9780671028008 DON'T MISS ONE WORD OF THE WILDFLOWERS MINISERIES-- FOUR SPELLBINDING NOVELS FROM V.C.ANDREWS® MISTY (July 1999) STAR (August 1999) JADE (September 1999) CAT (October 1999) ALL FROM POCKET BOOKS ^ ^ ^^ p^ ^ ^^ S DAZZLING V.C. ANDREWS NOVEL-- THE THRILLING REUNION OF THE X WILDFLOWERS... INTO THE GARDEN COMING FROM POCKET BOOKS ^ 03> EAN I'm. so lucky... I'm so lucky to have such concerned parents. I have to count my blessings on my hands and feet, my nose and ears. Doesn't everyone wish their parents were divorced? I couldn't help but wonder if the other girls who were coming to Doctor Marlowe's today had also been turned into whips their parents could snap at each other. Jade's father's chauffeur drove her... Star's grandmother brought her... Cat's mother brought her... We lived in such a perfect worid. Why were we so imperfect? hi all our homes there were shadows in corners and whispers behind doors, no matter how bright and glorious it was outside. I used to think everyone else was at peace while we were pawns in silent wars. There were no guns fired, although sometimes we all wondered if there would be. The wounded and the dead were only hopes and wishes and the bombs were just words, nasty words wrapped in cold smiles or printed on official documents that floated into our lives along with die ashes from the fires that burned up our families.... V.C. Andrews*' Books The Oouanganger Family Series: Flowers in the Attic Petals on the Wnd IfThere Be Thorns Seeds of Yesterday Garden of Shadows The Casted Family Series: Heaven Dark Angel Fallen Hearts Gates of Paradise Web of Dreams The Cutter Family Series: Dawn Secrets of the Morning Twiligh's Child Midnight Whispers Darkest Hour The Landry Family Series: Ruby Pearl in the Mist All that Glitters Hidden Jewel Tarnished Gold The Logan Family Series: Melody Heart Song Unfinished Symphony Music in the Night Olivia The Orphans Minlseries: Butterfly Crystal Brooke Raven Runaways The Wildflowers Mmiseries: Misty Published by POCKET BOOKS For orders other than by individual consumers. Pocket Books grants a discount on the purchase of 10 or more copies of single titles for special markets or premium use. For further details, please write to the Vice President of Special Markets, Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, 9th Floor, New York. NY 100201586. For information on how individual consumers can place orders, please write to Mail Order Department, Simon & Schuster Inc., 200 Old Tappan Road, Old Tappan, NJ 07675. misty POCKET BOOKS New York London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore Following the death of Virginia Andrews, die Andrews family worked with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Virginia Andrews' stories and to create additional novels, of which this is one, inspired by her storytelling genius. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, if entirely coincidental. An Original Publication of POCKET BOOKS POCKET BOOKS, a division of Simon & Schuster Inc. 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 Copyright 9 1999 by the Vanda General Partnership All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever, For information address Pocket Books, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 ISBN: 0671028006 First Pocket Books paperback printing July 1999 10 98765 4321 V.C. ANDREWS and VIRGINIA ANDREWS are registered trademarks of the Vanda General Partnership POCKET and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster me. Front cover illustration by Lisa Falkenstem Printed in the U.S.A. Prologue We were brought separately to Doctor Mariowe's house. My mother drove me herself because it was on the way to meeting her friend Tammy for their weekly window shopping and lunch with some of their girlfriends at one of the expensive restaurants near the beach in Santa Monica, California. I think my mother believes she still has a chance to be discovered and put on me cover of a magazine. Even as recently as yesterday, she held a magazine with the cover beside her face and asked, "Don't you think I'm just as pretty as she is. Misty? And I'm at least ten years older." Twenty years older was more like it, I thought, but I didn't dare say it. Aging is definitely considered a disease in our house. Minutes are treated like germs and V. C. ANDSEWS days, months and years are diseases. My mother makes Ponce de Leon's search for the fabled Fountain of Youth a mere Sunday-school picnic. There's nothing she wouldn't buy, no place she wouldn't go if it held the possibility of stopping Father Time. Most of her friends are the same and have similar fears. I can't help but wonder if I'll become just Like them: terrified of gray hair, wrinkles and calcium deficiencies. If my mother wasn't going to Santa Monica today, she would have hired a car service for me as usual and mailed the bill to my father. She just loves sending bills to him. Every time she licks the envelope and closes it, she pounds it with a little closed fist and says, "Take that." I'm sure when Daddy sees it in his pile of mail, he grimaces and his wallet goes "Ouch." I'm like a dart she throws at him now. "She needs new this; she needs new that The dendst says she needs braces. She needs new school clothes. Here's the bill for her dermatologist visit, me one your insurance doesn't cover." There is always another bull's-eye for Mom, who is punishing my father with my needs, whipping him with me costs of keeping me in designer jeans, straight teeth, and anything else she can buy. She pounces on a new expense and rushes to get the charges added up and sent to him ASAP, as she says. Once she sent a bin special delivery to his office even though he had days to pay it. Daddy tries to keep the bills down, asking why sometimes and trying to find alternatives, but whenever he does mat. Mommy waves his opinions in my face like a bullfighter with a red flag, crying, "See how much he MISTY thinks of you? He's always looking for a bargain. If he wants to find cheaper pices for the things you need, let him do allthe shopping." Daddy says he just wants to be sure I'm getting value for the dollars spent. I'm so lucky to have such concerned parents. I have to count my blessings on my hands and feet, my nose and ears. Doesn't everyone wish their parents were divorced? I couldn't help but wonder if me other girls who were coming to Doctor Marlowe's today had also been turned into whips their parents could snap at each other. Jade's father's chauffeur drove her because it happened to be her father's weekend with her and he had a previous appointment All of us members of me OWP, Orphans With Parents, just love to hear about "previous appointments." What our parents usually mean is "I've got something more important to do for myself than look after your needs. If I wasn't divorced, your father could help, but no, mat's not me way it is. We're different. You're... like some wildflower growing out of me garden, untended, left to fend for yourself most of me time, to pray for the right amount of rain and sunshine because no one's there to water and nurture you." "I must have had blinders on when I married your mother," Daddy says. Mommy says, "I was on drugs. There's no other possible explanation for such a stupid act." Did me other girls' parents say things like that in front of them? Sometimes I felt like I was invisible or something and my parents simply forgot I was standing mere 3 V.C.ANDSEWS when they ranted and raved. Doctor Marlowe was right about one thing: I really was interested in hearing what the other guts' experiences woe. That, more than anything, brought me here today. Oh, I know other OWPs at school, but without die therapy, without a Doctor Marlowe shining a light in the dark corners, they don't really teU you what's in their hearts. They keep it all locked up, afraid or ashamed that someone might discover just how tost and alone they really are. Star's grandmother brought her to Doctor Marlowe's house. She told us later on mat her grandmother was actually sixty-eight and had inherited all the new responsibility for her and her little brother just when she was supposed to be rocking herself on some porch and knitting sweaters for her grandchildren. And then suddenly, guess what? She's a mother again. Cathy's mother brought her, but it nearly took a crowbar to pry the information out of Cathy's mourn. Maybe she's afraid to hear the sound of her own voice and admit to herself she exists. Very quickly she reminded all of us of a terrified kitten, rolling itself into a furry ball. I was the one, who decided to call her Cat instead of Cathy and after a while, guess what? She liked it better, too. I was unloaded at me doctor's home and office on a warm early summer morning in Brentwood. The marine layer of rooming fog was just lifting to reveal a California sky the color of faded jeans. It was going to be another one of those perfect days we all took for granted in Los Angeles. By afternoon, any clouds would resemble puffs of meringue. Toe breeze would feel like soft 4 MISTY fingers on your cheeks and hair, and car windows would become glittering mirrors. We live in such a perfect world. Why were we so imperfect? In all our homes there were shadows in corners and whispers behind doors, no matter how bright and glorious it was outside. I used to think everyone else was at peace while we were pawns in silent wars. There were no guns fired, although sometimes we all wondered if there would be. The wounded and the dead were only hopes and wishes and the bombs were just words, nasty words wrapped in cold smites or printed on official documents that floated into our lives along with me ashes from the fires that burned up our families. It was easy to see mat Doctor Marlowe bad a successful psychiatrist's practice, I thought. Her house was an enormous Tudor on a sizeable lot in an area of prime real estate. There was just her and her older sister Emma, so there was plenty of space for her offices. Why shouldn't she have a profitable practice? I asked myself. After all, she won't ever have a shortage of clients. Even the kids I knew who didn't come from broken homes had problems and many of them were in therapy either at school or privately. Maybe it was an epidemic. Arthur Polk, one of me boys in my eleventh-grade class, said all mis family dysfunction was a result of sunspots. He was a computer whiz and a science nerd, so some of my friends thought he might just be right. I thought he had a head filled with bees, each one a different thought buzzing, some stinging me others. Whenever I looked at him and he saw I 8 V. C. ANDSEWS was looking at him, his eyes seemed to roll like marbles in a teacup. "Call me to tell me what time to come for you, Misty," my mother said as I opened the car door and stepped out "I already told you about what time to be here," I said. "I know, but you know how I lose track of time. If I'm not home, remember, you just hit four and me answering service will forward the call to my cellular phone, okay, honeyr "Right," I said slamming the door a little harder than necessary. She hated mat. She said it jolted her nervous system. The way everything jolted her nervous system these days, I thought she was like a pinball machine that if shook too hard would go tut Her eyes would take aa that gray glazedlookof dead bulbs and she would get lockjaw. I turned and beaded for the arched entrance, hoping I wasn't me first to arrive. If I was, I might have to spend some time with Emma, who had a smile as phony as plastic fruit AH die while she spoke to me, 1 could feel her eyes searching my face for signs of some madness. She talked to me as if I was about nine years old, tiptoeing her questions around me and toughing nervously after everything I said or she asked. She was the one who needed therapy, I thought, not any of us. Maybe mat was why she lived with her sister. She was at least fifty and had been married and divorced years and years ago. She never remarried and from what I could tell was dose to being a hermit Maybe her husband had done something terrible to her. Jade, who I would discover liked to diagnose everyone but herself, MISTY decided Emma suffered from something called agoraphobia because she was afraid of being in public places. Maybe Jade was right. I saw that just stepping out the front door was enough to give Emma a panic attack. Neither she nor Doctor Marlowe had ever had any children. Doctor Marlowe was in her early forties and had never been married. Was this one of those famous cases of a shoemaker with holes in his shoes? After all, she was supposed to be an expert in parenting and she had no one to parent She wasn't so unattractive that no man would look at her. Maybe she analyzed every man she dated and they couldn't stand it I laughed, imagining her making love and then explaining every moan and sigh. Could a psychiatrist ever be romantic? I was eager to learn if any of the others had similar thoughts about her. Yes, maybe it would be fun to be together after all, I thought as I jabbed the door buzzer. My heart did little flip-flops. All of us had been here before, but never together until today, never for what Doctor Marlowe termed the start of special peer group therapy. She had decided we had all reached the stage where it might be of some benefit To me me only interesting thing was none of us had met Doctor Marlowe's technique was to tell us very little about each other. She said she didn't want us coming to the sessions with any preconceived ideas. All she would really tell each of us was each girl's name and whom she lived with since her parents had divorced or split up, or, as I like to think, came apart It seems to fit better. That's the way I feel... like I'm coming apart like my arms and legs are floating V. C. ANDREWS away and I'm left with just this sixteen-year-old torso searching for a way out of this nightmare house that has no doors or windows. Anyway, a group of girls who had never spoken to each other was now supposed to gather in a room and shale their pain and their anger and their fear, and that, according to Doctor Marlowe, would work miracles. I'm sure the others felt as I did: very skeptical and very anxious. All the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put Hwnpty together again. Go on. Doctor Marlowe, I challenged as I approached the door. Put us back together. No matter how easy Doctor Marlowe made it sound, it was still going to feel like taking off your clothes and standing naked in front of the curious eyes of strangers, and most of what each of us had to reveal, we wouldn't reveal even to our parents, especially not to our parents. Why? Simple. We hated them. ^ u/~^ vTood morning, Misty," Doctor Marlowe's sister Emma cried from the circular stairway after their maid Sophie opened the door. Emma wore one of her flowery oversize dresses. Her hair was cut with razor-perfect precision at her earlobes and her bangs looked painted over her forehead and glued down a strand at a time. She kept her hair dyed coal black, probably to smother any signs of gray; however, the contrast with her pale complexion made me skin on her round face look like tissue paper. She froze on the steps, waiting for me to enter as if she thought I might change my mind. Sophie closed the door behind me. From somewhere deep in me house came Mozart's Symphony no. 40 in G Minor. I'm not an expert on classical music; the only 9 V. C. ANDREWS reason I could identify it was because we were practicing it in the senior high school band. I play the clarinet. My mother thought it might ruin my orthodontic weak, but Mr. LaRuffa, our bandleader, practically signed an affidavit that it wouldn't Mother finally put her signature on die permission slip. My father forgot to attend this year's big concert, even though I had brought my clarinet to practice while I was at his new home the weekend before. Ariel, his twenty-something girlfriend, promised to remind him, which I thought was amazing in and of itself. She looked like someone who had little mirrors in her brain reflecting thoughts, bouncing them back and forth accompanied by little giggles that reminded me of tiny soap bubbles. No matter how obvious I was with my sarcasm, Ariel smiled. I guess Daddy was comfortable with her because she looked like a Revlon model and never challenged a thing he said. Whatever pronouncements he made, she nodded and widened her eyes as if he had just come up with a new world-shattering comment She was quite me opposite of my mother, who today would challenge him if he said good morning. Mostly, Ariel gave him sex. According to my mother and her friends, that's an men really care about "The doctor will be with you in a moment or two," Emma said as she stepped down me carpeted stairs, taking each step with the same precaution someone walking across a muddy road might take: tiny, careful steps followed by a tight grasp on the balustrade. I wondered if she was an alcoholic. She wore enough perfume to cover MISTY the stench of & garbage truck so it was hard to tell from her breath if she drank or not, but she had gained at least forty pounds since I had first started with Doctor Marlowe and when I told that to Mommy, she said, "Maybe she's a closet drinker." It better be a walk-in closet, I thought "How are you today, dear?" Emma asked when she finally stood before me. She wasn't much taller than I was, perhaps five feet one, but she seemed to inflate