Secrets of Foxworth (31 page)

I cleaned up the dinner dishes and pots and pans and then went up to do my homework. Every once in a while, I paused and looked at the diary. Was I rushing my work so I could get back to it? If my grades suffered because of the diary, my father would have another reason to criticize me for reading it, I thought, and I tried hard to concentrate on my math, science, and history assignments. By the time I finished, it was late. My father had already stopped by to say good night.

Nevertheless, after I prepared for bed, I slipped the diary out from under the pillow, promising myself I would read only a few pages. There was another way I was getting to be like the Dollanganger children, I thought. I was lying to myself when I told myself I could limit what I read, even for an hour, as long as I was in the same room with this diary. It had become a magical door through which I passed to enter the Foxworth attic.

Cathy had no idea I had done it, but one afternoon soon after, when Momma was about to leave, I slipped her a note: “Momma, you have to do me a great favor. You have to get Cathy her ballet costumes, the leotards, toe shoes, and matching tutus. Quickly.”

She read the note and looked at me. She understood what I meant, how close Cathy was to breaking and how difficult that would make our continuing to cooperate with her efforts to win back her father's approval. The next time she came, she had the box. She had cleverly slipped in a card with the words “From Christopher” on it.

I was right about the change it would bring. I put up the barre, and Cathy went at her ballet practice, reviving all she had been taught. The twins would sit and watch her for hours, fascinated with her exercises. I had to admit that I had never realized just how graceful and beautiful Cathy was until I saw her dancing in the attic. How ironic. It took this dreadful situation to get me really to look at her and think of her as being on the verge of some greatness. She was blossoming right before my eyes.

Once she caught me watching her as intently as the twins were, and she suddenly turned and floated across the floor. That's the way it seemed. She wanted me to dance with her. I thought I would escape by saying I was interested only in the waltz, but she found the right records and had me out there. I protested about my own clumsiness,
but I had become a project for her. She would teach me every dance she could, even rock and roll.

“It's not me,” I told her. “I can't be someone I'm not.”

I saw how disappointed she was, but I couldn't, even up here. I distracted her by suggesting that we work on our attic garden and change the leaves we had created to fall leaves. The twins were into it, and we spent hours changing the season as if we had become nature itself and just as powerful. Poof, there was yellow and brown and red, just like right outside the mansion.

For a while, I had managed to keep them all content again. The whining and complaints were fewer and fewer. I knew that as long as Cathy was with me, helping, managing the twins, we could last until Momma succeeded. But I also knew that Cathy craved relationships. She needed friends far more than I did. She was naturally full of questions and plans, dreams and fantasies. Ordinarily, I would ignore all that. I hated pretending, but it was clear she desperately needed it. So for hours at a time, I would lie beside her on our crummy mattress and talk about our futures. Somehow the conversation always ended up on the topic of who would be the right man for her and the right woman for me.

It was clear from these conversations that Cathy did not respect our mother anymore. She accused of her being stupid and selfish, and I
had to defend her continually. I could see that no matter what I said, Cathy held on to her feelings. She was still raging inside, her anger only taking a short nap and ready to leap up at a moment's notice.

Even though we were in a sort of limbo, which I feared because I could see the twins losing interest in so many things like even getting outside, I realized we were slipping into a darker and darker place. The withering of the real flowers frightened me, because I dreamed of us withering, too. Cathy sensed it. It was more her idea than mine for us to drag one of the old mattresses to the eastern windows so we could bathe in some sunlight. “Don't all living things need it?” she asked. I didn't want to mention those creatures that lived in total darkness, because she would say that was exactly what we were becoming. Instead, I dragged the mattress there.

Cathy asked me if it wouldn't be better for us to lie naked in the sunlight, “so more of our bodies benefit.” We were never afraid of being naked in front of each other, but we were older now, changes coming faster than even I anticipated. I didn't want to get into all that, so I agreed, and we all got naked.

