even when I was small. It takes me over and lifts me up and makes me dance. And when I'm up there's no way to come down except by feeling love for someone. If you come down and feel your feet on the floor, and there's no one there to love, then you feel
empty and lost. And I don't like to feel lost or empty."
"And so you danced in the attic, and dwelled in your fanciful imagination, and came back to the floor and found the only one there to love was your brother?" he said with icy heat, burning his eyes into mine. "Right? You had another kind of love you reserved for your little twins, didn't you? You were mother to them. I know that. I see that every time you look at Carrie and speak Cory's name. But what kind of love do you have for Christopher? Is it motherly? Sisterly? Or is it—" He paused, flushed, and shook me. "What did you do with your brother when you were locked up there, when you were alone?"
Seized by panic, I shook my head, and pushed his hands from my shoulders. "Chris and I were decent! We did the best we could!"
"The best you could'?" he fired, looking hard and belligerent, as if the kindly, gentle man I knew had been only a disguise. "What the hell does that tell me?"
"All you need to know!" I flared back and flashed my eyes with temper as hot and red as his. "You accuse me of seducing you. That's what you're doing; you sit and you watch every move I make! You undress me with your eyes. You take me to bed with
you with your eyes. You talk about ballet classes, and sending my brother to college and medical school, and all the while you imply that sooner or later you are going to demand your payment, and I know what kind of payment you want!" I took my hands and ripped open the peignoir so the skimpy bodice of the aqua nightgown was revealed. "Look at the kind of gift you gave me. Is this the kind of nightgown a girl of fifteen wears? No! It's the kind of gown a bride wears on her wedding night! And you gave it to me, and you saw Chris frown, and you didn't even have the decency to blush!
His laughter mocked me. I smelled the strong red wine he liked to drink before retiring. His breath was hot on my face, his face very close to mine so I could see each strong dark hair that poked from his skin. It was the wine that made him act as he did, I thought. Only the wine. Any woman on his lap would serve— any woman! Teasingly he touched the peaks of both my nipples, skipping from one to the other, and then he dared to slip his hand beneath my bodice so he could fondle the young breasts that were fired with heat from his unexpected caresses. Then my nipples rose up hard and I was breathing just as heavily and fast as he was. "Would you undress for
me, Catherine?" he whispered in a mocking way. "Would you sit naked on my lap and let me have my way with you? Or would you pick up that Venetian glass ashtray and crash it down on my head?"
He stared at me then, suddenly shocked to find his hand where it was, cupping my left breast, and he yanked his hand away as if my flesh burned him. He pulled the fabric of my frail peignoir together and hid what his hungry eyes had devoured before. He stared at my lips that were slightly parted and waiting to be kissed, and I think he planned to kiss me just before he gained control and shoved me away. At that moment thunder crashed overhead, and a lightning bolt sizzled jaggedly to crackle with fire as it struck a telephone wire outside, I jumped! Cried out!
As suddenly as he had withdrawn his hand, he snapped out of his fog and into what he was customarily—a detached, lonely man who was deter-mined to keep himself aloof. How wise I was in my innocence to know this even before he snapped, "What the hell are you doing sitting on my lap half naked? Why did you let me do what I did?"
I didn't say anything. He was ashamed; I could see that now in the glow of the dying fire, and in the intermittent flashes of lightning. He was thinking all
sorts of self-condemning thoughts, chastising, berating, whipping himself—I knew it was my fault; as always it was my fault.
"I'm sorry, Catherine. I don't know what possessed me to do what I did."
"I forgive you."
"Why do you forgive me?"
"Because I love you."
Again he jerked his head into profile, and I couldn't see his eyes well enough to read them. "You don't love me," he said calmly, "you're only grateful for what I've done."
"I love you—and I'm yours, when, or if, you want me. And you can say you don't love me, but you'll be lying, for I see it in your eyes each time you look at me. I pressed closer against him and turned his face to mine. "When I was put away by Momma, I swore that when I was free, if love came and demanded of me I'd open my door and let it in. The first day I came I found love in your eyes. You don't have to marry me, just love me, when you need me."
He held me and we watched the storm. Winter fought with spring and finally conquered. Now it only hailed, and the thunder and lightning were gone, and I felt so . . . so right. We were much alike, he and I.
"Why aren't you afraid of me?" he softly asked, as his big, gentle hands stroked my back, my hair. "You know you shouldn't be here, letting me hold you, touch you."
"Paul . . ." I began tentatively, "I'm not bad; nei-ther is Chris. When we were locked away, we did do the best we could, honest. But we were locked in one room and growing up. The grandmother had a list of rules that forbade us to even look at each other and now I think I know why. Our eyes used to meet so often and without a word spoken he could comfort me, and he said my eyes did that for him too. That wasn't bad, was it?"
"I shouldn't have asked, and of course you had to look at each other. That's why we have eyes."
"Living like we did for so long, I don't know a lot about other girls my age, but ever since I was only table high, any kind of beauty has made me light up. Just to see the sun falling on the petals of a rose, or the way light shines through tree leaves and shows the veins, and the way rain on the road turns the oil iridescent, all that makes me feel beautiful. More than anything, when music is playing, especially my kind, ballet music, I don't need the sun or flowers or fresh air. I light up inside and wherever I am magically
turns into marble palaces, or I am wild and free in the woods. I used to do that in the attic, and always just ahead a dark-haired man danced with me. We never touched, though we tried to. I never saw his face, though I wanted to. I said his name once, but when I woke up I couldn't remember what it was. So, I guess I'm really in love with him, whoever he is. Every time I see a man with dark hair who moves gracefully I suspect he's the one."
He chuckled and twined his long fingers into my unbound hair. "My, what a romantic you are."
"You're making fun of me. You think I'm only a child. You think if you kissed me it wouldn't be exciting."
He grinned, accepted the challenge and slowly, slowly his head inclined until his lips met mine. Oh! So this was what it was like, a kiss from a stranger. Electric tingles sizzled madly up and down my arms, and all those nerves that a "child" my age wasn't supposed to have burned with fire! I drew away sharply, afraid. I was wicked, unholy, still the Devil's spawn!
And Chris would be shocked!
"What the hell are we doing?" he barked, coming out of the spell I'd cast. "What kind of little
devil are you to let me handle you intimately and kiss you? You are very beautiful, Catherine, but you are only a child." Some realization darkened his eyes as he guessed at my motives. "Now get this straight in your pretty head—you don't owe me, not anything! What I do for you, for your brother and sister, I do willingly, gladly, without expecting any repayment—of any kind—do you understand?"
"But . . . but . . ." I sputtered. "I've always hated it when the rain beats hard and the wind blows at night. This is the first time I've felt warm and protected, here, with you, before the fire."
"Safe?" he teased lightly. "You think you're safe with me, as you sit on my lap, and kiss me like that? What do you think I'm made of?"
"The same as other men, only better."
"Catherine," Paul said, his voice softer and kinder now, "I've made so many mistakes in my life, and you three give me an opportunity to redeem myself. If I so much as lay a hand on you again, I want you to scream for help. If no one is here, then run to your room, or pick up something and bash me over the head."
"Ooh," I whispered, "and I thought you loved me!" Tears trickled down my cheeks. I felt like a child
again, chastised for presuming too much. How foolish to have believed love was already knocking on my door. I sulked as he lifted me away from him. Then he gently lifted me to my feet, but kept his hands on my waist as he looked up into my face.
"My God, but you are beautiful and desirable," he said with a sigh. "Don't tempt me too much, Catherine—for your own good."
"You don't have to love me." My head bowed to hide my face and my hair was something to hide behind as I shamelessly said, "Just use me when you need me, and that will be enough."
He leaned back in the chair and took his hands from my waist. "Catherine, don't ever let me hear you offer such a thing again. You live in fairyland, not reality. Little girls get hurt when they play grown-up games. You save yourself for the man you marry—but for God's sake, wait to grow up first. Don't rush into having sex with the first man who desires you."
I backed off, scared of him now, while he stood to come within arm's reach. "Beautiful child, the eyes of Clairmont are fixed upon you and me, wondering, speculating. I don't have a gilt-edged reputation. So, for the health of my medical practice and the good of my soul and conscience stay away from me. I'm only a
man, not a saint."