like a balloon replica of herself, her heavy bosom, each breast shaped like a football, holding the flowery tent out and away from her body. I wore ray usual costume for these mental games with Doctor Marlowe: jeans, sneakers and white socks, and any one of a dozen T-shirts that annoyed my mother. Today's had a beached whale on the front wim a stream of black liquid drooling from its mourn. Under it was written Oops, another oil spill. Emma Madowe didn't seem to notice what I wore, ever. She was as nervous as usual in my presence and pressed her thick lips together as she smiled so that it looked more like a smothered little laugh. The doctor wants you to go directly to her office," she said, her voice thin and high-pitched like someone on the verge of screaming. That's a relief for both of us, I thought "Anyone else here yet?" I asked. Before she could reply, the doorbell rang and Sophie, who was standing to me side like some doll on a spring, sprang into action. She opened me door and we all looked out at a tall, attractive black girl with braided 11 V. a ANDSEWS hair. She wore a light-blue cotton sweater and a dark blue skirt. I immediately thought, that's the figure I hope I have someday when my stupid hormones decide to wake up. "Oh, Star," Emma Mariowe said. She looked back toward the music as if she was hoping to be rescued. "Come in, come in," she added quickly. Star? I tiaought Doctor Marlowe meant mat was her tost name when she told me that was the name of one of me girls. Misty was hard enough to carry around, but Star? Doctor Marlowe had left out a small detail, too, that she was black. Star smirked. It was a clear look of disgust, the corners of her mouth tucking in and her ebony eyes narrowing. She stared at me. For a moment it felt as if we were born gunslingers in a Western movie waiting for me other to make the first move. Neither of us did. "I'm sure me doctor wanted to do all me introductions, but this is Misty,'1 Emma Marlowe said. "Hi," I said. "Hi." She looked away from me quickly and practically dared Doctor Marlowe's sister to try to make small talk. Instead, Emma made dramatic gestures toward me office and stuttered. "You two can. ..just... go right on.. .in." We walked to me office. Neither Star nor I aeeded any directions. We had been here enough. The room was large for an office. One side of it was almost a small living room with two large brown leather sofas, some matching cushion chairs, side tables and a MISTY large, round, glass center table. The walls woe a rich oak panel and there were Preach doors feeing the rear of me house where she had her pool and her garden. It was feeing the west side so if you had an afternoon appointment, the office was as bright as a Broadway stage. Morning appointments not only didn't have die direct sunlight, but when dominated by overcast sides required more lamplight , I always thought the moods we experienced in this office bad to be different on brighter days. You carried you* depression and anxiety like overiy loaded suitcases into dm office and hoped Doctor Mariowe would help yon unpack them. Darker days made it harder, me depression heavier. - 2 used to believe bad memories were stack to my [ brain with super glue and if Doctor Mariowe pulled one I off, a piece of me went along with it Sometimes, Doctor Mariow sat behind her desk and spoke to me while I sat on one of the sofas. I thought she might believe that if she was a little farmer away, I would be more open. She did lots of little things like that to test me, and I couldn't wait to compare notes about her with my fellow OWPs. 1 went right to my usual sofa and Star paused. I could see what she was thinking. "Which one do you usually use when you're here?" I asked her. She glanced at the other and then looked at me sharply. "What difference does it make?" she replied. I shrugged. She remained standing. 13 V. C. AfBDSEWS "I always sleep oh die right side of my bed. What about you?" "HuhT She grimaced sad when she did, her eyebrows hinged and her ears actually twitched. I laughed. "What's so damn funny?" "Vows ears movedTI said. She stared a moment and then she cracked a smile on her black porcelain face. Her complexion was so smooth and clear, it looked like a sculptor had put finishing touches on her just an hour ago in his studio, whereas I had little rashes and pimples breaking oat on my forehead and around my chin practically every other day despite my high-priced skin specialist. Mommy blamed it on things I ate when she wasn't around. Doctor Marlowe said stress could cause them, too. If mat was the case though, my head should be one giant at, I thought "I know," Star said. "Everyone tells me I do mat, but I don't even know I'm doin' it. I sleep on the right side, too," she said after a beat. "And when you have to sleep on the other for some reason or another, it's a problem, right?" "Yeah," she admitted and decided to sit on the same sofa I had taken. "How long have you been seeing her?" she asked me. I thought a moment "I think it's about two years," I said. "How about you?" "Almost a year. I keep telling my granny I should stop, but she doesn't want me to." I recalled Doctor Marlowe telling me one of me girls was living with her grandmother. r I MISTY s I "You Mve just with your grandmother?" | "That's right," she said firmly. She looked ready to | jump down my throat if I made any sort of negative | comment. That was the furthest thing from my mind. | Actually, I was envious. | "I never knew my father's parents. His mother died | when be was very young and his father died when I was I just an infant. My mother's parents live in Palm Springs, bet I don't see them much. They're golf addicts. I'd see (hem more if I became a caddy." "Caddy?" "You know, me person who carries me clubs and staff." "Oh" "One year I gave them golf balls with my picture on mem so they could look at me once in a while," I told her, "but they wouldn't use them because they didn't like smacking my face." Those eyebrows went up again, the ears twitching. "Are you kidding?" "Uh huh," I said.'I He a lot" She stared a moment and then she broke into a nice laugh. "Oh" she said. "Yeah, I bet you do." "Your name is really Star? It's not some kind of a nickname or something?" She stopped laughing, those ebony eyes blazing like two hot coals. "Your game's really Misty?" she threw back at me, turning her shoulder as she spoke. "Yeah," I said. "My mother named me after a movie 15 V. C. ANDREWS because she and my father couldn't agree on a name or relative to name me after. How did you get your name? And don't tell me your mother gave birth to you outside one night and named you after the first thing she saw." Before she could answer, one of me prettiest, most elegant looking teenage girls I had ever seen stepped into the office. She had long, lush brown hair with a metallic rust tint mat flowed gently down to her shoulders. Her eyes were green and almond shaped. Her high cheekbones gave her face an impressive angular line that swept gracefully into her jaw and perfectly shaped lips. Her nose was a little small, but also just slightly turned up. Of course, I suspected plastic surgery. She wore a lot more makeup than I would. Wbo-put on eye shadow and liner for a visit to the therapist's? Actually, she reminded me of my own mother, the queen of overdress who single-handedly kept the cosmetic industry profitable. The new girl wore a designer pants outfit and looked like she was on her way to some fashion show luncheon. I glanced at Star, who looked very disapproving. "I'm Jade," the new girl announced. "Who are you two? Misty, Star or Cathy?" "Misty. This is Star," I said, nodding toward Star. "We were just discussing how we got our names. Your parents in the jewelry business?" Jade stared at me a moment and then glanced A Star to see if we were putting her on or something. She decided not, I guess. "My parents named me Jade because of my eyes," she 16 ? MISTY uwL "Where's the good doctor?" she asked looking toward the empty desk impatiently. ''Getting prepared, I imagine," I said. nP6pM8d« "You blow, putting on her therapist's mask, sharpen "So why did you come?'Star shot at her. : Jade turned to her with surprise. The expression on | her face gave me the feeling she hadn't really looked at [ her before this and just realized there was a black gid in | thegroup. I "I was reluctant, but Doctor Marlowe talked me into it," she admitted. "She talked us all into it," Star said, declaring the obvious. "Did you dunk we all just wanted to come waltzing in here and talk about ourselves to a bunch of strangers?" Jade squirmed uncomfortably, gazed at her watch and looked toward the door. We heard footsteps and moments later. Doctor Marlowe appeared with a chunky gid who was about as short as I was. She looked older, though. Her dull brown hair lay straggly about bet neck and shoulders as if someone had been running a rake through it The loose gray pullover did little to de- emphasize her really ample bosom; she had breasts that nearly rivaled Emma's. She wore a skirt with a hem mat 17 V C. ANDREWS brushed her ankles. Her face was plain, with trot even lipstick to bring some brightness to her watery hazel eyes, pale complexion and bland uneven lips. Her mouth twitched nervously. "Hello girls. Here we are. This is Cathy. Cathy, let me introduce Misty, Star and Jade," Doctor Marlowe added, nodding at each of vs. Cathy merely shifted her eyes sUghtly to glance at us before looking down again. "Caflxy, why don't you sit over (here next to Jade," Doctor Marlowe suggested. Cathy looked like she wasn't going to do it. She hesitated a long moment, staring at me seat as if it would swallow her up, and men finally sat. Doctor Marlowe, dressed in a dark-blue pants suit, sat in one of tee centrally placed cushioned chairs so she could face all of us. Usually, before a session ended, she would take off her jacket and walk about with her hands clasped behind her. Right now, she pressed her long, win fingers together at die tips and smiled. My mother would notice mat she wore no expensive rings and an inexpensive watch. Mostly, she would notice her fingernails were not polished. Doctor Marlowe had a hard smile to read. Her eyes really did brighten with interest and pleasure after some of the things I said, but her face moved so mechanically at times, I suspected everything she did, down to her smallest gestures, was contrived for a planned psychological result She kept her dirty-blond hair trimmed neatly at her ears. She wore silver cup-on earrings but no necklace. Her milk-white sift blouse with pearl buttons was closed at her throat MISTY Our therapist wasn't particularly pretty. Her nose was a bit too long and her lips too thin. Unlike her older sister, she did have a trim figure, but she was very tall for a woman, at least six feet one. Because her legs were so long, when she sat, the knees came up amusingly high. I mink from her waist up accounted for only a third of her body; however, she had long arms so mat she could sit back and nearly place her palms over her knees. Perhaps being so awkward had made her concentrate more on being a brain than a beauty. ' My mother often commented about Doctor Marlowe's hairstyle and domes, claiming she could do wonders with her if she had a chance to make her over. My mother believed in the miraculous power of hairstylists and plastic surgeons, hi her mind they could even achieve world peace. Just get rid of ugly people and no one Would argue about anything. "I assume the three of you had a chance to introduce yourselves," Doctor Mariowe began. "Barely," Jade replied, the words dripping out of the corner of her mouth. "Good. I want us to do all the talking and revelations here together." "I stiH don't understand what we're doin'," Star snapped. "We haven't been told much and some of us" she added glaring at Jade, "aren't exactly happy about it" "I know. Star, but a lot of this has to do with trust If we don't take small risks, we'll never make progress and get anywhere." 19 V. C. ANDSEWS "Waste we supposed to be goin'7" she demanded. I laughed. Jade's beautiful Ups folded into a small smite and Cathy nearly lifted her gaze from the floor. "Home," Doctor Marlowe replied, those eyes filling with an almost impish glee as she rose to the challenge. "Back to yourself. Star. Back to who you are supposed to be, who you want to be. Back to good weather, out of the storms, out of the cold angry rain, out from under those dark clouds," she continued. When she spoke like this in her soft, therapist's melodic voice, she sounded so good, none of us could prevent ourselves from listening. Even Cathy looked up at her, as if she held out the promise of life and happiness and all Cathy had to do was reach for it. "Away from the pain," Doctor Marlowe continued. "That's where we're supposed to go. Ready for that, Star?" She glanced at me and just nodded. "Good." "This is going to be simple, girls. You're all going to do most of (he talking. I'm really just a listener, and when one of you is speaking, (he others will listen along with me" "You mean we just sit here like potted plants? We can't ask questions?" Jade inquired. "What do you all think? You set the rules. Can you ask each other questions?" she threw back at us. "Yes." I said. "Why not?" 20 MISTY Doctor Marlowe looked at Star and Cathy. Star nodded, but Cathy looked away. "Well, maybe we should just start and see how it goes," Doctor Marlowe decided. "What exactly are we supposed to tell?" Jade asked. "In each session, each of you will tell your story," she said with a small shrug. "I've scheduled four sessions in a row for mis." "Our story? I got no story," Star said. "You know you do. Star. Each of you just start wherever you want. Here you are today. How did you get here?" "My chauffeur brought me," Jade said. "Come on. Jade. You know what I mean," Doctor I Marlowe said. Jade sat back, folding her arms, suddenly looking impregnable, defying our good doctor to uncork her bottle of secrets. "So who's going to start?" Star demanded. Doctor Marlowe looked at Cathy who turned even whiter. She glanced at Jade, passed her dark eyes over Star and settled on me. "I'd like Misty to start," she said. "She's been with me me longest That okay with you. Misty?" "Sure," I said. I looked at the others. "Once upon a time I was born. My parents tried to give me back, but it was too late." Jade laughed and Star smiled widely. Cathy's eyes widened. "Come on," Doctor Marlowe urged. "Let's make good use of our time." .81 V C. ANDKEWS She gave me that look down her nose she often gives me when she wants me to try to be serious. I took a deep breath. "Okay" I said. I sat a bit forward. "I'U begin. I don't mind telling my story." I looked at them all and smiled. "Maybe someone will make it into a movie and it'll win an Academy Award." 82 2 4(ir / 3L reaBy can start my story with once upon a time because once upon a time, I truly believed I was a little princess living in a fairy tale. My mother and I still live in mis Beveriy Hills mansion where I grew up. Some people would call it a castle because it's got this round tower with a high, conical roof. That part houses the main door. "It's a big house. If it wasn't for the intercom, my mower would have a strained throat daily trying to call to me, and if I don't reply when she uses the intercom, she'll call me on my own phone. I've got call waiting so when I'm talking to someone, she'll call and say, 'Misty, I need you downstairs. Get off the phone. I know you're on if "Of course, she's right. I'm usually on the phone. 23 V. C. ANDREWS When we were a happy little family with smiles floating like balloons through the house, my daddy used to tell me I was born with a telephone receiver attached to my ear and that was why my birth was so difficult for my mother." I paused and looked at Doctor Marlowe. "I don't remember if I ever told you how much trouble I was for my mother when it came time for me to show my face. She was in labor over twenty hours. Sometimes, when she's reminding me about my difficult birth, it goes to twenty-four hours. Once it was twenty- eight." I looked at the other girls. "I told her that proves I didn't want to be here." I threw my hands up and bounced on the sofa. " *No, no,' I was screaming in my mother's womb. 