I tried not to look at the changes in Cathy's body, her thickening pubic hair, her budding breasts, the curve in her buttocks and the smoothness of her legs, some of the muscularity and shape coming from her dedicated ballet
practice. She was looking at me now, too, but I resisted bringing my hands down to cover myself. I was afraid of that part of me acting on its own.

Suddenly, the twins were asking me questions about our sexual differences. Never was Cathy more interested in my clumsy attempts to make it all seem inconsequential. She wanted to know more about the male sexual experience, and I tried to change the subject, but I could see this was only the beginning.

Momma, I thought, please get us out of here soon.

I had more trouble than ever trying to fall asleep after reading this. The interest Cathy had in sex mirrored my own. I was closer than ever to realizing it fully with Kane. I would be lying if I said I hadn't fantasized about it repeatedly during the last few weeks, especially now.

In a dream, I saw myself lying in the Foxworth attic, but instead of being naked next to Christopher, I was lying beside Kane. In this dream, we had decided to do that and see how long we could resist touching each other. We were both closing our eyes, but I was sure his heart was pounding as hard and fast as mine. Every once in a while, one of us would open our eyes and look at the other. Finally, we did so at the same time. He smiled.

“Kristin,” he whispered, and began by reaching for my hand. I gave him mine, and we held each other for a long moment. He turned toward me, and I turned
toward him. He edged closer, and we kissed, only our lips touching. We both pulled back. “I'm dying inside,” he whispered.

“Don't die,” I said, and he smiled and moved closer now, his legs against mine, his stomach touching mine, his lips grazing softly over my face, my neck, and my breasts. I could feel his growing excitement building between my legs, legs that were relaxing too quickly. The woman inside me was pushing to be fulfilled. I was growing more helpless, but it was a helplessness I welcomed. “Oh, Kane, we've got to be careful,” I said.

“I know. I'm ready,” he said. He was prepared. My last reason to resist dropped away. I was welcoming him, drawing him into me. We were sealing our lips together, clinging to each other as if we were afraid we would fall off the earth.

I think I actually cried out in my sleep. I awoke with my heart pounding and listened for a moment, anticipating my father coming to see what was wrong. A door opened and closed, but then the house was silent. I probably had imagined it, I told myself, and relaxed again. I was almost afraid to close my eyes. My body was like a bow pulled back, ready to be released. It was a struggle, but somehow sleep finally seeped in, slipping under my lids and soaking me in a repose so deep it took more than a splash or two of sunlight coming through my windows to waken me.

Since I had the day off from school because of teacher meetings, my father didn't come to the door, but I knew he was up already, working on breakfast downstairs. I could hear him moving about. I thought a
moment, remembered that Uncle Tommy was coming today, and got up quickly to dress and get downstairs.

“I think when girls get older, they sleep longer in the morning,” my father said as he scrambled eggs. No one made them tastier. He turned to me. “Is that because they have longer dreams or what?”

“It's ‘or what,' ” I said, and he laughed.

I looked at the table. There were three settings.

“Who else is coming to breakfast?”

“Tommy called. He should be here any moment. He surprised us. He flew in last night, stayed at the airport hotel, and got up early. I think he just wants a good breakfast for a change,” my father said.

“You were always a cook, weren't you, Dad?”

“My father couldn't get over it. He was an old-fashioned guy. I did all the manly things he expected me to do, worked with him, fixed things around the house, joined different sports teams, whatever he had done at my age, but I did enjoy being in the kitchen with my mother. She had a lot of little tricks passed down to her, and I never forgot them. You're really going to be eating your grandmother's eggs today,” he said.

The doorbell sounded. I practically flew to answer it.

“I must be at the wrong house,” Uncle Tommy said when I opened the door. “The Kristin Masterwood I remember was an ugly duckling.” He laughed and scooped me up in his arms.

“Hi, Uncle Tommy!” I cried after he kissed my cheek and I kissed his.

He stepped back and shook his head. Then he looked at me and shook his head again.