Again I backed off, scared. I flew up the stairs as if pursued. For he wasn't, after all, the kind of man I wanted. Not him, a doctor, perhaps a womanizer—the last kind of man who could fulfill my dreams of faithful, devoted and forever-green-springtime-romantic love!
The school Paul sent me to was big and modem with an indoor swimming pool. My schoolmates thought I looked good and talked funny, like a Yankee. They laughed at the way I said "water, father, farther" or any word that had an "a" in it. I didn't like being laughed at. I didn't like being different. I wanted to be like the others, and though I tried I found out I was different. How could it be otherwise? She had made me different. I knew Chris was feeling lonely in his school because he too was an alien in a world that had gone on without us. I was fearful for Carrie in her school, all alone, made different too. Damn Momma for doing so much to set us apart, so we couldn't blend into the crowd and talk as they did and believe as they did. I was an outsider, and in every way they could all my schoolmates made me feel it.
Only one place made me feel I belonged. Straight from my high school classes I'd catch a bus
and ride to ballet class, toting my bag with leotards, pointes and a small handbag tucked inside. In the dressing room the girls shared all their secrets. They told ridiculous jokes, sexy stories, some of them even lewd. Sex was in the air, all around us, breathing hotly and demandingly down our necks. Girlishly, foolishly, they discussed whether they should save their bodies for their husbands. Should they pet with clothes on or off—or go "all the way"—and how did they stop a guy after they had "innocently" turned him on?
Because I felt so much wiser than the others I didn't contribute anything. If I dared to speak of my past, of those years when I was living "nowhere" and the love that had sprung up from barren soil, I could imagine how their eyes would pop! I couldn't blame them. No, I didn't blame anyone but the one who'd made it all happen! Momma!
One day I ran home from the bus stop and dashed off a long, venomous letter to my mother—and then I didn't know where to send it. I put it aside until I found out the address in Greenglenna. One thing for sure, I didn't want her to know where we lived. Though she had received the petition, it didn't have Paul's name on it, or our address, only the address of the judge. Sooner or later though, she'd hear from me
and be sorry she did.
Each day we began bundled up in heavy, woolen, knitted leg-warmers, and at the bane we exercised until our blood flowed fast and hot and we could discard the woolens as we began to sweat. Our hair, screwed up tight as old ladies' who scrubbed floors, soon became wet too, so we showered two or three times a day— when we worked out eight or ten hours on Saturdays. The barre was not meant for holding onto tightly, but was meant only for balance, to help us develop control, grace. We did the plies, the tendus, and glisses, the fondus, the ronds de jambe a terre—and none of it was easy. Sometimes the pain of rotating the hips in the turnouts could make me scream. Then came the frappes on three-quarter pointe, the ronds de jambe en Pair, the petite and grande battlements, the developpes and all the warm-up exercises to make our muscles long, strong and supple. Then we left the barre and used the center arena to repeat all of that without the aid of the barre.
And that was the easy part—from there on the work became increasingly difficult, demanding technical skills awesomely painful to do.
To hear I was good, even excellent, lifted me sky-high . . . so there had been some benefits gained
from dancing in the attic, dancing even when I was dying, so I thought as I plied un, deux, and on and on as Georges pounded on the old upright piano. And then there was Julian.
Something kept drawing him back to Clairmont. I thought his visits were only ego trips so we could sit in a circle on the floor and watch him perform in the center, showing off his superior virtuosity, his spinning turns that were blurrily fast. His incredible, leaping elevations defied gravity, and from these grand fetes he'd land goose-down soft. He cornered me to tell me it was "his" kind of dancing that added so much excitement to the performance.
"Really, Cathy, you haven't seen ballet until you see it done in New York." He yawned as if bored and turned his bold, jet eyes on Norma Belle in her skimpy see-through, white leotards. Quickly I asked why, if New York was the best place to be, he kept coming back to Clairmont so often.
"To visit with my mother and father," he said with a certain indifference. "Madame is my mother, you know."
"Oh, I didn't know that."
"Of course not. I don't like to boast about it." He smiled then, devastatingly wicked. "Are you still a
virgin?" I told him it was none of his business and that made him laugh again. "You're too good for this hick place, Cathy. You're different. I can't put my finger on it, but you make the other girls look clumsy, dull. What's your secret?"
"What's yours?"
He grinned and put his hand flat on my breast. "I'm great, that's all. The best there is. Soon all the world will know it." Angry, I slapped his hand away. I stomped down on his foot and backed away. "Stop it!"
Suddenly, as quickly as he'd cornered me, he lost all interest and walked away to leave me staring.
Most days I'd go straight home from class and spend the evening with Paul. He was so much fun to be with when he wasn't tired. He told me about his patients without naming them, and told tales of his childhood, and how he'd always wanted to be a doctor, just like Chris. Soon after dinner he'd have to leave to make his rounds at three local hospitals, including one in Greenglenna. I'd try and help Henny after dinner while I waited for Paul to come back. Sometimes we watched TV, and sometimes he took me to a movie. "Before you came, I never went to movies."
"Never?" I asked.
"Well, almost never," he said. "I did have a few
dates before you came, but since you've been here my time just seems to disappear. I don't know what uses it all up."
"Milking to me," I told him, teasing with my finger that I trailed along his closely shaven cheek. "I think I know more about you than I know about anyone else in the world, except Chris and Carrie."
"No," he said in a tight voice, "I don't tell you everything."
"Why not?"
"You don't need to know all my dark secrets." "I've told you all my dark secrets, and you haven't turned away from me.
"Go to bed, Catherine!"
I jumped up and ran over to him and kissed his cheek, which was very red. Then I dashed for the stairs. When I was at the top, I turned to see him at the newel post, staring upward, as if the sight of my legs under the short, rose, baby-doll nightie fascinated him.
"And don't run around the house in such things!" he called to me. "You should wear a robe."
"Doctor, you brought this outfit to me. I didn't think you'd want me to cover myself. I thought you wanted to see me with it on."
"You think too much."
In the mornings I was up early, before six, so I could eat breakfast with him. He liked me to be there, though he didn't say so. Nevertheless, I could tell. I had him bewitched, charmed. I was learning more and more how to be like Momma.
I think he tried to avoid me, but I didn't let him He was the one to teach me what I needed to know.
His room was down the hall from mine, but I never dared to go to him at night as I had to Chris. I longed for Chris and for Carrie. When I woke up, I ached not to see them in the room beside me; I ached more not to see them at the breakfast table, and if Paul hadn't been there, I think I might have started off each and every day with tears instead of forced smiles.
"Smile for me, my Catherine," Paul said one morning when I sat staring down at my plate of grits and scrambled eggs and bacon. I looked up, caught by something I heard in his voice, something wistful, as if he needed me.
"Don't ever say my name like that again," I said hoarsely. "Chris used to call me his lady Cath-er-ine, and I don't like to hear anyone else call me his Catherine."
He didn't say anything more, just laid aside the newspaper, got up and went out to the garage. From
there he'd drive to the hospitals, then back to his home offices, and I wouldn't see him again until dinner time. I didn't see enough of him, never enough of anyone I cared about.
Only on the weekends, when Chris and Carrie were home, did he seem really at ease with me. And yet, when Chris and Carrie were back in their schools, something would come between us, some subtle spark that revealed that he was just as attracted to me as I was to him I wondered if the real reason was the same as my own. Was he trying to escape memories of his Julia by letting me into his heart? Just as I was trying to escape Chris?
But my shame was worse than his, or so I thought then. I thought I was the only one with a dark, ugly past. I never dreamed anyone as fine and noble as Paul could have ugliness in his life too.
Only two weeks passed and Julian flew down from New York again. This time he made it very obvious he'd come just to see me. I felt flattered and a little awkward, for he'd already gained success, while I was still only hoping. He had an old ricky-tin car he said had cost him nothing but his time, for all the pieces had come from the junkyard. "Next to dancing, I love to tinker with cars," he explained as he drove
me home from dance class. "Someday, when I'm rich, I'm going to have luxury cars, three or four, or maybe seven, one for each day of the week."
I laughed; it sounded so outrageous and ostentatious. "Does dancing pay that much?"