'You doctors keep your paws off me.' " Jade and Star laughed. Even Cathy cracked a small smile. "You've told me that, but not as colorfully," Doctor Marlowe said. "Yeah, well it's true. She had to be stitched up afterward as well. I mean, she loves sitting there and describing it all in gruesome detail, me vomit, the blood, the pain, all of it." "Why do you think she does that?" Doctor Mariowe asked. "So, we are asking questions," I fired back at her. She laughed. "Professional habit," she said. "She just wants me to feel guilty and sorry for her so I'll take her side more against my father," I said. "She's 84 ^- always telling me how much easier men have it, espeially in a marriage. Well? That's why, isn't it?" , Doctor Marlowe kept her face like a blank slate as Usual. I didn't need her to agree anyway. I knew it was tree. s. "Anyway, I once thought I was a princess because I . could have anything I wanted. I still get everything I want, maybe even more since their divorce. My mother's always complaining about the amount of alimony and . child support she gets. It's never enough and whenever my daddy gives me something, my mother groans and - moans that he has enough money for that, but not enough for decent alimony. The truth is I hate taking asything. It just causes more static. Sometimes, mere's - so much static, I have to put my hands over my ears!" I ; exclaimed. I did it right men and everyone stared at me. After a '- moment the feeling passed. I took a deep breath and continued. ' "Sometimes, I mink about my Life in colors." I saw Jade raise her eyebrow. Maybe she did the same tiffing, I thought. "When I was little aad we were me perfect family, : everything was bright pink or bright yellow. After their breakup and all me trouble, the world turned gray and everything faded. I thought I was like Cinderella and me clock had hit midnight or something. There was a gong and a puff and I was no longer a princess. I was a... a..." "A what?" Doctor Marlowe asked. I looked at the others. "An orphan with parents." as "My father works for a venture capital company and travels a great deal. It was always hard for me to explain what he did for a living. Other kids my age could tell you in a word or two what their parents did: lawyer, doctor, dentist, pharmacist, department store buyer, nurse. "My father studies investments, puts money into businesses and somehow manages with his company to take over those businesses and then sell them at a profit That's the way he explained it to me. I remember thinking that didn't sound fair. Taking over someone else's company and selling it didn't sound right. I asked him about that and he said, 'You can't think of it like that. It's business.' "Everything is business to him in one way or another. For him, mat expression can explain everything that happens in the world. Maybe to him even love is business," I said. "I know this whole divorce is business. My mother is always calling the accountant or her lawyer. "Mommy was vicious about getting every trace of Daddy out of me house. Foe days after he had left, she searched me rooms for anything that was evidence of his having lived mere. She actually took all me pictures of the two of them and cut him out if she thought she looked good in them. She sold or gave away many nice things because they were things he liked or used, right down to die expensive tools in the garage. I told her she 86 was just going to have to replace some of it, but she replied, 'At least it won't have his stigma on it.' "His stigma? I thought. What had his stigma on it more than me? I looked like him to some extent, didn't X? There were times I actually caught her staring at me, aod I wondered if she wasn't thinking I looked too much like him. How could she change that? Maybe she would have me go to her plastic surgeon and ask him to get my father out of my face. "However, we had a big, soft chair in the living room, the kind that has a footrest mat pops out and goes back until you can practically lie down on it Daddy loved that chair and spent most of me time in it when he was m die living room. I know it sounds weird, but in the earty days of their divorce, before my mother purged die house of everything that even suggested him, I used to cod up in die chair and put my face against it to smell die scent of him and pretend he was still there and we were still a happy little family. "Then, she gave me chair to me thrift store one after- Boon while I was in school. There was nothing in its place for a while, just an empty space. You all feel that sometimes, mat empty space when you're walking with just your mother or your tamer and there's no one on die other side where one of mem used to be? I do!" I said before they could answer. Suddenly, my head filled with static. I closed ray eyes for a moment until it passed and men I took anodier breath. "For a long time after I was born, I had a nanny. My momer needed to recuperate from my horrendous birth V.C.ANDKEWS and the nurse who came home with us turned into a full- time caretaker. Ha name was Mary Williams." I glanced at Star. "She was a black woman. She was in her thirties when she lived with us and took care of me, but when I think about her now, 1 remember her as much older. She was with us until I was four and sent to preschool." I laughed. "I remember my mother making a big deal about getting too much sun on her face because it causes wrinkles. I thought Mary's brown skin was from a suntan. Star shook her head with her lips tight "I was always asking questions, I guess. My mother tells me that when I was Hole, I wore her out with why this and why mat She would literally try to nm away with me trailing behind her like some baby duck going why, why, why, instead of quack, quack, quack!" Cathy's smile widened, but she had what 1 would call only half a smile... just her mourn in it Her eyes remained dark, cautious, even frightened. She really is like a cat, I thought Cathy the cat "When my father wasn't traveling, we would have j great family dinners. Sometimes, I think that's what I boss the most. We have this dining room that goes on forever. You sit on this coast at one end and you're on the East coast on the other end." Doctor Marlowe's blank stare brightened with a tiny smile on her lips. "I was taught me best etiquette, of course, and say mother justified the effort by telling me I was going to be a beautiful young woman and mix with the best of S8 MISTY society so I had better behave that way. Beautiful young woman. What worid does she live in? Right?" I glanced «l Jade who nodded. "Anyway, I couldn't have been a more polite child. I always said please and thank you and never interrupted dote. - "Usually, Daddy brought me dolls from every trip be made, some of them from other countries. I had enough toys to fin a small store. My closets were stuffed with fancy clothes, dozens and dozens of pairs of shoes and I have a vanity table with an ivory oval mirror. I have the best hair dryers and facial steamers, the newest skin lotions and herbal treatments. Being pretty is a very important thing in my house." " I paused and gazed out the French doors for a moment. -- "My daddy is a very handsome man. He takes good ewe of himself, too. He belongs to one of those fancy gyms. That's where he met Ariel, his live Barbie doll. "Daddy has an even tan to go with his thick, flaxen blood hair. Lately, he wears it longer. My mother says he's trying to look twenty years younger so he can match his level of maturity. They born criticize each other like mat all the time and I'm supposed to sit or stand mere and pretend it doesn't bother me or else agree with one or the other." " I could feel my eyes grow narrow and angry. "I can't believe how I used to think my parents were born so perfect I thought Mommy was as beautiful as any movie star. She spent as much time on her makeup and her clothing as any movie star would. She never, even to this day, sets foot out of me house unless her S9 V. C. ANDREWS hair is perfect and her clothes, shoes and jewelry are all coordinated. She complains about how my daddy tries to look and stay young, but she goes into a coma at the mere sight of a gray hair or the possibility of a wrinkle. She's had plastic surgery, or as she calls it, aesthetic surgery to lighten her skin under her chin and her eyes. I'm not supposed to tell anyone. She lives for someone to compliment her by saying how young she looks. Then she goes into this big act about how she watches her diet, only uses herbal medicines, has all this special skin cream and exercises regularly. She never tells the truth. "It's funny how when you're little, you miss all die little lies. They float right past you, but you don't wonder about mem much. For a long time, you think this is just something adults still do after being kids---pretend. Then one day you wake up and realize most of me world you're in is built on someone's make-believe. My parents Bed to each other for years before they finally decided to admit it and get a divorce. "Once, when I was about twelve, my mother found out that my tamer bad had an affair with a woman in his company who had gone with him on a trip to Texas. He made some dumb mistakes with bills or receipts, something like that, and she was waiting for him when he came home, just sitting there in the corridor off die entryway with die evidence in her lap like a pistol she was preparing to nun on him. "I was in my room on the telephone talking with my best friend Dariene Stratton when I heard something crash and shatter against the wall downstairs. She bad heaved an expensive Chinese vase at him. There was a 30 ^ MISTY : aaoment of quiet and then the shouting began. I had to I. hang up the phone to go see what was happening. I prac- tically tiptoed to the top of the stairway and listened to " ay mother screaming about the woman and my father »d his deceit. He made some weak attempts to deny it, to when she confronted him with evidence, he blamed r ta." "How could he blame her?" Star asked, suddenly . looking a lot more interested. '- ."That was when I first learned they were having sexu- i al problems. He said she was too frigid most of the time : aad when they did make love, she was always complain> &^ about the pain. '* That's not normal,' he said. 'You've got to see a doctor about it.' : " 'I did see my gynecologist and he said nothing was wrong with me. You're just looking for an excuse.' - " 'I don't mean that kind of doctor. You should see a psychiatrist,' he said. 'You make me feel like a rapist every time I want to make love.' "She started to cry and he apologized for his affair, claiming some great moment of weakness after having had too much to drink. "I sat quietly on the steps and listened. He said he had just been lonely. " "I swear I don't love her. She could have been anyone,' he said, but mat only made my mother angrier. "'How do you think that makes me feel,' she screamed, 'knowing you would sleep with anyone and men crawl beside me in our bed?' "He apologized over and over aad also pledged that it V. C. ANDKEWS would never again happen, but he begged her to see a psychiatrist. " 'You're just trying to run away from blame,' she accused him again. 'You're just trying to make me look like die bad one here. Wen, it won't worfcl It won't work!' "She was coming up the stairs, so I snuck back into my room. "For days afterward, it was as if they had both turned into mutes. If I didn't talk at dinner when we were together, no one did. They both used silence like a knife, cutting into each other's hearts, until one day my mother bought an expensive dress for an affair they were to attend and my father told her she looked terrific in it. "Suddenly the floodgates of forgiveness were opened and they pretended they had never had an argument It made me feel like I was living in a dream where people, words, events just popped like bubbles and no one could say whether they ever happened. Of course, I didn't know how serious the problem really was." I paused. Emma Marlowe came through the door with a tray upon which she carded a pitcher of lemonade and some glasses. There was a plate of chocolate chip cookies, too. "I thought you might want this now. Doctor Marlowe," she remarked. She always called her sister Doctor Marlowe in our presence. I had to wonder if she did so when we were^one, too. "Thank you, Emma" Doctor Marlowe said. She placed it on the table, glanced at us all and flashed a smile before walking out & MISTY r [ - "HeSp yourselves" Doctor Mariowe said. [ I took a glass of lemonade because my throat was dry | from talking so much. Star poured herself a glass, but | Jade and Cathy didn't. Doctor Mariowe helped herself - and drank with her eyes on me. I thought for a moment I My talking about my parents had opened closets stuffed with memories I had labeled and filed away, memories I bad thought were buried forever. "I remember me cards, so many cards, cards for woything. Neither of mem ever missed the other's birthday or their anniversaries." "Anniversaries?" Jade said. "How many times were they married to each other?" * "Not just that anniversary. They celebrated anniversaries for everything... first date, their engagement, stuff like that Many of them were secret, but I could easily imagine what they were for," I said, looking at Cat "Like the first time they made love" Cathy tamed a shade of pink. "I also think they did get married twice" I added for Jade. "The first time, they did it for themselves and the second time for the relatives. They always talked about renewing their vows when they were married twenty years. They made it sound so romantic and wonderful, I was even looking forward to it. I was supposed to be me maid of honor, carrying flowers. I might just go to someone's wedding that day." "What do you mean?" Star asked with a confused smile across her pretty face. "Whose wedding would you go to?" "I don't care whose it is. Anyone's. I'll check the V.C.ANDSEW8 newspapers and just show up and watch them get married and imagine the two people are my parents and everything was as wonderful as they said it would be." "But..." Jade uttered with a look of confusion. I "As beautiful as they said it would be!" I screamed at her. She just stared. Everyone was quiet. Tears were burning under my lids. 'Take another drink of your lemonade," Doctor Marlowe said softly. "Go ahead. Misty." I drew in my breath and did what she said. Everyone's eyes were on me. I closed my own for a moment, counted to five and opened diem again. Doctor Marlowe nodded softly. "You want to stop?" she asked. "No," I snapped. I drank some more lemonade. "My momer soU has those cards," I continued. "She doesn't want me to know she still has mem, but she does. I saw them in a box in the back of her dose! There are lots of funny cards, cards my daddy sent her for no special reason except to say how much he loved her or how beautiful he thought she was and how lucky he was to have her." I fixed my eyes on Doctor Marlowe. "I've asked you before," I said, my voice dripping with rage, "but how can people say such dungs to each other and mean it so much at die tune and just forget they ever said diem?" I saw she wasn't going to offer me an answer, so before she could ask her usual "What do you dunk?" I just looked away again and continued. "When I was a little girl, I did think I might become 34 MISTY as beautiful as my mother. People used to say I looked uke her. We had the same nose or the same-mouth. I've got Daddy's eyes. I know mat, bur mat's okay because he- has beautiful eyes. Mommy will reluctantly admit teat too, even today. She doesn't want anyone to think that someone with her good looks would many an ugly vam. It's kind of a... what do you call it..." i-Taradox?" Star offered. - "Yes, paradox. Thanks. Anyway, what I mean is Mommy didn't mind my mimicking her, experimenting with makeup and trying to get my hair exactly as she wore hers. She took it as a compliment. I tried to walk like her, eat like her, talk like her because I thought mat was what made my father fall in love with her and I wanted my father to always love me," I said. "I asked my mother why I don't have a bigger bosom, and she told me I was fine because I was perky. Perky and cute, that's me. I feel like I'm twelve," I said. When I glanced at Cathy, she looked guilty and actually folded her aims over her own large breasts. Like she : could ever hide mem, I thought I sighed and went on. Suddenly Cathy took such a deep breath, we all paused to look at her. Her eyes were directed to the ceiling and she had her hands pressed against her bosom like someone who was reciting a prayer. I looked at Star who shrugged. Doctor Marlowe sipped some lemonade and waited. I hated her patience, her damn tolerance and understanding. Where were her bruises hidden, her pain and disappointments? I felt like turning my rage on her. She saw the angry look in my eyes. "Let's take a bathroom break," she said. 35 V.C.ANDSEWS "I don't have to go," I said. I wanted to keep talking. I knew she was handling me. If there was one thing I hated more than anything, it was being handled. "Well, I've got to go," Jade said and sauntered out as if she was a runway model. Star looked over at me, then stood up. Cathy's eyes narrowed before she looked down again. And I sat back against the cushions of the couch and wondered what it was about this little group that made me able to share the deepest secrets of my put-away heart with mem. 3 When Jade returned, she plucked a cookie from the ttay aad sat Then she thought for a moment, leaned over and took toe plate to offer one to Cathy, who gazed at them as if they were forbidden fruit "It's only a cookie," Jade said. "Don't consider it a fife threatening decision." Cathy gingerly took one off the plate'and brought it to her mouth slowly, baiely opening her lips. ^Giri, it's not poison," Star said sharply and took a bite from the cookie in her hand as if to prove it I looked at Doctor Marlowe and saw something in her eyes that told me she was very interested in how we behaved toward each other. For her, mis was as much an experiment, perhaps, as it was for us. * She turned back to me and nodded. I looked out the 87 V. C. ANDREWS window and made them all wait. After all, they had interrupted me, hadn't they? "I know my father wanted more children. That was actually the first big fight I can remember" I began, still gazing out the window. Slowly, I turned back to (hem. "This was before my mother started to have her problems with sex, I guess. My father didn't know my mother was on birth control pills. All the time she was pretending to be trying to get pregnant. One night he found them and went into a rage, but not right away. He didn't come charging down the stairs screaming or anything. "My mother and I were downstairs watching television. She liked to do her toenails while she watched one of her nighttime shows and I was mimicking her as usual, doing my toenails, too. "Suddenly, Daddy appeared in the doorway. He had taken off his tie, and his shirt was unbuttoned. His ban- looked like he had been running his lingers through it all day. "He stood there staring in at us quietly for a few moments. Mommy looked up at him and then continued working on her nails. " 'Guess what I just found, Gloria,' Daddy said sweetly, so sweetly I thought it was something they had both been looking for a long time. "Without looking at turn. Mommy said, 'What?' " 'I was looking for that designer belt I had bought you last year because I remembered you wanted the same one in a different color, so I opened the bottom 38 r MISTY tower in your armoire to look at it and check the same <» the belt and lo and behold...' he said still quite calmly. - im" 'What is it, Jeffery?' she asked impatiently, raising her eyes reluctantly. 