“What?”

“I'm surprised there isn't a line of boys waiting at this door.”

“Stop blowin' her up,” Dad said behind me. “This isn't one of your Hollywood gigs.”

They hugged, and Uncle Tommy nodded at me. “I'm not exaggerating much, Burt, and something tells me she's got your levelheadedness when it comes to her ego.” He stepped back and looked at him. “You, on the other hand, haven't changed much.” He turned back to me. “I always thought your father was a tough old geezer, despite being only three years older than me.”

“You haven't changed much, either, Dandy Man, although I see some strands of gray sneaking in.”

Uncle Tommy had a wavy head of dark brown hair, neatly styled. I would never say he was better-looking than my father, but he did have an impish twinkle in his hazel eyes that probably titillated most of the women he pursued. He was slimmer and an inch or so taller. My father always said Uncle Tommy took after their mother more, which was lucky for him. He was always a stylish dresser, always coordinating his shirts, pants, shoes, and socks as though he expected to be photographed, even when he first got up in the morning. Today he just wore a light blue sweater and a white shirt with a pair of dark blue slacks and black loafers.

Suddenly, like a magician, he produced a small box in pink gift wrap.

“Found this on the plane last night,” he said, handing it to me, “and thought it might be something you'd like.”

“What?” I took it gingerly. “Found it?”

“Where's your bag?” Dad asked him.

“In the car. I'll get it later. I'm starving. You know how that food on the plane can be.”

“Never ate it,” Dad said.

He was watching me tear off the gift wrap and open the small box. There was a gold necklace in it with a pendant that had a ruby at the center and tiny rubies surrounding it.

“I remembered you liked rubies,” my uncle said. “I hope.”

“It's beautiful, Uncle Tommy. Thank you,” I said, and hugged him.

I looked at Dad. We both knew I liked rubies because they were my mother's favorite. I was fighting back tears of happiness. They both could see it.

“When do we eat?” Uncle Tommy asked.

“Right now. Go on and wash up,” Dad ordered. He was always the big brother.

Uncle Tommy laughed and headed to the bathroom. I followed my father into the kitchen. He paused to watch me struggle to get the necklace on.

“Here,” he said, and took control, mumbling under his breath. “Found it on a plane. Once a storyteller, always a storyteller.”

I retreated to the hallway and glanced at myself in the wall mirror near the front door. Then I hurried back to the kitchen when Uncle Tommy entered.

“Thank you so much, Uncle Tommy. It's beautiful.”

“Now it is. It's on you,” he said, and sat down at the table. “So tell me everything. How's school? How many boyfriends do you have? How much of a nag is my brother?”

“Not as much as I'm gonna be now that you're here,” Dad said, and they both laughed.

I helped serve the toast, eggs, and bacon and poured Uncle Tommy his cup of coffee.

“Ma's recipe, for sure,” Uncle Tommy said when he took his first forkful of eggs. “She was cooking for me right up to her last day on this earth,” he told me.

“And who's cooking for you now?” Dad asked. “Certainly not you.”

“I have some . . . domestic help,” he replied, and gave an impish smile.

“I bet.”

It was the best breakfast we'd had for a very long time, not because I didn't enjoy having breakfast with just my father but because I could sit back and be an audience as they reminisced about their parents, growing up together, and things they had done that had brought my grandparents both joy and consternation.

“Don't ever let your father convince you that he was an angel just because he was older than me,” Uncle Tommy said.

“With you in the house, even Jack the Ripper would look like an angel,” Dad said, and began to tell more stories about pranks Uncle Tommy had committed and how many times he had had to save him from getting into real trouble.

They were both into it so much that neither noticed me clearing the table and washing the dishes. I smiled to myself. It was rare that I felt so much attachment to my family. I noticed how they both tiptoed around any references to my mother, but it was impossible not to talk about her.

“I think I miss her more than you do,” Uncle Tommy told my father. “She was the one who could make me feel guilty about being irresponsible.”