"It will when I hit the big-time money," he answered confidentially. I had to turn my head and stare at his handsome profile. If you took his features apart one by one, you could find fault with them, for his nose could have been better, and his skin needed more color, and perhaps his lips were too full and red, and too sensual. But when he was put all together, he was sensational looking. "Cathy," he began, throwing me a long look as his tinny car chugged and choked along, "you'd love New York. There's so much to do, so much to see and experience. That doctor you live with isn't your real father, you shouldn't stick around just to please him. Think about moving to New York as soon as possible." He put his arm about my shoulders to draw me closer to his side. "What a team we'd make, you and I," he said softly, cajolingly, and painted for me bright pictures of what our life would be like in New York. Clearly he made me understand I'd be under his wing, and in his bed.
"I don't know you," I answered, pulling away to
sit as far from him as possible. "I don't know your past, and you don't know mine. We're nothing at all alike, and though you flatter me with your attention you also scare me."
"Why? I won't rape you."
I hated him for saying that. It wasn't rape I was afraid of. In fact I didn't know what made me afraid of him, unless I was more afraid of myself when I was with him "Tell me who you are, Julian Marquet. Tell me about your childhood, your parents. Tell me why you think you are God's gift to the dance world and to every woman you meet."
Casually he lit up a cigarette, which he wasn't supposed to do. "Let me take you out tonight and I'll give you all the answers you want."
We'd reached the big house on Bellefair Drive. He parked in front, while I stared toward the windows softly lit in the rosy twilight glow. I could barely discern the dark shadow of Henny who peered out to see who was parking in front of her home. I thought of Paul, but more than anyone else I thought of Chris, my better half. Would Chris approve of Julian? I didn't think he would, and still I said yes, I'd date him that night. And what a night it turned out to be.
My First Date
.
I was hesitant about bringing up the subject of Julian to Paul. It was Saturday night; Chris and Carrie were home, and, truthfully, I'd just as soon have gone to a movie with them and Paul. It was with great reluc-tance that I brought up the fact I had a date with Julian Marquet. "Tonight, Paul, you don't mind, do you?"
He flashed me a tired look and a weak smile. "I think it's about time you started dating. He's not too much older, is he?"
"No," I whispered, feeling a little disappointed that he didn't object.
Julian showed up promptly at eight. He was slicked up in a new suit, with his shoes shined, his unruly hair tamed, his manners so perfect he didn't seem himself. He shook hands with Paul, leaned to kiss Carrie's cheek. Chris glared at him The two had been bicycling when I'd told Paul about my first date, and even as Julian held my new spring coat I felt Chris's disapproval.
He drove to a very elegant restaurant where colored lights churned and rock music played. With surprising confidence Julian read the wine list, then tasted what the waiter brought and nodded, saying it
was fine. This was all so new to me I felt on edge, afraid of making a mistake. Julian handed me a menu. My hands trembled so much I turned it over to him and asked him to select. I couldn't read French, and it seemed he could from the speedy way he chose our meal. When the salad and main course came it was just as good as he'd promised.
I was wearing a new dress, cut low in front and much too old for a girl of my age. I wanted to appear sophisticated, even though I wasn't.
"You're beautiful," he said, while I was thinking the same thing about him. My heart felt funny, as if I were betraying someone. "Much too beautiful to be stuck here in Hicktown for years on end while my mother exploits your talents. I'm not a male lead like I told you before, Cathy; I'm second string in the corps. I wanted to impress you, but I know if I had you with me, as my partner, both of us could make it big. There's a certain magic between us I've never had with another dancer. Of course you'd have to begin in the corps. But soon enough Madame Zolta would see your talent far surpasses your age and experience. She's an old crow, but no dummy. Cathy, I've danced my head off to get where I am—but I could make it easier for you. With me to back you up you'll make it quicker
than I did. Together we'd make a sensational team. Your fairness complements my darkness; it's the perfect foil." And on and on he talked, half-convincing me I was great already, when a certain part of me knew deep down I wasn't that sensational, and not nearly good enough for New York. And there was Chris whom I couldn't see if I went to New York, and Carrie who needed me on the weekends. And Paul, he fit in my life somewhere, I knew he fit somewhere. The problem was— where?
Julian wined and dined me, then danced me out onto the floor. Soon we were dancing to rock like no one else in the place could. Everyone drew back just to watch, then applaud. I was giddy with the nearness of him and the amount of wine I'd consumed. On the way home Julian drove onto a secluded lane where lovers parked to make out. I'd never made out and wasn't ready for someone as overwhelming as Julian.
"Cathy, Cathy, Cathy," he murmured, kissing my neck, behind my ears, while his hand sought to stroke my upper thigh.
"Stop!" I cried. "Don't! I don't know you well enough! You go too fast!"
"You're acting so childish," he said with annoyance. "I fly all the way from New York just to
be with you, and you can't even let me kiss you."
"Julian!" I stormed, "take me home!"
"A kid," he muttered angrily and turned on the ignition. "Just a damned beautiful kid who tantalizes but won't come through. Wise up, Cathy. I'm not going to hang around forever."
He was in my world, my dancing, glamorous world, and suddenly I was afraid of losing him. "Why do you call yourself Marquet when your father's name is Rosencoff?" I asked, reaching to turn off the ignition.
He smiled and leaned back, then turned to me. "Okay, if you want to talk. I think you and I are a lot alike, even if you won't admit it. Madame and Georges are my mother and father, but they have never seen me as a son, especially my father. My father sees me as an extension of himself. If I become a great dancer, it won't be to my credit; it will be just because I am his son and bear his name. So I put an end to that idea by changing my name. I made it up, just like any performer does when he wants to change his name
"You know how many baseball games I've played? None! They wouldn't let me. Football was out of the question. Besides, they kept me so busy practicing ballet positions, I was too tired for anything
else. Georges never let me call him Father when I was little. After a while I wouldn't call him Father if he got down on his knees and begged. I tried my damndest to please him, and I never could. He'd always find some flaw, some minute mistake I'd made to keep any performance from being perfect. So, when I make it, I'm making it on my own steam, and nobody is going to know he is my father! Or that Marisha is my mother. So don't go shooting off your mouth to the rest of the class. They don't know. Isn't it funny? I throw a tantrum if he even dares to mention he has a son, and I refuse to dance. That kills him, so he let me go on to New York, thinking I wouldn't make it without his name. But I have made it, and without his help I think that kills him Now tell me about you. Why are you living with that doctor and not your own parents?"
"My parents are dead," I said, annoyed he'd ask. "Dr. Paul was a friend of my father, so he took us in. He felt sorry for us and didn't want us to go into an orphanage."
"Lucky you," he said with a certain sourness. "I'd never be so lucky." Then he leaned over until his forehead was pressed against mine and our lips were only inches apart. I could feel his breath hot on my
face. "Cathy, I don't want to say and do anything wrong with you. I want to make you the best thing that's ever happened to me. I am thirteenth in a long line of male dancers who have married ballerinas, most of them. How do you think that makes me feel? Not lucky, you can bet. I've been in New York since I was eighteen, and last February I turned twenty. That's two years, and still I'm not a star. With you I could be. I've got to prove to Georges I'm the best, and better than he ever was. I've never told anyone this before, but I hurt my back when I was a kid, trying to lift an engine that was too heavy. It bothers me all the time, but still I dance on. And it's not just because you're small and don't weigh much. I know other dancers who are smaller and lighter, but something about your proportions seems to balance just right when I lift. Or maybe it's what you do to your body that adjusts to my hands. . . . Whatever it is you do, you fit me to a tee. Cathy, come with me to New York, please."
"You wouldn't take advantage of me if I did?" "I'd be your guardian angel."
"New York is so big. . .
"I know it like the palm of my hand. Soon you'll know it just as well."
"There's my sister and my brother. I don't want
to leave them yet."
"Eventually you'll have to. The longer you stay the harder it will be to make the break. Grow up, Cathy, be your own person. You never are when you stay home and let others dominate you." He looked away, his scowl bitter. I felt sorry for him, and touched too.
"Maybe. Let me think about it more."
Chris was on the upper veranda outside my bedroom when I went in to undress. When I saw him out there in his pajamas, his slouched shoulders drew me to him
"How'd it go?" he asked without looking at me.
Nervously my hands fluttered around. "Okay, I guess. We had wine with dinner Julian got a little drunk, I think. Maybe I did too."