3' "He opened his hand and revealed die box of birth r control pills. There were a number missing. I didn't real. fy know what it was. I still thought it was something they had been searching for, maybe some important medicine. "She stared for a few moments in silence. ; w ** *You had no right to go searching through my things, Jeffeiy.' " 'So you're going to torn mis around? Make me the lad guy?' He waited for a. moment. Despite my age, i sensed that the silences between them were tike those just before big explosions. I remember holding my breath and my little heart pounding as if there was a woodpecker in there trying to get out. " 'What about your lie?' he continued shaking his head. 'Not deceiving me? Not pretending you were really as interested in having another baby as I was and making me feel bad mat you weren't getting pregnant, so bad that I actually went to have my sperm count checked? That's not the big bad dung here? Birth control pills! You've been secretly taking birth control pills all flastime?' " 'Don't get so dramatic about this, she said nonchalantly, but I could hear me tiny cracking in her voice, a note of fear. 89 V. C. ANDREWS "He nodded, looted like he was going to turn and walk away, and then spun around and heaved the small pink box of birth control pills across die living room so hard that it smashed against the numbered print my mother had bought at a gallery on Rodeo Drive just a week ago and shattered the glass. The pills went flying all over. " 'You idiot!' my mother cried. "I was practically under die sofa. " 'How could you lie to me about this? How could you do this?' Daddy cried. "Mommy just went back to her toenails while he fumed in me doorway, his face so red, I thought the blood might shoot up and out of the top of his head. " 'I didn't want to disappoint you,' she finally said. "What?' i- " 'I didn't want to teU you that I wouldn't have another child. I knew how much you wanted one, so I just - kept them out of sight,' she offered. f " 'I don't understand,' he muttered. -' "She looked up again. ' "Lookatme.Jeffery." ti. " 'I am looking at you,' he said. " 'No, take a good look, Jeffery. I used to be a size two and no matter what I do, I can't get back because my hips will be forever too big and no matter how hard I ij. try, diet, exercise, personal trainers, whatever, it doesn't help. If having one baby does this to my figure, what will two do?' " 'Your figure? Your figure! That's what you're worried about?' he cried. M I" MISTY F y^Oh, don't try to fool me. Jeffery. Men,' she | declared, 'make their wives ugly and fat and then §- go looking elsewhere. Just like every other husband, | ifOB'U go looking at other women,' she said. 'If I » don't stay beautiful,' she added practically under her | breath. | "I remember I was shocked to overhear her say mat I. having me ruined her figure. Daddy walked off. She fin^ abed doing her nails, picked up her copy of Vogue and r walked out mumbling about how unappreciated she I-was. | &* "After she left the room, I remember I found one of those pills and thought if she could change things, go i back in time, and use one of those little pills to keep me |. fssa growing in her stomach, she would. Even men, that ? young, I understood that. I took me pill sad crushed it ; under my foot |- "What I didn't understand was that was me beginning [. of roe end way back then" I sat back and thought for a moment No one spoke. Doctor Marlowe sipped some of her lemonade and waited. Gazing at me floor, I went on talking like someone in a-hypnotic state. I could hear myself , but I sounded as if I was talking through a radio. --"It's like you're living in mis magical world inside a big balloon and slowly theair is leaking out. As time passes, me walls and me ceiling begin to close in on you. ft gets stifling and all you want to do is break oat" I gazed at the others. They all looked lost in their own V. C. ANDREWS thoughts, each of them really looking sad, but not for me, as much as for themselves, I thought Doctor Marlowe looked pleased, very pleased about how everyone was. It was as if I had proven she was a good therapist or something. Great, maybe I'll get a certificate of achievement at the end of me session, I thought. 1 took another deep breath. Why did I feel like I was lowering my head under water each time I spoke? "When I was almost fourteen, it really began. My tamer's trips began to take longer and longer. I seemed H to notice and care more than ray mother did. He missed my birthday. He called from New York, but not until very late in me day. He asked me how I liked my present, bat I sensed that he didn't know what it was, what my mother had bought. " "Was it something you were wishing for?' he wanted to know. "Hie only thing I was wishing for was for mem to love me and go back to loving each other, but I said yes and be was relieved." I gazed at the others again. My eyes had a film of tears over them. "We make everything so much easier for them when we tell diem what they want to bear," I said, "but mat doesn't stop it ft doesn't stop the static. Suddenly, there were more and more arguments. It was like some kind of disease infecting everything. Daddy never openly complained about me bills before. Now, he would toss them on toe dinner table and question Mommy like some prosecutor, demanding to know why she needed r MISTY r -Ibis or .that and always asking, when was it going to ^<. mat became a whole new round of battling. . "The gray had come seeping into our house. I hated 1!' coming home and hated to go down to dinner when Daddy was there. I could feel the lightning in me house, that damn static, crackling all around me. "What I really remember is how quiet it suddenly became. I didn't hear music or even me television going. We had become a family of zombies, shadows of-ourselves, gliding along the walls, avoiding each 4 other. j "When Daddy came home. Mommy wouldn't even ; MISTY '„ gpeN him. He would say something like 'Hello to you -too, Gloria, and she would mutter something undo* her 'breath. s- "And then finally one day, on a weekend. Mommy «ad Daddy called me into the den and asked me to sit on ^he sofa. Mommy was seated in the cushioned, red | leather chair and Daddy stood by me window. I remember every detail of that day. It had rained in the morning ^tBid die sun began to appear between thick, dirty looking clouds, puffs that looked bruised and stained. The whole .^Imid seemed to have turned angry. I had a little stomftch ache, some cramps that told me my period was getting ready to make its usual spectacular entrance. Lately, [they had become more severe and less regular. The - school nurse told me it might be due to stress. I mink ahe was fishing for good gossip. _ ,~ ^Anyway, I joined them in the den. Daddy was wear> ing a dark sports jacket, no tie, slacks and his light |iteown loafers. Mommy had her hair perfect as usual, ^ ter face made up as if she was going to an evening affair. She wore one of her pants suits and matching thick, high-heel shoes. On her wrists and fingers was her usual array of expensive jewelry. She also wore her gold leaf earrings with small diamonds on her lobes. I remember thinking how well dressed they both were. "I was wearing jeans and a sweatshirt with sneakers and no socks. My mother hated it when I didn't wear socks. "I sat and waited. Finally, she looked at Daddy and said, 'Well, are you going to tell her or am I?' 48 V. C. ANDREWS "Daddy turned, threw a look at her that would have shattered her face if it was a fist, and then turned to me and softened his expression. " 'Misty,' he began, 'yoo probably have noticed that this ship we're all on has been in some stormy waters lately. The old boat has been rocked and rocked and frankly, it's taking in too much water.' " 'Oh God,' my mother said, 'just tell her and skip all these stupid comparisons. She's not a baby, Jeffery.' " 'If you don't like the way I'm telling her, then you tell her,' he said and I realized they were even fighting over this. "I knew what they were going to tell me. I felt it, sensed it, practically heard the words before they were spoken. I just dreaded hearing them from their Hps | because I would then know that it was really happening, that this wasn't all just some passing bad dream. " 'What your father ^s attempting to tell you in his clumsy fashion is we have decided it would be better for all of us if he and I got a divorce,' Mommy stated firmly. "I looked up at him and he looked down. Then I turned to her and said, 'Better for all of us? This is supposed to be good for me?' " 'It can't be good for you to be in the middle of all tins every day, every minute,' Mommy said. 'It's affecting your school work, too. We've already spok|j en to a counselor and he's assured us that your dramatic downturn is due to our marital problems,' she said. MISTY remember being shocked by that. They had spoken ft counselor, told him about their personal problems, te personal problems? This had been started and had immmi going on for some time without my knowledge. Stever before in my life did I feel more like a stranger in IKf-own home than I did at that moment. Who were Iheae two people? I wondered, '" ."1 looked at Daddy and men at Mommy and thought they had both changed. They were both trying to be but suddenly they both looked so old and to me. What happened to my parents, to my parents who used to attract so many compli- do people go when they change?" I asked the They saw I was really looking for an answer. 'What?" Jade asked. "Go? I don't understand." 6<;I looked at Doctor Marlowe. This was something she faS I had discussed before: my theory that people die Way times before they're buried. H^Thc two people that were my parents were gone," I eid Jade. "Those two people somehow died." " 1 don't understand," Star said, her head tilted a little |«|>one side. "You're parents are still alive, aren't they?" j^Tfot me way they were to me," I said. ? Jade's eyes narrowed as she thought about what I was «aying. Then, she nodded gently. II'"I get it," she said. "She's right My parents are differt people now, too" I.' "Well, I'm still not sure what you mean. Maybe ^because my parents are really gone," Star insisted. She I I 47 V. C. ANDREWS looked at Cathy, who pressed hear lips together as if she was afraid she might comment. "You will," Jade told Star. "Oh, you know what FU get and what I won't get? What are you, the therapist now?" "Don't direct your hostility toward me," Jade said in » firm, take charge demeanor. "Direct what? What's that supposed to mean?" Star cried, her eyes flashing. "Girls, take a breath" Doctor Marlowe interceded. "Come on, everyone relax. Just sit back and think about what Misty has said. Just digest it all for a moment and later we can talk about it" "I don't know what there is to talk about It's dumb. Dead, not dead, gone," Star muttered but sat back with her arms folded. Her large dark brown eyes looked from Jade to me and then to Doctor Marlowe. "Do you Want to continue. Misty?" Doctor Marlowe "My parents were both looking at me, staring at me, waiting for my response to their announcement I guess. 'What do you want from me?' I asked. " 'We don't want anything from you^' my father said. What a laugh that was. They would never want more from me man they were about to want. " 'We just want this to go forward with me least amount of pain for you. Your mother and 1 have agreed mat you will continue to live here with her. I'm moviag- out. You won't lack for anything. We'U born see to mat; MISTY riSil-won't lack for anything? Is that so. Mommy?' " 'Now Misty, you're old enough to understand all (^^hesaid. "Am I?' I looked at Daddy and be suddenly seemed I a bad little boy to me. His eyes dropped and he low- dhis head. alfdt the tears building in mine, but I didn't want ay in front of them," I wanted mem both to think I I't care about either of them at mat moment" ade nodded, her eyes welling with tears. Cathy Iced like she was chewing the inside of her cheek i Star stored at me with a look of pure tenor on her » as if she was looking back at herself, I thought. I Id just begin to imagine what her memories were to ^'Where are you going to live. Daddy?' I asked with Vl^ a hint of emotion. I could easily have been asking ib where his next business trip would be. -^,*0h, I'll be nearby. I've found an apartment in West- led,' he said with a smile as if mat was it That would Inake everything all right 'You'll come stay with me on weekends,' he promised. fy* 'When he's here,' Mommy quickly pointed out ? " TO make sure I see you often,' he insisted over her iafuriating eyes. i "I remember I felt like I couldn't breathe, like the air i in my chest was so hot, it was better not to bring it up dkmgh my throat and nose, but it was so heavy, I bad to trieeadeep new bream. " 'When is all this going to happen?' I asked them. It's already happening,' Daddy replied. 'Our V. C. ANDREWS attorneys are in touch and I'm leaving this after' noon.' "Where had I been while all this was going on? f wondered. They had spoken to counselors, lawyers. Daddy was leaving the very same day they told me. He was already packed! "One day, they woke up in the morning, looked at each other and decided they were never again to be man and wife? Was mat the way it worked? "All the cards and all the promises, all the beautiful gifts and happy laughter, all the kisses and the hugs that each rained down upon the other were tossed into the wastebasket. I imagined every nice word they had spoken to each o&er, every pledge of love was sucked back into their mouths and swallowed. "Only I was left remembering my happy heart beating at the sight of the two of them holding hands, walking on beaches and on streets together, kissing at dinner tables, embracing each other with me sometimes in between. "Only I was left to recall the music and the singing, all the happy birthdays, the Christmas mornings, me New Year's wishes, the sound of laughter. "I was alone, on an island of remember when's, looking out across an ocean where waves tossed and turned under cloudy skies. " 'So that's it,' Mommy said. 'I'm sorry, honey, but we promise not to put you through any pain, if we can H help H.' « "That's right.' Daddy said. 50 MISTY »«l laughed" Jade, Star and Cathy's eyes widened with surprise. "That's right, I laughed. I laughed so hard my stomach began to hurt. The two of them. Mommy especially, looked at me with such surprise and confusion, I bad to laugh harder. I actually folded up and fell to die floor. " 'I don't understand what's so funny,' Daddy said to Mommy. "She shrugged. " 'Neither do I,' she replied. "Look at them, I thought They're finally in agreement again. "'What's so funny about mis. Misty?' Daddy demanded with his gruff, Daddy face. | " 'Yes, tell us what you think is so funny,' Mommy said, her face in a frown, something she hated to do because it encouraged the birth of wrinkles. I " 'The promise,' I said. " 'What?' They looked at each other and men back at me. " "The two of you,' I said, 'making promises to me ^flOW.' E "I dragged myself to my feet and wiped the hot tears from my cheeks. Then I gazed at both of them, both sitng there with disturbed faces. " 'You know what a promise is for me in mis house, ; Daddy,' I said. 'It's a tie in disguise.