Secrets of Foxworth (15 page)

“I don't know very much about it, anyway.”

He stared at me in that way he could with those brown eyes turning almost a dark orange when he focused them so intensely. “You're reading that diary,” he said.

“What diary?” I smiled, and he nodded.

“Better keep it that way, Kristin. I know how descendants of people who committed horrendous acts are stained with bad blood no matter what they do or who they become. It's like walking about with ghosts clinging to your shoulders, understand?”

What he said made me cringe. Sometimes I did feel like I was carrying ghosts.

“I've already tasted that stale bread, Dad,” I said. It was one of his expressions.

He nodded. I could see just the suggestion of tears in his eyes. He understood. “Okay. I'm going to demolish that place the way your mother scrubbed the kitchen floor,” he vowed, and left, closing the door softly.

I put the history book down and thought. Maybe he was right. Maybe I should toss the diary into the garbage and forget Foxworth and the poor
Dollanganger children. What good would come of my reading it, anyway? I couldn't save them from whatever fate they had. It was too late. Dad wasn't wrong about not wanting to seek out any more horror than we get daily on the news. Why go looking for it?

I turned off my light and curled up against my pillow. Of course, it was only my imagination, but I had forgotten that I had put the diary under my pillow, and it was like I could hear Christopher calling to me, begging me to read on. Someone had to listen. Someone had to know the truth. Otherwise, they would suffer in the darkness. I was the only hope to bring in the light.

In the morning, I realized just how determined my father was to get this job done, and as quickly as he could. He was up and dressed a good half hour before I rose and came down to have breakfast. I saw he was about to leave me a note and get started. It was barely light outside. He was in his jacket and hat.

“Talk about the crack of dawn,” I said.

“Oh. I got a new crew coming on this morning, backhoes and plows. They want some of the grounds cleared along with the rubble. The new owner's already talking about a pool and a pool house, fixing up tennis courts.”

“Do you know who it is?”

“Nope. Never asked. Whoever it is, good luck to him,” he said. “I put out your favorite cereal and have the bread ready to be toasted. So you're really coming over after school?”

“That's the plan.”

“Okay. We'll talk about dinner then. This looks like a Charley's Diner night for us.”

“Okay, Dad.”

“Be careful,” he warned. He never said good-bye. It was always “Be careful.”

A quick kiss on his cheek sent him on his way. From the way his shoulders were hoisted and his arms were flexed, he looked like he was off to do battle. Maybe in his mind he was. I ate my breakfast and then went up to make my bed, taking the diary out from under my pillow. I glanced at the clock. I was a little ahead of schedule.

“Don't do it,” I told myself aloud. “Don't you dare.”

But I didn't listen. I opened to where I had left off. Just a page or two, I thought, and I'd be off.

I was thinking more like an addict than a sensible young girl.

Until now, and mainly because of our grandmother's warnings and her dark view of us, neither Cathy nor I thought anything about the other being present when either of us bathed. Neither our mother nor our father had ever forbidden it, and if they didn't see anything wrong about it, we certainly didn't.

Cathy thought we had to clean up before eating our lunch. We had gone through so much of the dusty attic, practically swimming through layers of old air, skimming through the history of the family, stirring up bookworms and moths, and sweeping away gobs of spiderwebs.

“I feel putrid,” she declared. “We're all too dirty to put our hands on food.” She immediately directed me to help bathe Carrie and Cory. As soon as they were done and she had dressed them, she stripped and got into the tub.

Suddenly, as if just realizing where we were and what we were doing, she stopped washing her face, turned to me, and asked what would happen if the grandmother (she avoided saying “our grandmother,” as if calling her “the grandmother” made her sound more like the creature she thought she was) caught us like this.

I moved to the tub and embraced her. She put her head on my shoulder and choked back a sob.

How quickly it had all changed, I thought. I would do my best to hide it from her and the twins, but this did feel like being in a dungeon, no matter how lightly I treated it, and Grandmother Foxworth couldn't resemble a sadistic and cruel prison matron more.

“Forget about what she says,” I told Cathy. “We're going to be rich. Think about that, about all the things we'll have and be able to do.”

I knew she dreamed of being a famous ballerina. I had checked on the best schools for dance when Momma and Daddy mentioned such a possibility for her, and although they were expensive, I described them again. As I ranted on and on about the things we'd all have, I began to wash her back the way I often did, the way I washed Momma's back
occasionally. If she could walk in our mother's shoes, she would.

Despite how insignificant I made our grandmother's warnings and innuendos sound, I couldn't deny that she had put new thoughts in my male mind. I had looked at Cathy's naked body so often while we were growing up, but I always thought of it the way a student of human anatomy might. She was my own private female specimen, maturing right under my eyes and confirming all that I had read and studied about the birth of sex. Her breasts were already little buds crowned with slightly orange nipples, and the beginnings of her pubic hair told me she was marching to the drumbeat of her stirring hormones.

The second I felt a stirring in myself, I dropped the washcloth and backed away from the tub. What shocked me was the power and speed with which my own sexual awareness sprang out of the dark pocket in which it normally slept. I restrained it but never treated it as I would an unwelcomed guest when girls I knew flirted with me or showed a little too much of their bodies, maybe deliberately brushing themselves against me to seize my attention, something Mindy Thompson used to do whenever we were in lunch line or leaving a classroom. This was different. This was my sister Cathy. Maybe, I thought, our grandmother was right.

Cathy glanced back at me, surprised.

“They're getting restless again. I'd better move things along, distract them,” I told her, when I really meant distract myself.

She nodded and rose out of the tub. I thought she'd call for me to wipe her back, but she didn't, and I put all my attention on the twins.