He turned to stare in my eyes. "I don't like him, Cathy! I wish he'd stay in New York and leave you alone! From what I hear from all the girls or boys in your dance company, Julian has claimed you so now no other dancer will ask you out. Cathy, he's from New York. Those guys up there move fast, and you're only fifteen!" He moved to cradle me in his arms.
"Who are you dating?" I asked with a sob in my throat. "Don't tell me you're not seeing any girls."
His cheek was against mine when he answered slowly, "There's no girl I've met who can compare to you.'
"How are your studies going?" I asked, hoping to take his mind off me.
"Great. When I'm not thinking of all I have to do in the first year of med school—gross anatomy, micro- anatomy and neuroanatomy—I get around to prepping for college."
"What do you do in your spare time?"
"What spare time? There's none left when I finish worrying about what's happening to you! I like school, Cathy. I'd really enjoy it if you weren't constantly on my mind. I wait for the weekends when I can see you and Carrie again."
"Oh, Chris . . . you've got to try to forget me and find someone else."
But just one long look into his tortured eyes revealed that what had been started so long ago wasn't going to be easy to stop.
I had to try to find someone else and then he'd know it was over, forever over. My thoughts took wing to Julian who was striving so to prove himself a better dancer than his father. How like me, who had to be better in all ways than my mother.
I was ready the next time Julian flew down. When he asked me for a date, this time I didn't hedge. It might as well be him; we did have the same goals. Then, after the movie and a soft drink in a club for me, and beer for him, he again drove to the lover's lane every city seemed to have. I allowed him this time to do a bit more than just kiss me, but too soon he was breathing hot and fast, and touching me with so much expertise that soon I was responding even when I didn't want to. He pushed me back on the seat. Suddenly I realized what he was about to do—and I grabbed up my handbag and began to beat him on his face. "Stop! I told you before, go slower!"
"You asked for it!" he raged. "You can't lead me on, then turn me off. I despise a tease."
I thought of Chris and began to cry. "Julian, please. I like you, honest I do. But you don't give me a chance to fall in love with you. Please stop coming at me so fast."
He seized my arm and ruthlessly twisted it behind my back until I cried out from the pain. I thought he meant to break it. But he released it just when I was about to scream.
"Look, Cathy. I'm half in love with you already. But no girl strings me along like I'm some country
bumpkin. There are plenty of girls willing to give out—so I don't need you as much as I thought—not for anything!"
Of course he didn't need me. Nobody really needed me but Chris and Carrie, though Chris needed me in the wrong way. Momma had twisted and warped him, and turned him toward me, and now he couldn't turn away. I couldn't forgive her for that. She had to pay for everything wrong she'd caused. If he and I had sinned, she had made us.
I thought and thought that night of how I could make Momma pay, and I came up with the exact price that would hurt most. It wouldn't be money, she had too much of that. It would have to be something she prized more than money. Two things—her honorable reputation which was a bit tarnished from marrying her half-uncle, and her young husband. Both would be gone when I was through with her.
Then I was crying. Crying for Chris, for Carrie who didn't grow and for Cory who was by now, probably, only bones in his grave.
I turned over to grope for Carrie, reaching to draw her into my arms. But Carrie was in a private school for girls, ten miles outside the city limits. Chris was thirty miles away.
It began to rain hard. The staccato beats on the roof overhead were military drums to take me into dreams and back to exactly where I didn't want to go. I was dumped down in a locked room cluttered with toys and games and massive, dark furniture, and pictures of hell on the walls. I sat in an old wooden rocker, half coming apart, and on my lap I held a ghostly, small brother who called me Momma, and on and on we rocked, and the floorboards creaked, and the wind blew, and the rain pelted down, and below us, around us, above us, the enormous house of countless rooms was waiting to eat us up.
I hated the rain so close above my head, like it used to be when we were upstairs. How much worse our lives had been when it rained, and the room was damp and chill, and in the attic there was nothing but miserable gloom and dead faces that lined the wall. Bands like the grandmother's gray iron came to tighten about my head, smothering my thoughts, making me confused and terrified.
Unable to sleep, I left the bed and slipped on a filmy negligee. For some curious reason I stole to Paul's bedroom and cautiously eased open his closed door. The alarm clock on his nightstand read two o'clock— and still he wasn't home! Nobody in the
house but Henny who was so far, far away—way at the other end of the house in her room adjacent to the kitchen.
I shook my head and stared again at Paul's smoothly made bed. Oh, Chris was crazy to want to be a doctor! He'd never have a full night's rest. And it was raining. Accidents happened so often on rainy nights. What if Paul should be killed? What would we do then! Paul,
Paul, I screamed to myself as I raced toward the stairs and flew down them, then sped on to where I could peer out the French windows in the living room. I hoped to see a white car parked in the drive, or turning into the drive. God, I prayed, don't let him have an accident! Please, please—don't take him like you took Daddy!
"Cathy, why aren't you in bed?"
I whirled about. There was Paul sitting comfortably in his favorite chair, puffing on a cigarette in the dark. There was just enough light to see he wore the red robe we'd given him for Christmas. I was so overwhelmed with relief to see him safe and not spread out dead on a morgue slab. Morbid thoughts. Daddy, I can barely remember how you looked, or how your voice sounded, and the
special smell of you has faded away.
"Is something wrong, Catherine?"
Wrong? Why did he call me Catherine at night when we were alone, and only Cathy during the day? Everything was wrong! The Greenglenna newspapers and the Virginia one I'd subscribed to and had deliv-ered to my ballet school both told stories of how Mrs. Bartholomew Winslow would make her second "win-ter" home in Greenglenna. Extensive renovation was being done so her husband's home would be as it was when it was new. Only the best for my mother! For some reason I couldn't fathom I lit into Paul like a shrew. "How long have you been home?" I demanded sharply. "I've been upstairs worrying about you so much I can't sleep! And here you were, all the time! You missed your dinner; you missed last night's dinner; you were supposed to take me out to a movie last night and you forgot all about it! I finished my homework early, dressed in my best clothes and sat around waiting for you to show up, and you forgot it! Why do you let your patients make so many demands on your time so you don't have a life of your own?"
For a long time he didn't answer. Then when my lips parted to speak again, he said in a mild tone, "You really do sound upset. I guess the only excuse I can
offer is to say I'm a doctor, and a doctor's time is never his own. I'm sorry I forgot about the movie. I apologize for not calling and telling you there was an emergency and I couldn't leave."
"Forget—how could you forget? Yesterday you forgot to bring the things I had on my list, so after I waited for hours on end for you to come home I sat around thinking you might come home and bring me the shampoo I wanted, but you didn't!"
"I'm sorry again. Sometimes I have things on my mind other than movies and the cosmetics you need." "Are you being sarcastic?"
"I am trying to control my temper. It would be nice if you could control yours."
"I'm not mad!" I shouted. He was so like Momma, so much in control, so poised, when I never was! He didn't care. That's why he could sit there and look at me like that! He didn't really care if he made promises and broke them—like her! I ran forward as if to strike him, but he caught my fists and stared up at me in utter surprise. "Would you hit me, Catherine? Does missing a movie mean so much to you that you can't understand how I could forget? Now say you're sorry for screaming at me, as I said I was sorry for disappointing you."
What tortured me was more than mere disappointment! Nowhere was there anyone I could depend on—only Chris who was forbidden to me. Only Chris who would never forget anything I needed or wanted.
I shuddered. Oh, what kind of person was I? Was I so like Momma I had to have what I wanted, when I wanted, no matter what the cost to others? Was I going to make Paul pay for what she'd done? None of it was his fault. "Paul, I am sorry I yelled at you. I do understand."
"You must be very tired. Perhaps you take your ballet classes too seriously. Maybe you should let up a little."
How could I tell him I couldn't let up? I had to be the best, and to be the best at anything meant hours and hours of work. I fully intended to give up all the pastimes other girls my age enjoyed. I didn't want a boyfriend who wasn't a dancer. I didn't want any girlfriends who didn't dance. I didn't want anything to come between me and my goal, and yet, and yet .. . sitting there, looking up at me, was a man who said he needed me, and who was hurt by the hateful way I'd acted.
"I read about my mother today," I said lamely,
"and a house she's having remodeled and redecorated. She always gets what she wants. I never get anything. So I act ugly to you and forget all that you've done." I backed off a few feet, aching with the shame I felt. "How long have you been home?"