* "Then I ran out of me den and up to my room and dove onto my bed. "A little while later, I heard Daddy carrying his things Sl At first I tried to hide the fact that my parents were getting divorced. None of my friends, not even Darlene, ever thought anything was wrong in my home. It was actually quite the opposite. They all believed I still had fee perfect litflfr family. If they came over and didn't see my father, they just assumed he was on another one of his business trips. "Darlene has two younger sisters and an older brother. She minks I'm lucky because I'm an only child. Her brother is always criticizing her. She says he's afraid she'll embarrass him somehow, and her mother is always after her to set a good example for her younger sisters. She complains about her parents and her brother and sis ters every time she calls me or I call her. Once. she even V.C.ANDSEWS down the stairs. Before he left, he came to my door an knocked, but I wouldn't respond. " Til call you in a day or two, princess,'he said. "And you know what," I said to my three nei friends, "I don't remember him calling me princes since" V. C. ANDKEWS said she hated her family and she would rather be an orphan. "People never know how lucky they are. I've been over at her house on holidays when they're all together, even her grandparents on her mother's side, and they have a great dinner and exchange gifts. Last Christmas Eve, Mommy and I went to a restaurant in Bcverly Hills with my mother's two other divorced friends and throughout the dinner, all they did was congratulate themselves for no longer being under their husbands' thumbs. I took one look at them and thought, like these women ever were under anyone's thumb. "For a while I hoped that my parents would get back together. I used to daydream about Daddy showing up one afternoon with his suitcases in hand and a big smile od his face. I even imagined the conversation. «'HB Misty,' he would say. "What did he do then?" Jade questioned impatiently. "He ignored it and kissed me on me neck. No one had wer kissed me like that on the neck before. The feeling geared me. It shot right through my body aad I pulled .back to my side of the sofa. "He was so polite, he started to apologize, but I didn't Iwaat to hear that I was confused. My heart felt like it was a kaleidoscope of emotions. I was afraid and yet I didn't want him to stop. I wanted to be kissed and held and needed. " 'Stop being so damn polite,' " I ordered him. Now he was the one who looked confused. " 'I'm not being so damn polite,' he said. 'I just don't take advantage of people, especially when they're vulnerable.' 71 V C. ANDSEWS 'That damn vocabulary of his, I thought 'What's that; supposed to mean?' I demanded. " 'You're at a weak point because of what's happen1 ing with your parents,' he said, which just got me mad-- der. He was a lot smarter than I ever imagined. He was manipulating me. ; "'I am not,'I fired back. 'I don't care what nicy do to i themselves.' } "He smirked arrogantly. I felt Uke slapping him. " "The only reason you stopped is you're afraid,' I told him. "'What do you mean? You pushed me away.'he said. | "'You were just moving too last. Girls do that when | boys move too fast' Laughter rippled over his pretty-boy face. " 'What's so fiumy?' I demanded. " *I was hardly moving wry fast. You're just afraid, | which is normal for a giri who is sdll a virgin,'be said. J "I was afraid, of course, but thanks to Doctor Mar- | lowe, I now know I was afraid because I feared being I like my mother, who, according to what my father said, found sex painful and unpleasant. I thought I would end j up just like she did and drive away someone who had ; loved me," I recited. Doctor Marlowe nodded, pleased, i "So what did you dor Star asked. " 'How do you know I'm still a virgin?' I fired back at him. "He laughed that arrogant laugh and said, 'Oh, you're a virgin, all right Pure as the driven snow.' " "Dial's what you think,' I said. He laughed again and I said, 'Do you want to touch me?'" 72 MISTY ; "Is she telling the truth?" Star suddenly asked of Doc tor Marlowe. | "You'll have to ask. her and judge for yourself. Star. jBTott'll all have to do that with each other." ff. Star curled her lip up and narrowed her eyes. ^ "So then what happened?" she queried like some cross-examiner out to prove perjury. & "He just sat there, a little shocked, I think. I really felt like shocking him, I suppose. So, I started to unbutton ysay blouse. He looked frozen and I guess I felt so power&1 because of what I was doing to him that I continued." | :2; Cathy lifted her head and looked at me with new interest in her eyes. |i "My heart was pounding, but I reached back and | undipped my bra. I just sat there with it hanging loosely. tifis face got all red. |" " 'Well?' I asked him, 'Do you want to see and touch llteocnot?'" &? "You were really playing with him," Star commented. f^Uke playing with a Yo-Yo or something," she added, nodding at Jade who rested her chin on her hand and H stared at me, barely breathing. I "It felt like I was an actress in a play performing a t role. He nodded and I took off my bra." ^ It was so quiet in me office, I could hear the water f running through the pipes on me other side of the house. "What did he do after you took off your bra?" Star ': asked breathlessly. "What do you think?" I tossed back at her. "You did it in his room the first time you were there with him!" V. C. ANDREWS "No. not that time. A different time;* I said, "but only once." "Only once? Why?" Star asked. For a long moment, I couldn't bring out the wolds, it' was like swallowing a wad of gum and waiting for it to go down. They stared. Finally, I had enough air in my lungs to speak. "Because I found out he was a bigger liar than all our: parents put together," I told her. I didn't know I was crying until the tear dripped off my chin. Doctor Marlowe wanted me to pause here and take a break for a few minutes. "Whether you want to or not," she said. "I need a bathroom break myself." She stood up. The others were all staring at me, Cathy just as directly as Jade and Star, I rose and followed Doctor Marlowe out of the office. The three of mem sat quietly, watching us walk out, no one so much as taking a deep bream. And mat included me as well. 5 I returned with Doctor Marlowe, I could see ?&om the expressions on the other girls' faces that they Had been talking about me. They had trouble looking sifirectly at me, especially Cathy. I sat and waited for Doctor Marlowe, who put on her glasses to read some- I dang on her pad before turning back to us. She crooked I'ber right pinky finger as if holding a thought around it | and then smiled when she was finished reading. ^ "Do you want to continue. Misty?" she asked. t fl glanced at the others. All three of them looked worried that I wouldn't. . "I don't care. Sure," I said and started. It was almost like having eaten something bad and needing to get it out of your system. "A few days after I had gone with Charles Alien to his 76 K C. AMDSEWS home, I brought him home with me after school so he | could meet my mother and she could meet him. I had | spoken about him a few times at dinner, and mat wa> | enough for her to start calling him my boyfriend, i " 'I should meet your boyfriend,' she insisted, putting on mat official mother's face she hated because it made; her look older. 'I should know what he's like since- you're spending so much time with him and have even gone to his house and met his mother.' "She whined the last part, sounding hurt that I had met his mother before he had met mine. Ever since me divorce, it was like my mother was on an Easter egg hunt for possible ways to make me feel guilty. I* " 'First, he's not my boyfriend. Mother,' I told her. "Second, I'm not spending all that much time with him. And, third, you never asked to meet any of my other friends and I've been to lots of their houses and met their parents, too.' " 'That was different,' she replied. My mother always nods after she says something she wants you to agree with. Its Like she's coaching your thoughts. " 'Why?' I wanted to know. Of course she was disappointed I would question her. The corners of her mouth dropped. " 'Because your father was still living here. PorOod's sake. Misty, surely you're old enough to realize mat all || the responsibility is mine now,' she moaned with a sigh to suggest me great weight that had been dumped on her fragile but perfect little shoulders. "Of course, I knew she was being overly dramatic just because she wanted to see what sort of boy I was with. IflSTY ^Nevertheless, I brought Charies Alien home and introduced him to her." < I turned to die fids. ' "I should tell you that my mother is in the running for |' the title. World's Biggest Flirt. As soon as she saw that J Charles Alien wasn't the son of Frankenstein, she went I lato her ScariettO'Hara act I nearly puked up lunch. s "Right off, however, she made a gross mistake. She Started calling him Charlie. He grimaced in pain every time she did it, bat he was too polite to say anything to her. "Since I had told her Charies Alien's family was very wealthy, she just had to give him the grand tour of oar home, pointing out the expensive paintings, our Baldwin piano, her Lalique collection, even furniture and rugs that she called imported and very pricey. I know die thought she was impressing him, but one look at his face would tell you he couldn't have been more bored. "Then she embarrassed me to the point of tears. " 'It's so hard being the mother of a teenage giri when you, yourself, keep being mistaken for her older sister,' she said with great flair, fluffing her hah- and turning her shoulders. 'I keep up with all me music and read many of the same magazines Misty reads. We like me same shows on television, too, don't we. Misty?' " 'I don't watch all mat much television,' I muttered and she giggled like a silly teenager. " 'Of course she does. Chariie.' " 'His name is Charles Alien, Mother, not Charlie,' I corrected. "'Oh, fiddlesticks,' she cried, threading her arm V. a ANDSEWS through his to lead him out to our patio. She was practically leaning on him. 'That's what his parents call him,' she lectured. 'You don't like to be addressed so formally, doyou,Chariic?' " 'Actually,' Charles Alien said, 'I'm used to it, Mrs. Foster;' " 'Oh pleeeeze,' she cried, grimacing as if she had just seen a dead rat, 'don't call me Mrs. Foster. That makes 1 me sound so old. Call me Gloria. AH of Misty's friends do,'' she added, which was another lie in bright neon lights. "He glanced back to me for help aad I told my mother he had come over to help me study and we didn't have . all mat much time because he had to be home early. She looked like we had told her she had two days to live or ; something. " 'Oh,' she said, reluctantly releasing -his arm and stepping back. 'Of course. I know how important all that I is. I just wanted to make Charlie feel at home,'she said. E "Fw one small second, I felt sorry for bee. I actually | thought she was suffering loneliness and I felt bad about | cutting it all short like that, but Charles Alien was very grateful for my rescue. _ "We went up to my room and I apologized for my I mother's behavior. He fell back on my bed with his arms | out and stared up at the ceiling for a moment "I hate to be fawned over like that,'he finally said.'I have an aunt who always does that. As soon as she comes into the house, she always finds me aad bugs me so tightly, I nearly suffocate. She wears this heavy perfume, too, the kind that you continue to smell for hours 78 ? MISTY aV SSIter she leaves a room. She loves messing my hair ami Seeping me trapped on her lap, wrapping her long, dun .bony arms around me like some sort of octopus.' T "He sat up with a big smile on his face. €"'What?'I asked. ' " 'Whenever I complain about her now, my mother (I -always reminds me that once when I was about three, I auinated on her, right through my clothes. It didn't stop rifter from scooping me up me next time, though. She's piny mother's older sister, a spinster. She took care of my | grandmother for years after my grandmother's stroke so : we have to put up with all of my aunt's eccentricities, and believe me, there are plenty of them.' .' "Be paused and looked around my room, nodding as 'he gazed at the armoire, the vanity table, me computer, and my closets and mirrors, as well as my posters, wan of family photos and doll collection. " 'Your room is just as I had imagined it would be,'he told me. ; " 'What do you mean?' I asked. If he had said it's cute, I would have thrown him out the window dght then and mere." "What did he say?" Jade asked. "Hesaid, "It's oozy and warm.' Chades Alien knew an the buttons to push," I said with a tight smirk. "You sound like you really hate him now," Star said. I glanced at Doctor Marlowe. Her eyes softened. "I don't hate him. Actually, I pity him. He's even more confused by life than... than I am " I replied. "Anyway, it got pretty hot and heavy that afternoon. We came very close," I said quickly for Star's benefit. 79 V.C.ANDSEWS ; She looked disappointed that we only canoe close. "We just started kissing again and be asked me to do what I bad done at his house and take off my blouse and bra. There was something exciting about doing all Ibis in my own house with my mother right downstairs filing her nails or something." I paused in describing me scene, recalling mat after- Boon in my own mind first: his eyes, my own thumping heart, the cloud that had turned my room mysterious and dark for a few moments, me way his tongue glided over his lower lip. My reverie was too long for Star. "IS you're telling it, tell it," she said with a little smile. I looked at her with an expression that clearly said, you better be just as honest about yourself as I am about myself. I had told Doctor Marlowe most of it before, so it wasn't hard to describe things in front of eyes closed and held onto him as if I would drown if I didn't, and men be unbuttoned my jeans and put his hand in them. No one bad ever touched me where he touched me. Then he really surprised me by taking down his own pants. He squirmed out of them like a snake. I thought that was funny, but after he had done it and I felt him between my thighs, I panicked and asked him to stop. He said he couldn't. He said it was too late and mat was the way it was with boys. " 'Don't you know about this sniff?' he asked and I didn't want to seem stupid, so I said I did. Of course, like all of you I suppose, I've had sex education. I knew MISTY happens but it's different when it's happening to and you're not just reading some textbook. "Anyway, he said, 'So you know I can't just slop now d be got excited and made me wet My heart was pounding so hard, I thought I would faint I got up quickly and went into me bathroom. I couldn't get my heart to stop mumping. When I came out, be was pressed and sitting calmly at my computer, acting as if ; iaotbing at all had happened. After be was ready to get iup and go, he apologized for not being properly pre'pared. »-"Tapared?'IaslBed. ". - ** 'Yoa know,' he said, 'contraception. Next tune we won't be like a couple of kids.' - "I nodded, wondering just how sophisticated did he think I was? " 'I wasn't expecting us to haw me opportunity,' he explained. Somehow, it didn't sound very romantic or exciting the way he put it "He said good-bye to my mother, who prolonged it with her announcement mat she was considering changing her hair color and style. She had pictures of models on me table in me living room and wanted Chades Alien's opinions. He kept telling her she was fine me way she was, but she insisted he give her his opinion and finally, he chose a picture just to end it Of course, she said it was exactly me one she had chosen herself. | 1 walked him out to his car where I apologized for I my mother again. . " That's all right,' he said. 'She's actually amusing.' " 'Amusing?' I asked. I really didn't like mat chaiac- 81 VOANDSEWS terizarion of her, but he just smiled and started his engine. Then he leaned out the window to kiss me. " 'You're the nicest giri I know,' he said. 'it's good to have your judgments confirmed,' he added. "I knew it was supposed to be a compliment to me, but it sounded instead as if he was complimenting himself for being so good at choosing a girlfriend. "When I went back inside, my mother astonished me by complimenting me on my choice, too. She said it was reassuring for her to see that I had a gentleman for a boyfriend. She ran on and on about it and how important it was to be very discriminating and particular about men, even in these little high school romances. Her divorce proved that, she said. Then she really surprised me by adding (hat she had decided to go on her first date since my father had left The owner of one of me restaurants she frequented for lunch had learned of her divorce and had asked her out. "I think men, more than at any other time, it really sunk in that my parents-were two separate people forever." 2 stopped and took a breath when I noticed Cathy was trembling so badly she looked like she was literally freezing. She was embracing herself hard. Her face was so white it looked like she had cut off the supply of blood. Jade and Star saw it too and we all looked at Doctor Marlowe, who shock her head slightly to tell us not to say anything. I knew she wanted me to just keep talking. "As it tamed out men," I continued, my eyes on Cathy, "that weekend both my mother and I had dates. 88 MISTY She was going to dinner and I was going to an early I movie and then to have pizza with Charles Alien. | -^"There we both were that Saturday afternoon, primp|. ing at our vanity tables. She'd come running in to get my opinion of her lipstick and I couldn't help asking her to help me choose how to wear my hair and what to do about my eyes, for as I've been told by Daddy many times, we have to give the devil her due. Mommy was an expert when it came to makeup and hairstyle. I wanted to look older, as sophisticated as Charles Alien apparently believed I was. "I suppose it was a very funny scene, me two of us marching back and forth, checking ourselves in mirrors. She put her arm around me in front of her full-length mirror and chanted in a high-pitched, sugary voice, 'Mirror, minor on die wall, who are the prettiest girls of all? Hear that,' she said laughing. 