We had our lunch, but almost as soon as it ended, they were complaining again. I rushed back up to the attic and found books to read to them. We broke out a checkers set for Cathy and myself. We stuffed every minute, every second, with something to keep them from crying and whining about being shut up in this house. They finally fell asleep and had their afternoon naps. Cathy and I fell asleep ourselves. The day waned, and before we knew it, we were all at dinner. The twins grew exhausted from their own endless complaining. It was going to be easy to get them to bed. It was now Cathy who looked like she would get hysterical any moment. She kept looking at the locked door and the windows and me.

“What?”

“How could she want to leave us like this? What if there's a fire? We'd have to tie sheets together and form a fire escape or something.”

“Brilliant,” I told her, and she brightened. “It's good that you think ahead. Most girls your age don't have any foresight.”

She beamed.

“If we both think of sensible things like that, we'll get through it, Cathy Doll.”

The dread left her face.

Years ago, our father's best friend, Jim Johnston, called us the “Dresden dolls,” because we were all flaxen-haired with fair complexions. We looked more like fancy porcelain people. The name stuck, and even neighbors began to refer to us as the Dresden dolls. I knew Cathy liked it, liked to be thought of as someone special, even though I wasn't crazy about being called any kind of doll.

She nodded, hopeful again. “Okay, how about checkers?” she said. “I'm determined to beat you.”

For a few minutes, at least, it was as if we were back at home. Cathy and I were playing checkers. The twins were comfortably asleep. All was quiet and well with the world. Maybe we could get through this, I thought. No, not maybe; we would get through this. Momma knew what she was doing, I decided. I felt cheerful again, buoyed up.

And then the door was thrown open, and she came into the room.

And it was like in one moment faster than a blink, all the air was sucked out of it.

I could hear the now-frantic sound of the buzzer. Kane had his finger on it and wasn't taking it off, so it kept ding-donging. At the same time, my phone began to ring.

“Oh, no!” I cried.

I had lost track of time. I could easily be late for school again!

“Where are you? I've been honking and pushing
your doorbell. I even called your cell, but it went right to your voice mail. I wasn't sure if you had forgotten and either gone with your father or driven yourself. What's going on?”

“I'll be right there!” I cried.

How could I be so absorbed that I wouldn't hear all that noise?

I shoved the diary under my pillow, grabbed my books, and practically leaped over the bed to get out the door. I flew down the stairs, nearly twisting my ankle at the bottom, and came close to ripping the door off its hinges to get out.

Kane wore a smile of incredulity. “What's happening?”

“Let's just go,” I said, rushing past him. I turned because he was still standing there. “Hurry!”

I got into his car, and he moved quickly now to get in and start the engine.

“Sorry,” I said.

“Don't tell me you overslept again.”

I didn't answer. He looked at me and backed out.

I was grateful now that we lived on a practically dead street, because neither he nor I looked both ways. We just shot out onto the street, and he spun the tires. If my father had been home and seen this, I'd be as dead as one of his doornails.

“It's going to be close,” Kane said. “Personally, I don't care. It'll be my first warning slip, but you . . .”

“Just don't get a speeding ticket, and don't go through any red lights,” I ordered.

If we got into an accident or Kane got a speeding
ticket, I'd feel worse than Cathy in the attic. I'd probably be just as sick to my stomach when the principal informed my father about my second lateness in a row. I pushed the vision of my father's face of disappointment out of my mind.

“So? What's going on? Are you sick or something? What happened?”

“Something,” I said.

He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “What?”

“Oh, no,” I said. We were making good time, but now my heart sank. There was one of those fender-bender accidents just at the road where we had to turn off to get to the school. Traffic was backed up. I knew there was a way around, but it would add a good five minutes and only that if we were lucky. Other people were probably doing the same thing by now. I started to tell him where to turn.

“I know, I know. Relax,” he said. “We're not going to be the only ones going to school who were caught in this mess. It's actually a bit of good luck. Mr. Market will have to take that into consideration.”

A little less than five minutes later, we turned into the school parking lot. I could hear the bell ringing.

“We're late for homeroom.”

“Stop worrying. I'll explain.”

“I don't need anyone to explain for me,” I replied, a little too harshly, but I couldn't help it. I was enraged at myself for putting myself in this position.

When we reached the front entrance, I looked back and felt some relief. Four more cars were pulling into the parking lot, with two more waiting to make the
turn. Kane was right. There would be enough of us in the same situation.

In fact, at the principal's office, there were three others ahead of us, all seniors. Mrs. Grant was writing out green slips, which indicated acceptable excuses. So the situation had already been explained and confirmed. Nevertheless, when it was my turn, she looked up at me with some disappointment in her face.

“I would have thought you would have left yourself lots of time, Kristin. You have to anticipate problems if you want to get ahead in life.”

“Yes, ma'am,” I said.

She shook her head but wrote out the slip.

“Who's she trying to be? Your second mother?” Kane asked after he got his green slip, too.

“I guess I need at least one,” I said, and he immediately looked sorry he had spoken.

I made it just as the bell to end homeroom was ringing, so at least I wouldn't be late for my first class. Nevertheless, all my girlfriends, who didn't know about the traffic jam, were surprised and curious. Lana had caught sight of Kane and me entering the school together.

“Kane picked you up for school?” she asked. “It's out of his way.”

“Yes, and yes,” I said.

“And you were both late,” Suzette said. All the girls smiled. I knew they were thinking Kane and I had been dilly-dallying and that was why we were late.

“It wasn't our fault,” I said, even though I knew that it easily could have been mine. I rattled off a
description of the car accident before anyone could ask anything else. Actually, I thought, it wasn't my fault. It was Christopher Dollanganger's.

I laughed to myself envisioning my meeting him someday and telling him.

I was sure he would say, “How I wish that was all I suffered in my teenage years, a late demerit in school.”

My girlfriends looked at me as we walked, all whispering.