"Since eleven-thirty," he answered. "I ate the salad and the steak Henny left for me in the warming oven. But I don't sleep well when I'm exceptionally tired. And I don't like the sound of the rain on the roof."
"Because the rain shuts you off and makes you feel lonely?"
He half-smiled. "Yeah, something like that. How did you know?"
How he felt was all over his face as dim as it was in that big room. He was thinking of her, his Julia, his dead wife. Always he looked sad when Julia was on his mind. I approached his chair and impulsively reached out to touch his cheek. "Why do you have to smoke? How can you tell your patients to quit the habit and keep on smoking yourself?"
"How do you know what I tell my patients?" he asked in that soft voice, in a way that tingled my spine. Nervously I laughed, telling him he didn't always close his office door tight, and if I happened to
be in the back hail, sometimes, despite my will, I couldn't help overhearing a few things. He told me to go to bed and stop hanging around in the back hall where I didn't belong—and he'd smoke if he wanted to smoke.
"Sometimes you act like a wife, asking such questions, getting angry at me for forgetting to stop at the drugstore for you. Are you sure you didn't desperately need that shampoo?"
Now he had me feeling a fool, and again I was angry. "I only asked you to get those things because you pass by a discount store where everything is cheaper! I was just trying to save money! From now on I'll never ask you to pick up anything I need! When you invite me to dinner in a restaurant, or to a movie, I'll be prepared to be disappointed, and that way I won't be disappointed. I might as well get used to expecting the worst from everyone."
"Catherine! You can hate me if that's what you want, make me pay for everything you have suffered, and then, perhaps, you can go to sleep at night and not toss and turn and cry out in your sleep, and call for your mother like a child of three."
Stunned, I stared at him "I call out for her?"
"Yes," he said, "many, many times I've heard
you call for your mother." I saw the pity in his eyes. "Don't be ashamed of being human, Catherine. We all expect only the best from our mothers."
I didn't want to talk about her, so I stepped nearer. "Julian is back in town. I went out with him tonight since you stood me up last night. Julian thinks I'm ready for New York. He thinks his dance instructor, Madame Zolta, would develop me quicker than his mother. He thinks together we'd make a brilliant team."
"And what do you think?"
"I think I'm not ready for New York yet," I whispered, "but he comes on so strong, sometimes he makes me believe, because he seems so convinced."
"Go slowly, Catherine. Julian is a handsome young man, with arrogance enough for ten men. Use your own good common sense and don't be influenced by someone who might only want to use you."
"I dream every night of being in New York, on stage. I see my mother in the audience staring up at me with disbelieving eyes. She wanted to kill me. I want her to see me dance and realize I have more to give the world than she does."
He winced. "Why do you need revenge so much? I thought if I took you three in and did the best
I could for you, you'd find peace and forgiveness. Can't you forgive and forget? If there's one chance we poor humans have of reaching godliness, it's in learning to forgive and forget."
"You and Chris," I said bitterly. "It's easy for you to talk about forgiving and forgetting—because you haven't been a victim, and I have. I've lost my younger brother who was like my own son. I loved Cory, and she stole away his life. I hate her for that! I hate her for ten million reasons—so don't talk to me about forgiving and forgetting—when she's got to pay for what she did! She lied to us, betrayed us in the worse possible way! She said nothing to let us know our grandfather had died, and kept right on letting us stay locked up—for nine long, long months—and in those long months we were eating poisoned doughnuts! So don't you dare talk to me of forgiving and forgetting! I don't know how to forgive and forget! All I know how to do is hate! And you don't know what it's like to hate as I do!"
"Don't I?" he asked in a flat voice.
"No, you don't know!"
He drew me down on his lap when I sobbed and tears streamed down my face. He comforted me as a father would, with little kisses and kind, stroking
hands. "Catherine, I've got a story of my own to tell. Maybe in some ways it equals the horror of yours. Maybe if I tell you you'll be able to use some of what I've learned."
I stared up into his face. His arms held me lightly as I leaned back. "Are you going to tell me about Julia and Scotty?"
"Yes." A hard edge toned his voice. His eyes fixed on the rain-washed windows, and his hand that found mine squeezed tight. "You think only your mother commits crimes against those she loves—well, you're wrong. It's done every day. Sometimes it's done to gain money, but there are other reasons." He paused, sighed, then went on. "I hope when you've heard my story, you can go to bed tonight and forget about vengeance. If you don't you'll hurt yourself more than anyone else."
I didn't believe that because I didn't want to believe that. But I was eager enough to hear the tale of how Julia and Scotty both died on the same day.
When Paul began to speak of Julia, I feared the ending. I squeezed my eyelids closed, wishing now my ears didn't have to hear, for I didn't need more to add to the anguish I already felt for one little dead boy. But he did it for my sake, to save me, as if anything
could.
"Julia and I were childhood sweethearts. She never had another boyfriend; I never had another girlfriend. Julia belonged to me, and I let every other boy know it. I never gave myself, or her, the chance to experience what others were like—and that was a terrible mistake. We were foolish enough to believe our love would last forever.
"We went steady, we wrote love letters to each other though she lived only a few blocks away. The older Julia grew, the more beautiful she became. I thought I was the luckiest guy in the world, and she thought I was perfect. We both had each other up on pedestals. She was going to be the perfect doctor's wife, and I was going to be the perfect husband, and we'd have three children. Julia was an only child, and her parents doted on her. She adored her father; she used to say I was like him." His voice deepened here, as if what he had to say was very painful.
"I put an engagement ring on Julia's finger the day she was eighteen. I was nineteen at the time. When I was in college, I'd think of her back here and wonder what man had his eye on her. I was afraid I'd lose her to someone else if we didn't marry. So at age nineteen she married me. I was twenty."
His voice turned bitter while his eyes went blank, and his arms tightened about me. "Julia and I had kissed many times, and we always held hands, but she would never let me do anything truly intimate—that had to wait until she had a wedding band on her finger I'd had a few sexual encounters, not many. She was a virgin and thought I was. I didn't take my marriage vows lightly, and I meant to be exactly the kind of husband who'd make her happy. I loved her very much. So, on our wedding night, she took two hours to undress in the bathroom. She came out of the bathroom wearing a long white gown, and her face was as white as that gown. I could tell she was terrified. I convinced myself I would be so tender, so loving, she would enjoy being my wife.
'She didn't enjoy sex, Cathy. I did the best I could to arouse her, while she cringed back with her eyes wide and full of shock, and then she screamed when I tried to take off her nightgown. I stopped and thought I'd try again the next night, after she pleaded for me to give her more time. The next night it was the same thing all over again, only worse. 'Why, why can't you just lie here and hold me?' she asked tearfully. 'Why does it have to be so ugly?'
"I was just a kid myself, and didn't know how to
handle a situation like that. I loved her, and I wanted her, and in the end I raped her—or so she said time and again. Still I loved her. I'd loved her most of my life and I couldn't believe I'd made the wrong choice. So I began to read every book on lovemaking I could find, and I tried all the techniques to arouse her and make her want me—and she was only repulsed. I took to drinking after I graduated from medical school, and when I felt like it I found some other woman who was glad to have me in her bed. The years passed while she held herself aloof, cleaned my house, washed my clothes, ironed my shirts and sewed on my missing buttons. She was so lovely, so desirable and so near that sometimes I'd force her, even if she cried after-ward. Then, she found out she was pregnant. I was delighted, and I think she was too. Never was a child more loved and pampered than my son, and, fortunate-ly, he was the kind of child who couldn't be spoiled by too much love."
His voice took on an even deeper register while I huddled closer in his arms, fearing what was to come, for I knew it would be terrible.
"After Scotty's birth Julia told me flatly she'd done her duty and given me a son, and that from now on I was to leave her alone. Gladly I left her alone, but
I was deeply wounded. I talked to her mother about our problem, and her mother hinted at some dark secret in Julia's past, a cousin of hers who'd done something to Julia when she was only four. I never learned just what he'd done, but whatever it was, it spoiled sex forever for my wife. I suggested to Julia we should both visit a marriage counselor or a psychologist but she'd have none of that—it would be too embarrassing—why couldn't I leave her alone?