'It said you are, you are!' "I imagine you all think that was very silly, but I couldn't help laughing with her and at least for a little while feeling like we were close. "We both took bubble baths and I let her pour her skin treatments into mine. Of course, she didn't like what I was wearing. Despite her claim of being young in heart and mind, she just wasn't in favor of my clothes. 1 wore a tank top with a pair of jeans. " 'Don't you want to wear one of your pretty dress* es?' she asked. " Tm just going to the movies and out for pizza, Mommy, not the prom.' " 'You should always dress and look like you're going to the prom,' she said. V. C. ANDSEWS 1 told her to give me a break and she stopped complaining and complimented me on everything else. I was leaving first, of course, so I got the final check about fifteen minutes before Charles Alien arrived. " 'You look beautiful,' my mother said. Too bad your father isn't here to see this.' "I hadn't heard from Daddy all week and I knew he was going to be away for the weekend. The plan was for me to stay with him on the following weekend. What i didn't know at the time was Daddy had already started dating, too. 61 fact," I said, swallowing down my throat lump, "I mink he had started dating Ariel even before he and Mommy had decided to get a divorce. He had been cheating on my mother." "How do you know that?" Star asked. The first time I saw mem together, I felt they were just too comfortable with each other. They acted as if they had been living together a long time. It's just something you know," I concluded. "Yes," she agreed.'It is." I began to think we all had a lot more in common than we first thought. I guess Doctor Mariowe knew what she was doing after all. "When Charies Alien came by to pick me up, I realized this was actually my first real date. I had gone to the movies with other girls and met boys and men we'd all gone for pizza and stuff. "Daddy always used to tell me he would be there to greet the first boy who came to take me out He liked to tease me about it and threaten that be was going to 'inspect that boy like a Marine drill instructor.' The boy ^ MISTY would tremble in his shoes and he would know that 'if BI be didn't respect my little girl, he'd have hell to pay.' : - "I used to dream of that scene. It was nice to think of your father as your great protector, suffering that delicious pain all fathers have to suffer when they see their | little girls grown and ready to be dated. How many movies had I seen where me mother in me film reminds the father that 'She's not your little girl anymore. She's a young woman.' "Daddy wasn't mere, however. He was off with his new young woman and I was the last thing on his mind," I said. I felt my throat closing and the weight in my chest grow heavier and heavier. Everyone's eyes were on me, big eyes of pity. I hated it I looked away, bit down oh my lower Bp until it hurt and then turned back almost angrily. "Charles Alien was wearing a sports jacket and jeans and he looked more handsome man ever. My mother made sure to appear when he came to the door. I remember I thought she might as well be using a sledgehammer to beat in her comments. " '(Mi, what a beautiful young couple you two make,' she cried. 'You look very handsome, Charlie. And just look at Misty. She's blooming like some magnificent flower: She reminds me so much of myself at her age. But that's what a daughter's supposed to do for a mother, right? " 'You two have a great time,' she said waving her hand as if she was laying a blessing. "I practically dragged Charles Alien out of die entryway and fled to his car. 8S V C.ANDREWS " 'Quickly,' I told him, 'drive before she dunks of something else.' "He laughed and we shot off and I felt as if i was beginning the nest of my life. "Neither of us fiked the movie. We tefteariy and went for pizza. Charies Alien shocked me whenthe waitress brought our Cokes, fie pulled a small metal flask from his inside jacket pocket and whispered that it was rum. He poured a little into my Coke and a lot into his own. I was realty surprised. He .had such prissy manners in public, I never would have dreamed he would do something like that in a restaurant - M! wasn't Oat excited about rum. J mean, I've had it before at parties and pretended to like gin, even though I thought ft tastes more like medicine, but the rum in the Cote wasn't bad. I didn't notice ft having any effect on me. "After we ate, he suggested we go to his house. He said the servants had the night off and we could listen to music and talk and not worry about anyone looking over our shoulders. It was still quite early so I agreed." I know what he wanted," Star said. Itumedtoher. "I realty wasn't going there to do it," I said. "flight" she said and rolled her eyes. "I wasn't. I was going to tell him that, too. I wanted os to know each other more and care about each other more." Star looked as skeptical as could be. "When we arrived at his house, it was as quiet and as empty as he had said it would be. We went into the media room and he pit on some music and men he went to his parents' bar and made us both another Coke spiked with rum. "The sofa had a control panel built into die arm and he could dim the lights and raise and lower me volume ^. of tee music. ' "'My father has some X-rated movies hidden. I know where they are^You want to watch one?'" he asked. "No," I said quickly. He didn't look disappointed. He nodded and smiled as if I had passed some sort of test " 'Good. I knew you were a mature giri,' be said. I suppose mat made me feel very happy and maybe I was a little less aware of what was happening. I drank me Coke and nun a little too quickly, too. "Suddenly, Charies Alien put his hands on my hips and then brought them up and began to fondle me. "I was very excited but frightened too as his hands explored under my clothes. " 'Maybe someone will come in,' I warned. 't " 'No,' he insisted. 'Everyone's out for me night. Relax,' he added, kissing me on the neck and cheek. 'You smell so good.' "I had a whole speech ready, but me words got jumbled in my brain. It didn't take long for him to get my tank top off and my bra and men he showed me he was prepared. "I did put up some resistance, started to talk him out of it, but he had a whole speech ready, too." "Oh, I can't wait to bear what that was," Jade said. 87 VC.ANDSEWS "He said things like we shouldn't deny ourselves now. Our parents were off making themselves happy, so why shouldn't we? 'What do you think your mother's going to be doing tonight? And what do you dunk your father's doing? Same as mine, I'm sure,' he said." "So you let him do it," Star concluded. "ft happened so fast. We were born naked and be started. I remember I was trembling so hard, he laughed, but I was terrified mat it would be so painful. Of course, it was my first time, so mere was pain and I concentrated on that so much, I didn't enjoy a moment and I don't think Charies Alien did either, ft all happened quickly, more like something that bad to be done and over with. "He started to complain, blame everything on me. I didn't need someone to be nasty to me then. I needed some understanding. He made me feel so insignificant, talking about how inexperienced I was and how experienced he was. I challenged him, telling him I didn't know any girls he had been with, and I knew he had no love affair with any college girL" "I bet I know where he claimed he got his experience," Star said. "Where?" Jade asked her. 'Toe street," she replied and looked to me for confirmation. "Am i light, girl?" I nodded. "He went with prostitutes?" Jade asked. I nodded. "He bragged about it." "Ugh, how could you continue to go out with him?" Jade asked me. MISTY didn't much longer," I said. low come?" tosed and opened my eyes. 'After I got home that night, I wasn't feeling very a about myself. I felt... dirty. I took a bath. The se was empty, quiet Mommy was still not home. I no one to talk with. I just needed someone. I called Idy. Of course, I wasn't going to tell him what I had e> but I just wanted to hear his voice. It wasn't terri- late, but all I got was his answering machine and I I't leave a message. "I cried a lot mat night I felt so lonely, never as lone- and afraid as I did then." '^What about your girlfriends?" Jade asked. "I had drifted away from most of them and I didn't | know anyone I thought was mature enough to talk about ^ it all anyway. Mommy didn't come home until very late mat night I was asleep, but I woke for a moment when I heard her footsteps and heard her open my door to peek in at me. I didn't say anything. She closed the door and I fell back to sleep. In me morning I felt as if I had been wounded and a great scab had formed over me. I think if Charles Alien | and I had gotten to really know and like each other and j: really fallen in love with each other, it would have been I different, but I kept thinking about how he had made me : drunk and I just felt as if I had been used like some prostitute. It's hard to hold onto self-respect when you let things like mat happen to you" I paused and smiled at Doctor Marlowe. "A lot of mis I've realized with Doctor Marlowe's V C. ASDSEWS help," I said. The others looked like they understood that. "Mommy slept late that morning. I made myself breakfast and went out back to relax on the chaise by the pool. It was a beautiful day, warmer than usual. I knew Mommy wouldn't be getting up soon. Whenever she stayed out late. she had to sleep late to protect her youthful skin and keep her eyes from drooping. "Bored, I got up and fetched our Sunday paper off the driveway and then went out back to look at the magazine section. As I was thumbing through the paper, I came upon the social pages and nearly missed it. I actually started to turn the page when the name Fitch struck me and I sat up and spread the paper out to read under me picture. I recognized Charles Alien's mother, of course. "His father was with her. They had attended a charity affair and they were listed as one of the important couples. That's where they were the night before. "I was very confused. Do rich divorced people still go to social affairs together? I wondered, "There was a tiny trickle of ice water running down the sides of my stomach. I rose and went inside, dazed, afraid. I didn't know what to do, but an idea came to me and I called Charles Alien's home, only when the butler answered, I asked for Mr. Benjamin Harrison Jackson Fitch. "The butler wanted to know who was calling and I said an old friend from college. "When he said, 'Just a moment,' my heart did flip- flops. Moments later I heard Charles Alien's father say, 'Hello,' and I hung up. 90 I. MISTY h "His parents weren't getting a divorce?" Jade asked astounded. 1 I shook my head. . -- "The bastard," Star said. v -' Cathy was nodding. ' > "Did you confront him with it?" Jade wanted to know. "That day," I said. " "What did he say?" "He claimed they had reconciled, but I pointed out that he had told me they were divorced just the night before and I repeated things he had said to me before we tad made love" "And?" Star pursued. She was leaning over, her hands clenched as if she was ready to jump up and follow me over to Charles Alien's house to beat his face into mush. "He paused and said, 'What difference did it make nowr " 'If you don't know, I feel sorrier for you man I do for myself,' I told him and hung up. "I've never spoken with him again," I said and looked at Doctor Marlowe. Her eyes told me I could say what was in my heart so I did. "But you know what," I told the others, "I don't hate him as much as I hate my parents." "Why?" Star asked. "Because they put her in mat place" Jade said, her eyes small and sharp as she stared right through me. 'They left her naked and alone and vulnerable, to use Charles Alien's word." "Yes" Cathy said in a loud whisper. We all looked at her. "That's very true" 91 V. C. ANDREWS We all because very quiet, each of us looking behind our own eyes at the thoughts and pictures Oat played on our private screens. "How do you all feel about continuing?" Doctor Marlowe asked. "We can take a short break, have a little lunch, go outside, walk around the house, get some air and put in another hour or so." "Misty is die one who should decide," Jade said, her voice filled with compassion. "Yeah," Star seconded. Cathy nodded. "I'm all right," I said. I wasn't I had a long way to go to be all right. Maybe I would never be all right Bat at least I was with people who would know why not 92 ^ 6 I. he breezes were sweet with the newborn fragrances of spring. Now that we were outside after lunch, we all felt even worse about going back inside, where we had to cevisit our private nightmares. Doctor Marlowe walked with her head down, her arms folded and her shoulders a little slumped. My mother would be very critical of her posture, I thought The four of us remained a little | behind her, none of us really walking together. Cat | stayed at the end, walking the slowest, her eyes shifting 1 cautiously from Jade to Star to me. i "My gardener tells me I'm going to have to tear out all those oleander bushes," Doctor Marlowe said pausing and nodding toward the rear of her property. "Some disease is running rampant through the lot of them. He V C. ANDREWS wants me to plant something new now so it will all grow during the summer months." "Can't he just cure them?" Star asked. "He doesn't think so." "Get another gardener," Jade said. Doctor Marlowe laughed. "No, he's very good. He's been with me for years and years. It's easier to replace the plants man to replace (he gardener." "Too bad we can't do the same with parents," I said. They all looked back at me. I shrugged. "They don't work so we just replace them with ones that do." "None of us have any guarantees about anything in this life, Misty," Doctor Marlowe said. "We've just got to learn how to deal with it and go forward." "It's always easier for someone else to say," Jade muttered. Star nodded. "That's right," she said. "I'm not someone else," Doctor Marlowe declared. "I'm not just your therapist," she continued. "My parents divorced when I was just a little younger man yoa. I think that's what gave me the idea to go into psychiatry ... my own pain." "Is that why you're not married?" Jade asked her. "That's another story," she said. "Besides, I'm me therapist here, remember? I ask the questions. Let's keep walking around the house and go back in," she said. Jade threw a conspiratorial smile at me and I threw one back. "Come on, girl," Star said as she waited for Cathy to catch up. "You walk slower than my grandma." ^ MISTY 1 Surprised that Star would pause, Cathy quickly caught aptoher. ^ r ^ Everyone went to the bathroom again. I just wanted to |«jase my face in cold water. We had to wait for Cathy, j3^® took so long, we began to wonder if she had left. "Sorry," Cathy said when she finally came in and took "Let's let Misty continue and finish out the session. I- Ifs getting late and I'm sure you all have other things to ^ -do with such a nice day." E" "I suppose what bothers me the most, what I think f about a lot is what their divorce means about me. Before 1 visited Daddy in his new home, I met him for lunch one Saturday after he had moved out of the house. That was something we had never done before, had lunch together without my mother. He invited me since me plans he had made for me to visit him in his new apartent had to be canceled because of what he called an emergency business trip. Later, I found out he was going to San Francisco with his new girlfriend. "But at the time, I was excited about meeting him at a fancy Beveriy Hills restaurant He sent a cab for me, which triggered one of my mother's familiar favorite chants about how he always manages to get someone else to fulfill his responsibilities. I " 'Why couldn't he pick you up himself? It's Satur- ? day. He can't be meeting anyone for business. It's just inconvenient for him, that's all; so he sends a cab. Typical Jeffery Foster behavior,' she raved. " 'How can you hate him so much now and have loved him before?' I asked her. 98 V. C. ANDSEWS ^ " "That's what I keep asking myself.' she replied. She yS thought for a moment and then added, 'I was just delib- ' erately blind. I refiised to admit to his weaknesses and U failings. I didn't want to face the fact mat I had made : such a mistake. I don't know. I was just too young to get married," she concluded. "I was a hopeless romantic who believed when a man said you were the earth, moon and stars to him, he meant it' "Self-pity, like evening shadows, came to darken her eyes," I said, remembering. " "They put you on a throne until they marry you and live with you a while and men me throne turns to cardboard and all the jewels melt,' Mommy continued. 