"I did leave her alone after that," he went on. "There are always women around willing to accommodate a man, and in my office I had a lovely receptionist who let me know she was more than available, anytime, anyplace. We had an affair that lasted several years. I thought we were both very discreet, and no one knew. Then one day she came and told me she was pregnant with my child. I couldn't believe her, for she'd told me she was on the pill. I couldn't even believe the child was mine since I knew she had other lovers. So I said no, I couldn't divorce my wife and risk losing Scotty to father a child who might not be mine. She blew up.
"I went home that evening to confront a wife I'd never known before. Julia lashed out at me for being unfaithful, when she'd done the best she could and
given me the son I wanted. And now I'd betrayed her, broken my vow and made her the laughing stock of the town! She threatened to kill herself. I pitied her as she screamed out she'd make me hurt! She'd threatened suicide before but she'd never done anything.
"I thought this blow-up would clear the air between us. Julia never spoke to me again about my affair. In fact she stopped speaking to me at all except when Scotty was around, for she wanted him to have a normal home with ostensibly happy parents. I had given her a son she loved beyond reason.
"Then came June and Scotty's third birthday. She planned a party for him and invited six small guests, who naturally had to bring along their mothers as well. It was on a Saturday. I was home, and to help calm Scotty, who was very excited about his party, I gave him a sailboat to go with the sailor suit he was going to wear. Julia came down the stairs with him, dressed in blue voile. Her lovely dark hair was bound back with a blue satin ribbon. Scotty clung to his mother's hand, and in his free hand he carried the sailboat. Julia told me she was afraid she hadn't bought enough candy for the party, and it was such a beautiful day that she and Scotty would walk to the nearest
drugstore and buy some more. I offered to drive her there. She refused. I offered to walk along with them. She said she didn't want me to. She wanted me to wait and be there in case any of the guests arrived early. I sat down on the front veranda and waited. Inside, the dining table was all set for the party, with balloons suspended from the chandelier, and snappers, hats and other favors, and Henny had made a huge cake.
"The guests began to arrive around two. And still Julia and Scotty didn't return. I began to worry so I got in my car and drove to the drugstore, expecting to see them on the sidewalk leading home. I didn't see them. I asked the druggist if they'd been there; none of the clerks had seen them. That's when I began to feel really frightened. I cruised the streets looking for them, and stopped to ask passers-by if they'd seen a lady dressed in blue with a little boy in a sailor suit. I guess I'd questioned four or five before a boy on a bicycle told me yes, he'd seen such a lady in blue, with a little boy carrying a sailboat, and he pointed out the direction they'd taken.
"They were headed for the river! I drove as far as I could then jumped out of the car and ran down the dirt path, fearing every moment I'd get there too late. I couldn't bring myself to believe she'd really do it. I
kept calming myself by thinking Scotty only wanted to float his boat on the water, like I used to do. I ran so fast my heart hurt, and then I reached the grassy river bank. And there they were, the two of them, both in the water floating face upward. Julia had her arms locked around Scotty who'd clearly tried to free himself from her hold, and his little boat was sailing with the tide. The blue ribbon had come unbound from her hair, and it floated too, and all about her hair streamed like dark ribbons to twine in the weeds. The water was only knee-high."
I made some small sound that choked my throat, feeling his terrible anguish, but he didn't hear. He went on, "In no time at all I had them both in my arms and I carried them to shore. Julia was barely alive, but Scotty seemed dead, so it was him I worked over first in a futile effort to bring him around. I did everything possible to pump the water from his lungs, but he was dead. I then turned to Julia and did the same for her. She coughed and choked out the water. She didn't open her eyes but at least she was breathing. I put both of them in my car and drove them to the nearest hospital where they slaved to bring Julia back, but they couldn't. No more than I could bring Scotty back to life."
Paul paused and stared deep into my eyes. "That is my story for a girl who thinks she's the only one who has suffered, and the only one who has lost, and the only one who grieves. Oh, I grieve just as much as you do but I also bear the guilt. I should have known how unstable Julia was. We had watched Medea on TV only a few nights before Scotty's birthday and she showed unusual interest in it, and she didn't care for television. I was stupid not to know what she was thinking and planning. Yet, even now, I cannot understand how she could kill our son when she loved him so much. She could have divorced me and kept him. I wouldn't have taken him from her. But that wasn't enough revenge for Julia. She had to kill the thing I loved best, my son."
I couldn't speak. What kind of woman had Julia been? Like my own mother? My mother killed to gain a fortune. Julia killed for revenge. Was I going to do the same thing? No, no, of course not. My way would be better, much better, for she'd live to suffer on, and on, and on.
"I'm sorry," I said brokenly, so sorry I had to kiss his cheek. "But you can have other children. You can marry again." I put my arms about him when he shook his head.
"Forget Julia!" I cried, throwing my arms about his neck and snuggling closer in his arms. "Don't you tell me all the time to forgive and forget? Forgive yourself, and forget what happened to Julia. I remember my mother and father; they were always loving and kissing. I've know since I was a little girl that men need to be loved and touched. I used to watch my mother to see how she tamed Daddy down when he was angry. She did it with kisses, with soft looks and small touches." I tilted my head back and smiled at him as I'd seen my mother smile at my father. "Tell me how a wife should be on her wedding night. I wouldn't want to disappoint my bridegroom."
“I will tell you no such thing!"
"Then I'll just pretend you're my bridegroom, and I have just come from the bathroom after getting undressed. Or maybe I should undress in front of you. What do you think?"
He cleared his throat and tried to shove me away, but I clung like a burr. "I think you ought to go to bed and forget games of pretending."
I stayed where I was. Over and over again I kissed him and soon he was responding. I felt his flesh grow warmer but then his lips beneath mine tightened into a firm line as his hands went under my knees and
shoulders. He stood with me in his arms and headed toward the stairs. I thought he was going to take me to his room and make love to me and I was frightened, ashamed—and excited and eager too. But he headed straight for my room and there by my narrow bed he hesitated. He held me close against his heart for an excruciatingly long time as the rain pelted down and beat on the window glass. Paul seemed to forget who I was as his raspy cheek rubbed against mine, caressing with his cheek, not his hands this time. And again, as always, I had to speak and spoil it all.
"Paul." My timid voice drew him out of some deep reverie that might, if I'd stayed silent, have led me sooner toward that forever-withheld ecstasy my body yearned for. "When we were locked away upstairs our grandmother always called us Devil's spawn. She told us we were evil seed planted in the wrong soil, that nothing good would ever come of us. She made us all unsure of what we were, or whether we had the right to be alive. Was it so terrible what our mother did, to marry her half-uncle when he was only three years older than she? No woman with a heart could have resisted him. I know I couldn't have. He was like you. Our grandparents believed our parents had committed an unholy sin so they despised
us, even the twins who were so little and adorable. They called us unwholesome. Were they right? Were they right to try to kill us?"
I'd said exactly the right words to snap him back into focus. Quickly he dropped me. He turned his head sideways so I couldn't read his eyes. I hated for people to hide their eyes from me so I couldn't see the truth.
"I think your parents were very much in love and very young," he said in a strange, tight voice, "so much in love they didn't pause to consider the future and the consequences."
"Oh!" I cried, outraged. "You think the grandparents were right—and we are evil!"
He spun about to face me, his full, sensual lips open, his expression furious. "Don't take what I say and twist it about to suit your need for revenge. There's no reason, ever, to justify murder, unless it's a case of self-defense. You're not evil. Your grandparents were bigoted fools who should have learned to accept what was and make the best of it. And they had much to be proud of in the four grandchildren your parents gave them. And if your parents took a calculated gamble when they decided to have children, I say they won. God and the odds were on your side and gave you too much beauty and
appreciation of it, and perhaps too many talents. Most certainly there is one very young girl who smolders with adult emotions too large for her size and age."
"Paul . . . ?"
"Don't look at me like that, Catherine."
"I don't know how I'm looking."
"Go to sleep, Catherine Sheffield, this instant!"
"What did you call me?" I asked as he backed off toward the door.
He smiled at me. "It wasn't a Freudian slip, if that's what you're thinking. Dollanganger is too long a name. Sheffield would be a much better choice. Legally we can arrange to have your surname changed."
"Oh." He made me feel sick with disappointment.