'Don't believe anything any man tells you, even if he wants to write it in his blood,' she warned me. "None of that made sense to me and it didn't take long for her to forget it and look for another man to make her promises. All I kept thinking was if my parents' relationship was such a colossal mistake, what am I, me product of that relationship? How can I be right? I bet someone who was bora as a result of a rape doesn't fed mat much different from the way I feel," I said looking to the others for agreement. "You know someone born out of a rape?" Star asked me. "No." "It's not quite the same thing," she said. Her eyes were cold with a wisdom beyond her age and mine, maybe even beyond Doctor Marlowe's. "I understand what Misty means, though," Jade said. 96 MISTY l?ve had similar feelings." Cathy nodded to indicate she ltd had them too. ' "I know my mother hated it when I asked her all these stkms and forced her to dwell on the situation" I tinned. "She wanted to treat the divorce as a chance e young again and not as some great personal failure. wanted to pretend she had been freed from some ins, released from some prison where she had been nailed from being as young and beautiful as she Id be. "K you can believe it because of what I've already told !you about her" I said to me gals, "after the divorce she Has even more concerned about her appearance man before. She polished her nails so often, the house seemed ;(& reek of the smell of polish remover. She was always at Ifae hairstylist's and she piled up style and glamour magazines to the ceiling, spending hours reading and studying '- them to be confident she was in fashion. ' "She even spoke differently, trying to make her voice sound younger, and not just in front of diaries Alien. I couldn't help thinking that if she wanted to forget she was ever married to Daddy, if she wanted to be young and free again, what did she feel and dunk when she looked at me? All I could be was a reminder of me failure. "I was really very interested in how my father saw me now, too, so when he asked me to meet him for lunch, I couldn't help but be excited. "It was really the first private conversation Daddy and Fd had since he and my mother told me they were getting a divorce. He wasn't at the restaurant when I arrived and I began to worry when he was more than fifteen 97 V. C. ANDSEW8 minutes hoe. The waiter kept asking me if I wanted to order and I didn't know what to do. I was considering calling my mother, which would set off a nuclear explosion in an already fractured family, so I tried to stay cafayii "Finally, he showed up, apologizing, claiming he was in traffic. He kissed me, which was something he hadn't done for a while, and sat The first thing I noticed about him was how different he looked. He was letting his hair grow longer and he was dressed more informally than usual. He used to always wear a tie when he went out. He wasn't wearing a jacket and slacks either. He was wearing a sweat suit and sneakers. He explained he had come from the gym. " This is a great place, oae of my favorites,' he said gazing around. He held up the menu. 'Everything is very good here.' "'Did you come here with Mommy?'I asked him. " 'With your mother? Mb, I don't think so,' he said. He thought for a moment and added, 'It's mostly where I meet people for business meetings.' * 'I don't know what to order,' I said. 'Everything is so expensive.' He laughed and said be would older fix me, but he really wasn't sure what I liked and he had to keep asking. " 'I guess I should know.' he admitted, 'but your motfaer always took care of the meals. So,' be said after we finally gave the waiter our older,'how's your school wodc? Any improvement?' "'Not really,'I told him. MISTY ** 'Maybe I should look into getting you a tutor,' he rought aloud. "Mommy was right, I realized. Daddy always looks m- ways to slip out from under his responsibilities. |ft "When his food came, he talked about his work and f his new apartment and for a while I felt as if we were |- She said I'm too much trouble for her. She can't handle ' toe anymore. It's making her old and sick.' ? " 'My mother says the same thing about me,' I moaned. ** 'So.. - maybe you should come with me,' he said and I thought, why not? "Maybe I wffl,'I said. For a long moment, we just stared at each other and he could see in my eyes that I was really going to do it. " 'Pack a really small bag,' he said without a beat. I hesitated one short moment and men ran into me house to stuff my backpack. "That was the hardest part, deciding what I wanted to take with me. I mean there were some essential clothes to take and a pair of boots and a pair of shoes, but of all the things you own, of all the things you've been given, what would you choose if you could take only a very few things, and of course^ nothing large or heavy? "Suddenly nothing -seemed as important as it had been. AH the things my parents had given me were just things. There was one doll, my first real doU, me one I kept on the bed, a soft rag doll. I took mat, but I didn't take any jewelry. I should have probably. We could have used the money if I sold it. I grabbed a toothbrush and a hairbrush and turned in circles trying to decide what else, what else mattered? "Lloyd began to honk his horn. I scooped my leather jacket out of the closet, took one last look at my room, me room that had been my whole world for so much of I 137 V C. ANDSEWS my life. These walls held all my secrets, had seen all my tears and heard me whisper all my fears. " 'Good-bye,' I whispered sad ran down the stairs. I didn't even look back and I didn't leave my mother a note or anything. "I stepped out, slipped on my backpack and hurried to get behind Lloyd on the motorcycle. He turned his head and smiled at me and we took off. My heart was mumping so hard and fast, I was afraid I might faint and fell into me street. I wrapped my arms around him and held on for dear life. It was mostly cloudy and very breezy mat day. The wind whipped through my hair and blasted my face, but I didn't mink about me weather or anything. I really thought I was free, free of all me static, free of all me hate and pain. I dreamed I wouldn't write or call my parents for years and then, when I did, they could do Homing but accept what had happened and where I was. "It wasn't exactly comfortable sitting on the back of that small motorcycle for hours and hours. We rode through a short rain shower and it got cooler fast Finally, we stopped at a roadside restaurant for dinner and counted up the money we had together. I had scooped up all I had in my dresser drawer, but it wasn't much. "Lloyd thought ft was warm enough for us to spend the first night at least sleeping off me road. It was still quite an adventure for me, so I didn't mind cuddling up in his arms under a small bridge. We talked ourselves to sleep, making all sorts of plans. Maybe I was a fool, but I fell asleep thinking it was all possible. He would get MISTY work; I would get work. We would be able to afford a small apartment and in time we would have enough to really live right. Finally, we were bo(h free of all tfae phonies. " There are no Beverlys where we're going,' Lloyd promised as we drifted into our private fantasies. 'It was colder than we had expected during the night. I kept waking and I couldn't get very comfortable. Both of us looked washed out die next morning. We found a small restaurant where I cleaned up and fixed ray hair. We had a hot breakfast, which made us feel a lot better. "By mis time I imagined my mother was in some kind of a panic, enough of one to have called my father. But I also envisioned mem blaming each other as usual and not really doing anything about it "Lloyd was worried about us not having enough money to make it to Seattle and get situated. As we started out that second day, our enthusiasm had softened and thinned somewhat. I fell asleep on and off with my head against him. He mumbled something about our need to sleep in a real bed mat night. About two hours later, he pulled into the parking lot of a small convenience store and told me to wait on me motorcycle. I thought he was just going in to get us a snack, but when he came out, he was running. He hopped onto the cycle and we took off so fast, I nearly fell backwards. He sped up and I screamed at him, asking why he was going so fast. He didn't say anything. He just kept us going faster and faster. I was really frightened. A little more man a half hour later, I looked back ancLsaw a police car closing on us. 139 V C. AHDKEWS " 'You better slow down and stop. I dunk he's after us,* I shouted to Lloyd, bat he just went faster, trying to lose die police car by cutting off the highway at a turn. We nearly spilled and then he had to slow down because the road turned into nothing but a gravel path. "I was surprised to hear the siren and see the police car still behind us. It caught up and pulled alongside. Lloyd finally had to slow down, cursing under his breath. When the policeman stepped out of his car, he had his gun drawn and I was so frightened, I started to cry. "He made Lloyd get off me cycle and lay face down so he could put handcuffs on him and then he did the same to me. After that, he put us into the back of his car. " 'You're arresting us just for speeding?' I cried at him. " 'No ma'am,' he said, 'just for robbing that convenience store back there,' he said. "Lloyd had his head down. I asked him if that was true and he nodded and admitted that he had pulled a knife on me frightened elderly lady behind the counter. " 'I thought if we just had a little more money, we could make it all right,' he said. 'I'm sorry I got you into trouble,' he told me and I cried all me way to the police station, cried for both of us. "I was permitted to make a phone call. That was the hardest decision: whom to call. Daddy or Mommy? I remember standing there with me receiver in my hand, staring at the numbers. " 'You can't have all day,' the female officer nearby told me and I dialed Daddy. I was afraid Mommy would MISTY just get hysterical and forget to get me help. He wasn't at home, so I called his office. He listened and then spoke like someone on a telephone in his grave. He asked me to put one of the police officers on and I stepped away. "All I wanted to do was die before I had to face my parents again." JL/loyd told the police that I had no knowledge of the robbery and I did not know what he was doing when he stopped at the convenience store, but I had to go to court anyway. Daddy hired a lawyer for me. Lloyd had someone from the public defender's office. Because of his previous record, he was sent to a juvenile facility. I was put on probation but with die stipulation that I begin to see a therapist. It was what the school recom mended too. "For a while both my parents acted as if they bad been given lobotomies by my actions. I never saw them so quiet I think they were just terrified. I was expecting them to shout and blame each other as usual, but they sat next to each other in the courthouse and agreed with the attorney and with each other that neither had paid V. C. ANDREWS enough attention to me and that I was reacting to their breakup. "Finally, I thought, finally, the static will stop. "Of course, that truce didn't last long. They're both back to their old selves again, but for a short time at least, I felt relieved." "Did you ever hear from Lloyd again?" Jade asked. "I received a letter from him about a month later. The only reason I got it was I happened to be there when the mail arrived. I'm sure my mother would have torn it up if she had found it first. It was full of apologies. He said he was doing all right and at least there were no Bev- eriys where he was. I wrote back, but I had to do it secretly, of course. I told him to send his next letter care ofDarlene Stratton, but I haven't heard from him since. "Things are more or less back to normal at my house. My mother is on her tenth or eleventh new male acquaintance, as she calls them, but mere are still frequent meetings of the MHA at our house. There seems to be more of them, too. They cackle so much and so loudly, I nave to turn my music up to drown them out. "For a while afterward, my father was a little better about keeping his dates with me. We bad some nice weekends together, one trip up to Santa Barbara and one to San Diego. I even began to enjoy Ariel's company, too. She doesn't seem as worried about my behavior. I know a lot of people started to wink of me as reckless and maybe even as dangerous as Lloyd. Who knows what I would do? "Ariel's just... air molded into this soft, pretty person. Funny, but now I keep waiting for Daddy to hurt her MISTY and I feel sorry for her. He has started to voice little complaints about her, about the way she keeps the apartment, her inability to boil water, her vapid conversation. "That's right. Daddy used Charles Alien's very word, vapid.' "Maybe Mommy is right Maybe all men are monsters, even daddies." I glanced at Doctor Marlowe. "I guess I still suffer from a great deal of anger, right, Doctor Marfowe?" "It's a concern of mine," she admitted. I smiled at the others. "Recognizing your problem is the first step toward solving it." I recited. Jade laughed and Star relaxed her lips with an impish gleam in her eyes. Cathy looked nervously at Doctor Mariowe. "Well" Doctor Mariowe said, "this has been a good beginning. Wouldn't you all agree? Cathy?" she asked, spotlighting her. Cathy looked at me and nodded. "Yes" she said sofifly. We heard a small rap on the door and looked up to see Emma. 1 don't mean to interrupt. Doctor Mariowe, but you I. told me to let you know when their rides arrived. Jade's | chaufieur is here and Star's grandmother and Cathy's I mother have arrived as well" } "I have to call my mother "I said. "You can use me phone on my desk. Misty," Doctor Mariowe said. 145 V.C.ANDSEWS Everyone rose. "Shall we say the same time tomorrow then?" Doctor Mariowe asked. "Whose torn is it tomorrow?" Star asked. "How about you?" Doctor Marlowe countered. Star shrugged, gazing at me. I dialed my mother and punched four when the answering machine began. It forwarded the call to her calhilar. When she said hello, I heard laughter around her. "I'm ready. It's time. Where are you?" I asked. "Oh, we were just finishing. I'll be right there, hooey. How did it go?" "Peachy keen" I said. "I'm cared." She laughed nervously and repeated she was on her way. The others waited for me and we started to walk out together. "Misty, do you want to wait for your mother inside?" Dr. Madoweasked. "No, it's too nice out. I'm fine," I said. "Okay. Bye," she said and we all stepped out We paused outside the door. I saw Cathy's mother studying us. She was & small woman woo wore thick glasses and her dark brown hair cat very short. Jade's chauffeur looked bored and nearly asleep. Star's grandmother waved. Her modest older car with its dents and scrapes looked so out of place between the limousine and Cat's mother's late-model Taurus. That took a lot of guts today," Jade told me. "I hope we're aU as Inmost and forthcoming,''she added her eyes fixed on Star. MISTY "Maybe all our stones aren't as interesting," Star said. "What about you?" she asked Cathy. "Are you going to be as honest and forthcoming?" Cathy looked very frightened, shook her bead, and hurried toward her mother and their car. "See you tomorrow. Cat" I called. She looked back, surprised at the use of a nickname, but a small smile on her lips. "Cat?" Jade said and I explained why I called her that "Yes, mat fits," she said. "It doesn't matter. She's probably not even coming back," Star said. "Well, it would help if you didn't try to scare the hell out other," Jade muttered. "Scale the hell out of her? How did I scare the hell out of her?" "You just have mat look," Jade said, "What look is that?" "Like you're going to eat her alive" Jade said. Star looked angry for a moment and men smiled. "Well, from now on, I'll try to be sweet and prissy like you Beverlys," she said and sauntered off. I had to laugh. "She's not funny," Jade said. "Yes she is. And I don't think she's as bad as you make her out to be." "Oh. reaUy?" Jade demanded sounding annoyed that I bad disagreed with her. "And I wonder what her story win be like tomorrow." Jade was quiet for a moment and then nodded. "Yeah, I wonder," she said. 147 V.C.ANDSEWS We watched Cathy and her mother drive off. Cathy bad her head down and her mother was talking at her. She looked like she was lecturing her. Theo Star and her grandmother drove past us. Star looked out and pulled her shoulders back, her bead up, pretending to be a snob. Even Jade laughed. She continued to stand there, waiting with me. "Don't you have to go? Your chauffeur's been here awhile." "He can wait He gets paid enough," she said. "My mother win he here any minute," I said. "It's all right- She nodded, but still hesitated as though she didn't want the conversation to cod. She held onto the moment as if it was a raft in a treacherous sea. "Doctor Mariowe's okay, isn't she? I mean, she's not what you would expect a therapist to be " Jade said. "I do like her, yes. Do you think she's helping you, Aen?" "I suppose. Now, we're all supposed to help each other, right?" Jade asked. "Right" I said smiling. "See you tomorrow," she said, "when Star will be the star," She laughed at her own joke. 1 wouldn't mess with her," I called as Jade started toward her limousine. She looked back at me and smiled. She's really a very pretty girl, I thought I bet my boyfriend stories were nothing compared to here. I watched her get in and the limousine start away. She waved and in moments, was gone like the others. The sun was almost directly above the house now. It MISTY was wanner, but there was still a nice breeze. I wasn't as tired as I expected I might be after talking so much. In fact, I felt lighter, even more energetic. It was as if I had truly unloaded my dark baggage of trouble for a while. Why was it so hard to be happy? I wondered. Was anyone ever happy? Even Doctor Marlowe? Was Daddy happier now? Would Mommy ever be happy again? What about me? My mother would be here any moment and we would