"Look here, Catherine," he said from the doorway. He was so large he blocked out the light from the hall. "You're playing a dangerous game. You're trying to seduce me and you're very lovely and very hard to resist. But your place in my life is as my daughter— nothing else."
"Was it raining that day in June when you put Julia and Scotty in the ground?"
"What difference does that make? Any day you
put someone you love underground it's raining!" And he was gone from my door, striding quickly down the hall to his room where he slammed the door hard.
So, I'd tried twice and he'd rejected me twice. Now I was free to go on my merry, destructive way to dance and dance until I reached the top. And that would show Momma, who could do nothing but embroider and knit, just who had the most talent and brains. She would see who could make a fortune on her own without selling her body, and without stooping to murder to inherit it!
The whole world was going to know about me! They'd compare me to Anna Pavlova and say I was better. She'd come to a party they threw in my honor, and with her would be her husband. She'd look old, jaded, tired, while I'd be fresh and young, and her darling Bart would come straight to me, his eyes dazzled as he kissed my hand. "You are the most beautiful woman I've ever seen," he'd say, "and the most talented." And with his eyes alone I'd know he loved me, loved me ten times more than he had ever loved her. And then when I had him and she was alone, I'd tell him who I was, and he'd not believe at first. Then he would. And he'd hate her! He'd take all her money from her. Where would it go? I paused,
stumped. Where would the money go if it were taken from Momma? Would it go back to the grandmother? It wouldn't come to us, not Chris, Carrie or me, for we just didn't exist as Foxworths. Then I smiled to myself, thinking of the four birth certificates I'd found sewn under the lining of one of our old suitcases. I began to laugh. Oh, Momma, what stupid things you do! Imagine, hiding the birth certificates. With those I could prove Cory existed, and without them it would be her word against mine, unless the police went back to Gladstone and found the doctor who had delivered the twins. And then there was our old babysitter, Mrs. Simpson—and Jim Johnston. Oh, I hoped none had moved away and that they could still remember the four Dresden dolls.
I knew I was evil, just like the grandmother said from the beginning, born to be bad. I'd been punished before I'd even done anything evil, so why not let the punishment fit the crime that was to be? There was no reason why I should be haunted and ruined just because once upon a miserable time, I had turned for refuge into the arms of my brother. I'd go to the man who needed me most. If that was evil, to give what his words denied and his eyes pleaded for, then let me be evil!
I began, as I grew sleepy, to plan how it would be. He wouldn't turn away and put me off, for I'd make it impossible. He wouldn't want to hurt me. He'd take me and then he'd think to himself he had to, and then he wouldn't feel guilty, not guilty at all.
The guilt would all be mine And Chris would hate me and turn, as he had to, to someone else.
Sweeter Than All the Roses
.
I was sixteen in April of 1961. There I was, at the blossoming, ripe age when all men, young and old, and most of all those past forty, turned to stare at me on the streets. When I waited on the corner for a bus, cars slowed because male drivers couldn't keep from gaping at me.
And if they were enraptured, I was even more so. I preened before the many mirrors in Paul's home and saw, sometimes by surprise, a lovely, even breathtakingly beautiful girl—and then that glorious revelation—that was me! I was dazzling and I knew it. Julian flew down often to turn his desiring eyes upon me, telling me he knew what he wanted even if I didn't. I saw Chris only on the weekends and I knew he still wanted me, still loved me more than he'd ever love anyone again.
Chris and Carrie came home for my birthday weekend and we laughed and hugged and talked so fast, as if we'd never have the time to say enough, especially Chris and I. I wanted to tell Chris that Momma would be living in Greenglenna soon but I was afraid he'd try to stop me from doing what I had planned so I never mentioned it. After a while Carrie
drew away to sit with big, sad eyes and stare at our kind benefactor. That big, handsome man who ordered me to dress up in my very best. "Why not wear that dress you've been saving for a special occasion? For your birthday I'm treating all of you to a gourmet feast at my favorite restaurant The Plantation House."
Right away I had to rush upstairs and begin dressing. I was going to make the most of my birthday. My face didn't really need makeup, yet I put it on, the whole works, including mascara black as ink, and then I used tongs to curl my lashes. My nails gleamed like lustrous pearls and the gown I wore was Paris pink. Oh, did I feel pretty as I preened and primped before a cheval glass bought for my vanity.
"My lady Catherine," said Chris from the open doorway. "You do look gorgeous but it is in appallingly bad taste to admire yourself so much you have to kiss your own reflection. Really, Cathy, wait for compliments from others—don't give them to yourself."
"I'm afraid no one will tell me," I said defensively, "so I tell it to myself to give myself more confidence. Do I look beautiful and not just pretty?"
"Yeah," he said in a funny, tight voice, "I doubt I'll ever see another girl as beautiful as you look right
now."
"Would you say I'm improving with age?"
"I'm not going to compliment you anymore! It's no wonder the grandmother broke all the mirrors. I've got a good mind to do that myself. Such conceit!"
I frowned, not liking to be reminded of that old woman. "You look fantastic, Chris," I said, giving him a big, warm smile. "I'm not ashamed or embarrassed to hand out compliments when they're deserved. You're as handsome as Daddy."
Every time he came home from his school he looked more mature and more handsome. Though, when I peered closer, wisdom was putting something strange in his eyes, something that made him seem much, much older than I was. He also appeared sadder than me, more vulnerable, and the combination was extremely appealing. "Why aren't you happy, Chris?" I asked. "Is life disappointing you? Is it less than you thought it would be when we were locked away and we had so many dreams for the future? Are you sorry now that you decided on being a doctor? Are you wishing instead to be a dancer like me?"
I had neared to watch his oh, so revealing eyes, but he lowered them to hide away and his hands tried to span my waist, but my waist wasn't that small or his
hands weren't that large. Or was he just doing some-thing to touch me? Making a game out of what was serious. Was that it? I ducked to peer into his face and I saw the love I was looking for and then wished I didn't know.
"Chris, you haven't answered."
"What did you ask?"
"Life, medical training, is it living up to your expectations?"
"What does?"
"That sounds cynical. My style, not yours."
He raised his head and smiled brightly. Oh, God! "Yes," he said, "life on the outside is what I thought it would be. I was realistic, unlike you. I like school and the friends I've made. But I still miss you; it's hard being separated from you, always wondering what you're up to." His eyes shifted again and became shadowed as he yearned for the impossible. "Happy birthday, my lady Cath-er-ine," he softly said, and then brushed my lips with his. Just a feathery little kiss that didn't dare much. "Let's go," he said resolutely, taking hold of my hand. "Everyone is ready but fussy, prissy you."
We descended the stairs hand in hand. Paul and Carrie were all dressed and waiting, with Henny too.
The house felt strange, so hushed and expectant—so weirdly dark, with all the lights off but in the hall. How funny.
Then, suddenly, out of the dark came, "Surprise! Sur-prise!" Screamed by a chorus of voices as the lights all came on, and members of my ballet class, thronging about Chris and me.
Henny carried in a birthday cake of three layers, each smaller than the one underneath and proudly said she'd made it and decorated it herself. Let me always succeed at what I set out to do, I wished with my eyes closed when I blew out all the candles. I'm gaining on you, Momma—getting older and wiser each day, so when the time comes, I'll be ready—your match.
I blew so well the melted pink wax smeared the sugary pink roses nestled sweetly on pale green leaves. Across from me was Julian. His ebony eyes riveted as mutely he asked the same question over and over.
Whenever I tried to meet eyes with Chris he had his turned another way or lowered to stare at the floor. Carrie crowded close beside Paul, who sat some distance away from the boisterous revelry and tried not to look stern. As soon as I had all the presents opened Paul got up, picked Carrie up in his arms, and
both disappeared up the stairs.
"Good night, Cathy," called Carrie, her small face happy and flushed with sleepiness, "this is the best birthday party I've ever been to."
I could have cried from the pain of that, for she was almost nine years old and the birthday parties she could remember, except Chris's last November, had been pitiful attempts to make much out of little.
"Why are you looking sad?" asked Julian who came up and swung me into his embrace. "Rejoice—for now you have me at your feet, ready to set your heart on fire along with your body."