start for home. Across the city, we four giris went off in different directions, our lives like four comets in space, traveling through the dark. For a short while, thanks to Doctor Marlowe, oar paths would cross. We would share smiles and tears, laughter and heartbreak and we would hopefully learn that we were not as alone as we had thought. Maybe that was enough. Maybe we really could start again, holding hands, marching out this door, together, like renewed blossoms, welcoming me sun. Maybe. Prologue When my grandmother drove me to Doctor Marlowe's again for my second group-therapy session, I sat in the car for a few moments and thought, girl, just have her turn around and take you home. What good is it going to do you to tell your troubles to these three rich white girls, although I did think Cathy--or Cat, as Misty called her--wasn't as well-to-do as Misty aad Jade seemed to be. As we drove into Doctor Mariowe's driveway, I saw Jade's chauffeured limousine pun away, so I knew I wasn't me first to arrive. I couldn't help wondering if Cat was coming back. The whole time Misty talked yesterday, Cathy the cat looked like she was sitting on a cold, wet park bench, ready to leap off and scoot into a dark alley first chance she got. Most of the time Misty talked, she sighed and squirmed and looked at the ceiling and the floor, everywhere but at us or at Doctor Marlowe. If she could have crawled under her seat, she would have, I thought My story wasn't at all Bke Misty's. It wasn't about spoiled rich boys and big houses with ballrooms and such. I wasn't going to complain about all the meaningless toys and dolls and clothes I was given. What I was given probably wouldn't fill a corner in one of their rooms anyway. And I wasn't going to describe parents who couldn't see eye to eye about their egos. The last thing Mommy worried about was her makeup, her complexion, and whether or not her hair and domes were in style. I couldn't even begin to imagine Daddy going to fancy gyms and wearing expensive sweat suits. If Cathy the eat thought Misty's descriptions of what she called a hard Me were difficult to swallow, she'd surely choke to death in Doctor Marlowe's office once I began telling about my life. The thing is, did I want to begin? What were these girls going to tell me about me and my troubles mat I didn't already know myself, huh? What did Doctor Marlowe expect of us? I couldn't tell Misty anything that would have helped her yesterday. She wouldn't be able to tell me anything that could help me today. Aad that Jade... I was sore she'd be sitting mere with her nose pointed at me ceiling, refusing to lower herself to look my way. I bet she'd make me feel like she was doing me a favor just staying in the room while I talked. ^ I didn't like this at all, no, ma'atn. I had tossed and turned and fretted about it quite a while last night, worried they might laugh at me or mink my story was beneath mem. I didn't want to go in there and have to look at their smiles of ridicule. Granny looked at me, surprised at my hesitation. "What do you plan on doing. Star, just sitting there in me car all morning? You know I've got chores to run." "Coming here is a waste of time. Granny." I looked at her. "It ist" "Yeah, well the doctors and the judge don't think so and that's what counts here. Star, so you just better get on in mere and do what you're supposed to do. I can't abide any more trouble. Not with this old heart ticking down like some tired old grandfa ther clock." Granny knew mat was all she had to say to get me to do what she wanted. There was nothing I feared more for myself and my brother Rodney man her getting another heart attack or getting sick and dying on us. She was me only one left in the world who cared about us and loved us, and she was me only one we cared to love. I opened the car door and started to slide out "Okay" she sang to the front window, "I guess mere's no sugar for me this morning." kiss on her plump right cheek. Then she grabbed my hand as I turned away and held it so tightly it sent a shiver down the bone and into my spine. Her face was like one of her pieces of antique china, full of tiny cracks, still shiny, but on the verge of shattering the moment it was tapped a bit too hard. Granny and I had the same eyes, only hers were just a bit rounder and somehow still Mt up with hope more often than my much younger black pearls did. However, this morning her eyes were full of worry, making them look heavy, so heavy she looked like she wanted to just close them and lay her head back on that double down pillow-she claimed was full of good dreams. How I wished I had a pillow like that. Granny had had so many troubles in her life, troubles she had buried deeply in her mountain of memories, so that I never even knew about mem. She didn't want me to know. If I asked her too many questions about her own youth aad her own hardships, she would just shake her head and say, "You don't need to feed mat rat of hate living in your heart anything extra. Star. Your momma and daddy have done enough to provide it with a feast that's kept it too fat as it is." "What is it. Granny?" I asked as she squeezed my hand in the car. "You give Doctor Marlowe a chance to help you, Star. Don't shut all the doors and windows, child, like you've done so many times before. You're too young to become someone's lost cause, hear? Your momma likes to wear those shoes, but you kick mem off" "Yes, Granny," I said, smiling. If I had inherited just a small piece of mat steel spine others, I would surely make it through all me cam and wind on the road ahead of me, I thought, and there was plenty more to come. She let go and I continued to slide out of the car. "And don't took down on those other girls just because their families have some money," she warned me. I shook my head at her. "What do you know about people with money, Granny? You never had any rich friends to com plain about, did you?" "Never mind your smart mourn, child. I don't have to have close rich friends to know having lots of money doesn't mean you don't need sympathy and a helping hand. Those other girls wouldn't be here otherwise, would they?" she pointed out She was a smart one, my Granny. I guess some thing could be said for me school of hardship, too. Granny could be me valedictorian of that school and graduate with honors, I thought, not that it was something anyone would want or be proud of, especially Granny. "Okay, Mrs. Anthony," I said. Whenever I called her by her name, she knew I was teasing her. "you hold your tongue in there, child, and be cavil, hear?" she warned me finnly. "Yes, Granny." ''I'll be back the same time as yesterday," she said and started away. I watched her drive off, a little old lady, not more man five feet four inches tall, with shoulders still capable of holding up the responsibilities my much younger mother couldn't tolerate. Granny still had plenty of grit and walked proudly with her head high. Granny always kept her smoke-gray hair brushed back and tied neatly in a bun. She wore just a touch of lipstick, but no other makeup—ever. Her eye glasses were really the only frilly thing she permit ted in her life. They were fashioned like expensive designer glasses, with dark frames, ft gave her just enough of a touch of style to make her comfortable with her outward appearance, and she loved it when her older men friends kidded her and called her Miss America. She was once a very pretty woman. She didn't look her sixty-eight years, despite the tensions and disappointments in her life. Granny wasn't as much of a churchgoer as most of her friends, but she had a deep faith in me goodness of people and the promise of an everlasting paradise at me end of the difficult journey, m her mind were were always people worse off anyway, and she put more of her than she did for to-self. These was nothing she taught me that was more important to her than to despise and avoid self-pity. She said it was like "shackles around your ankles, keeping you chained to disaster and defeat. Instead, you pick yourself up when you get set back some and move on until it's time to stop and put your trust in the Lord," she advised. Maybe you had to be old to believe tike that, I thought. I wasn't ready to simply accept disappointments and defeat and move on. I refused to bend and I let whatever winds that blew at me know it I'd break before I'd bend. Granny told me that was just defeating yourself, but I still had the need to scratch and claw, kick and punch and spit into the faces of those who made my life miserable. & was supposed to ram an day in Los Angeles today and the clouds were blowing in from the northwest and thickening rapidly as the hands of the wind molded mem like day. Doctor Marlowe's large Tudor house looked darker, we windows reflecting the gray skies. It was a very big house, we biggest I had ever been in, here in one of the wealthiest neighborhoods in Brentwood, too. There was nothing to reveal that Doctor Marlowe's .house was a place where she treated patients, or clients, as they liked to call us. I guess that was deliberate. Doctor Marlowe certainly didn't want us to feel like freaks or anything. She wanted us all to be relaxed, like people just visit ing, but I had no other reason to come to this part of the city where so many rich people lived, no other reason than supposedly getting my head put back on straight However, no matter what the courts and the schools and die other doctors had said, I still didn't believe in the value of coming here even though Doctor Marlowe used words as her medicine. She prescribed different ways of thinking about things, used questions the way other doctors used X cays and always tried to turn your eyes around so you were looking into yourself instead of at her. I admit that she made me think about everything twice at least, but it still hadn't made me feel any better about myself or the things that had happened to me and my brother. I wasn't going to walk out of this big house and her office one day and be picked up by loving new parents, was I? She wasn't going to wave a magic wand over my horrible history and make it dissolve into thin air like some bad dream. I'd still be what Misty called an orphan with parents. It was a good description. Mommy and Daddy weren't dead and buried, but they were dead to me even though mere were no funerals. Instead of a procession to me cemetery, there had been a parade of lies and crippled promises limping along from me day I was born until today, until tins moment, all of it parked outside, still following me everywhere, waiting to be told where to go. Me, too, I thought, I'm waiting to be told where to go. Doctor Marlowe wanted to take me to some second chance, some new start full of new hope. She wanted me to believe that the only thing hold ing me back was myself. She spoke as if I didn't long for a real family and a nice home and nice friends, as if I had to be talked into it Right. It got me angry just thinking about how she wanted me to blame myself. She expected me to discover what was wrong wim me and fix it rather man point to a drunken mother and a deserter and deadbeat for a father. I wasn't ready to excuse them or forget them and it would be a cold day in hell before I would ever forgive them. Granny was right about the rat of hate gnawing away at my heart, but for now I didn't see any place else for it to be. Doctor Marlowe's maid Sophie, opened the doo^ for me and stepped back quickly as soon as she set her eyes on me. Maybe she thought I had some thing contagious. The doctor's sister Emma was nowhere in sight, which was fine with me. She was a big, heavy older woman who always looked at me as if she thought I might steal something from the house. I know I made her so nervous she couldn't wait to get out of my sight. I didn't want her there anyway. As it turned out, I was the last to arrive. They were all sitting where they had sat yesterday, with Doctor Marlowe in her chair. She wore a navy blue dress and had her hair brushed down. I thought it made her lode older. Maybe she thought she had to look that way with us. She was tall and lean, with long arms and legs. Yesterday we asked her why she wasn't married, but she wouldn't tell us. She claimed she was the doctor here. She'd do all me asking. It was on the dp of my tongue to say, "You're just hiding behind mat like you say we hide behind stuff," but I promised Granny I would try not to let my mouth and tongue have a mind of their own. Jade and Misty glanced at Cat and then at me with self-satisfied smiles on their faces because I had been wrong about her not showing up. After Misty had told her story, I predicted Cat would quit group therapy, but, if anything, she looked a little more bitter wan she had yesterday. Her hair was neatly brushed. She had on some lipstick and she wore a light blue cotton dress with matching blue loafers. Doctor Marlowe looked pleased about it, too. Maybe we were all a good influence on Cat, I thought At least someone might get something valuable out of this. It was just that I would have guessed Cathy would be-the least likely one. "Good morning. Star," Doctor Marlowe said with a warm smile on her face. Whether she meant it or not, she did make me feel like she was happy to see me. "Morning." I took my seat and looked at Misty, who seemed the most anxious of all for me to get started. What did die think I was going to do? I wondered, enter tain her? "It's getting so dark outside," Doctor Marlowe said, turning on another lamp. "We're in for a storm. So? How are you all today?" she asked. Jade was the only one who really responded. "Tired," she said with great effort. She was dressed as stylishly as she had beea the day before. Today she wore polka dot and blue silk pants with a sash, a ribbed cotton body suit, and a cardigan sweater tied over her shoulders like some fancy college girl. It all made my light blue and white one piece and scuffed loafers look like some hand-me-downs Granny had found at .a thrift shop. Misty was in jeans and sneakers and wore a T- shirt mat said Mommy went to Paris and all I got was this stupid T-shirt. "Still not sleeping well?" Doctor Marlowe asked Jade. Jade had a way of turning her head so her chin always stayed high. I hated admitting she was pret ty, but she was. Those green eyes made her special. "Nothing's changed," she replied. "Why should I sleep any better?" Doctor Marlowe nodded. Misty tucked the cor ner of her mouth into her cheek and Cat stared with admiration at Jade as if she had said the most important thing and was more important than Doc tor Marlowe. "Anyone want anything before we start?" Doctor Marlowe asked. "Got milk?" Misty asked with a silly grin. Jade laughed and Cathy the cat smiled. Misty was mak ing fun of the television commercial, of course. I couldn't help but snicker myself. At least Misty had some smiles and giggles to cany around as well as me tears and rage. I secretly hoped she had enough for all of us. "Well, when we take a break, we'll have some- dung," Doctor Marlowe said. She looked at me. "So, today is your day. Star," she said. "I don't know how to begin" I said, folding my arms under my breasts the way Granny always did when she was setting to hunker down behind an attitude or thought "Begin any place you want," Doctor Marlowe said. "No place comes to mind," I said sullenly. "Do you remember the first time your mother and your father had a bad argument?" Misty asked. "I mean a really bad, all-out argument" "Maybe she didn't have a father right from the beginning," Jade said in her most arrogant, haughty voice. I spun on her. "I had a father," I snapped. "My mommy and daddy had a proper wedding and all, too. In a church!" She shrugged. "Mine, too," she said. "You see all the good that's done me. Now look where I am." I stared at her a moment and then gazed at the other two. Everyone seemed to have the same desperate and lost look in their eyes. It occurred to me that despite our differences, we all had a similar way of saying, "Once upon a time." I guess I could find mine, I thought. Look for STAR Wherever Books Are Sold. Coming Soon in Paperback from Pocket Books V.C. ANDREWS® THE BESTSELLING SERIES OF NOVELS THAT HAVE CAPTIVATED MILLIONS OF READERS AROUND THE WORLD! Be sure to read the shocking story of the Dollanganger Family: FLOWERS IN THE ATTIC PETALS ON THE WIND IF THERE BE THORNS SEEDS OF YESTERDAY GARDEN OF SHADOWS Look for the spellbinding Casteel series: HEAVEN DARK ANGEL FALLEN HEARTS GATES OF PARADISE WEB OF DREAMS Don't miss the haunting tale of: MYSWEETAUDRINA And the dazzling Cutler Family series: DAWN SECRETS OF THE MORNING TWILIGHT'S CHILD MIDNIGHT WHISPERS DARKEST HOUR Discover the enthralling world of the Landry series: RUBY PEARL IN THE MIST ALL THAT GLITTERS HIDDEN JEWEL TARNISHED GOLD The dark secrets of the Logan Family: MELODY* HEART SONG UNFINISHED SYMPHONY MUSIC IN THE NIGHT OLIVIA The runaway chills of the Orphans miniseries: BUTTERFLY CRYSTAL BROOKE RAVEN RUNAWAYS "We lived in such a perfect world, Why were we io'iinpeifect?" ^i rui .ui.5Ll { *--1 vvcuii.Lu >} aj a. |! normal familv. But like so ;| they use Misty to hurt each 1^ other, to deliver tiny |i cruelties in an endless ii <)#^.' her--each one $3.99 U.S./$5.50 Can. ISBN 0-671-02800-6 Q28QO> 0076714003996 0 QA |o""76714"00399""6 Don't miss any of the other three novels in the V.C. Andrews^ Wildflowers miniseries; Star Jade Cat ^ . Coming ' soon from i Pocket Books!