Truly I hated him when he acted like that. He tried to demonstrate in every way possible that I belonged to him and him alone. His gift had been a leather tote to carry my ballet leotards, shoes, etc. I danced away from him, not wanting to be claimed tonight. All the girls who weren't already infatuated with Julian immediately fell for Chris, and this in no way enhanced Julian's liking for my brother. I don't know what happened to put the match to the grass but suddenly Chris and Julian were in a corner arguing and about to exchange blows. "I don't give a damn what you think!" stormed Chris in his eye-of-the-hurricane calm way. "My sister is too young for a
lover and not ready for New York!"
"You! You—" fired Julian back. "What do you know about the dance? You know nothing! You can't even manage to move your feet without stepping on yourself!"
"That may be true," said Chris in an icy voice, "but I have other skills. And we're talking about my sister and the fact that she is still underaged. I won't have you persuading her to accompany you to New York when she hasn't even finished high school yet!"
My head swiveled from one to the other and between the two it was hard to say which was the better looking. I felt sick that they would show everyone their hostility, and sick because I wanted so much for them to like each other. I trembled on the brink of crying out, stop, don't do this! But I said nothing.
"Cathy," called Chris, not moving his eyes for one second from Julian who appeared ready to throw a blow or deliver a kick, "do you honestly believe you are ready to make your debut in New York?"
"No . . ." I said in a near whisper.
Julian's eyes raged my way, for he was at me, demanding of me every second we were together, wanting me to accompany him to New York and be
his mistress and dance partner. I knew why he wanted me—my weight, my height, my balance suited his abilities perfectly. It was of utmost importance to find the perfect partner when you wanted to impress in a pas de deux.
"May all your birthdays be hell on earth!" Julian said as he headed for the front door, and he slammed it hard behind him. That's how my party ended, with everyone going home looking embarrassed. Chris stalked up to his room without wishing me good night. With tears in my eyes I began to pick up the trash from the living room carpet. I found a hole burned in the plushy green from a carelessly held cigarette. Someone had broken one of Paul's prized pieces of hand-blown glass—a transparent rose of shimmering crystal. I held it, thinking about buying glue that would put it back together again, even as I planned a way, for there had to be a way, to cover up the holes in the carpet and take the white rings from the tables.
"Don't worry about the rose," Paul's voice came from behind me, "it's just a cheap knickknack. I can always buy another."
I turned to look at him He was standing so casually in the archway of the foyer, meeting my teary look with his soft, kind eyes. "It was a beautiful rose,"
I choked, "and I know it was expensive. I'll buy you another if I can find a duplicate, and if I can't I'll buy you something better when I can. . . ."
"Forget it."
"Thank you again for the beautiful music box." Nervously my hands fluttered to my daring decolletage and sought to hide the cleavage. "My father gave me a silver music box with a ballerina inside once but I had to leave it. . . ." My voice trailed off and I could speak no more, for thoughts of my father always left me in childish ruins of bleakness without hope.
"Chris told me about the music box your father gave you and I tried to find one just like it. Did I succeed?"
"Yes," I said, though it wasn't the same.
"Good. Now go to bed. Forget the mess—Henny will clean up. You look sleepy."
I was soon up the stairs and into my room, where to my surprise Chris was waiting for me.
"What is going on between you and Julian?" he shot out fiercely.
"Nothing is going on!"
"Don't lie to me, Cathy! He doesn't fly down here so often for nothing!"
"Mind your own damned business, Christopher!" I said viciously. "I don't try to tell you what to do and I demand the same from you! You are not a saint and I am not an angel! The trouble is you're just another man who thinks you can do anything you want while I have to sit prim and prissy on the sidelines and wait for someone to come along and marry me! Well, I'm not that kind of woman! Nobody is going to push me around and make me do what I don't want to—never again! Not Paul! Not Madame! Not Julian—and not you either!" His face paled as he listened and restrained himself from interrupting. "I want you to stay out of my life, Christopher. I'll do what I have to, anything I have to, to get to the top!"
He glared at me with his heavenly blue eyes shooting devilish electric sparks. "I take it you'll sleep with just any man if that's necessary."
“I do what I have to!" I raged back, though I hadn't given that any thought.
He seemed on the verge of slapping me, and the control it took to keep his hands at his sides made him clench them into fists. A white line etched about his tightened lips. "Cathy," he began in a hurt voice, "what's come over you? I didn't think you'd ever become another opportunist."
Bitterly I met his eyes. What did he think he was doing? We'd stumbled fortunately upon an unhappy, lonely man and we were using him, and sooner or later there'd be a price to pay. Our grandmother had always told us nobody did anything for nothing. But somehow I couldn't hurt him more, and I couldn't speak a word against Paul who'd taken us in and was doing everything he could. Truthfully, I had reason enough for knowing he didn't expect any reward.
"Cathy," he pleaded, "I hate every word you just said. How can you talk to me like that when you know how much I love and respect you? There isn't a day that passes that I don't long for you. I live for the weekends when I can see you and Carrie. Don't turn from me, Cathy, I need you. I'll always need you. It scares the hell out of me to think I'm not nearly that necessary in your life." He had hold of my arms and would have pulled me against his chest, but I yanked away and turned my back. How could I tell what was wrong and what was right when nobody seemed to care anymore?
"Chris," I began brokenly, "I'm sorry I spoke like that. It matters to me very much what you think. But I'm all torn up inside. I think I have to have
everything immediately to help make up for all I've lost and suffered. Julian wants me to go with him to New York. I don't think I'm ready yet and I don't have the discipline I need—Madame tells me that all the time and she's right. Julian says he loves me and will take care of me. But I'm not sure what love is, or if he loves me at all or only wants me to help him reach his goal. But his goal is my goal. So tell me how I can tell if he loves me or if he only wants to use me?"
"Have you let him make love to you?" he asked flatly, his eyes dead looking.
"No! Of course not!"
His arms encircled me and held me fast. "Wait at least one more year, Cathy. Trust Madame Marisha, not Julian. She knows more than he does." He paused and forced me to lift my bowed head. I studied his handsome face and wondered why he hesitated and didn't go on.
I was an instrument of yearning, filled with a ravenous desire for romantic fulfillment. I was scared too of what was inside me. So scared I was like Momma. When I looked in the mirrors I saw my mother's face beginning to emerge more definitely. I was exalted that I looked like her, and paradoxically I hated myself for being her reflection. No, no, I wasn't
like her inside, only on the outside. My beauty was not only skin deep.
I kept telling myself this as I made a special trip to Greenglenna downtown. In the city hall there I made some flimsy excuse about looking up my mother's birth certificate just so I could look up the birth certificate of Bart Winslow. I found out he was eight years younger than my mother and I also discovered exactly where he lived. I walked fifteen blocks until I came to a quiet, elm-lined street where old mansions were in a state of decaying disrepair. All but the home of Bart Winslow! His home had scaffolding all around. Dozens of workmen were putting up storm windows on a freshly painted brick home with white trim around the windows and a white portico.
Another day found me in the Greenglenna library where I read up on the Winslow family. Much to my delight, when I searched back through the old newspapers I found a society editor who seemed to devote most of her column to Bart Winslow and his fabulously wealthy and very beautiful wife with her aristocratic background. "The heiress to one of the country's greatest fortunes."
That column I snipped out furtively and sneaked
home to Chris. I didn't want him to know Momma would live in Greenglenna. He showed some distress as he scanned the column. "Cathy, where did you find this article?"
I shrugged. "Oh, it was in some Virginia paper they sell in a newsstand."
"She's in Europe again," he said in a queer way. "I wonder why she keeps going to Europe." He turned his blue eyes my way and a dreamy expression softened his features. "Remember the summer she went on her honeymoon?"
Remember? As if I could ever forget. As if I would ever let myself forget. Someday, someday when I was rich and famous too, Momma was going to hear from me and when she did, she'd better be well prepared, for bit by bit I was forming my strategy.
Julian didn't come to Greenglenna as much as he had before my sixteenth birthday party. I figured Chris had scared him off. I didn't know if that made me happy or not. When he did visit his parents he ignored me. He began to pay attention to Lorraine DuVal, my best friend. For some reason I felt hurt and resentment, not only against him but also against Lorraine. In the wings I half-hid myself and watched them dance a passionate pas de deux. That was when I
determined I'd study twice as hard as I had before, for I was going to show Julian too! I was going to show everyone just what / was made of!
Steel, covered over with frilly, silly tulle tutus!