The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! (188 page)

I didn’t know what to say or think. Cindy had promised to behave herself. She was innocent, I knew she was. She’d been so perfect, helping with Jory, resisting her natural tendency to argue with Bart. Joel had to be lying. Spinning about, I headed toward Cindy’s room with Joel close at my heels.

“You are lying about her, Joel, and I intend to prove that to you,” I said as I almost ran.

Just outside her door I paused and listened, hearing nothing at all. I lifted my hand to knock. “No!” hissed Joel. “Don’t give them any warning if you want to know the full truth. Just throw open the door and step inside the room and see for yourself.”

I paused, not wanting to even think he could possibly be right. And I didn’t want Joel to tell me what to do. I glared at him before I knocked sharply just once, waited a few seconds, then threw open Cindy’s bedroom door and stepped inside her room, which was lit by moonlight flooding in through her windows.

Two totally naked bodies were entwined on Cindy’s virgin bed!

I stared, shocked, feeling a scream in my throat that just stayed there. Before my amazed eyes Lance Spalding sprawled over my sixteen-year-old daughter, jerking spasmodically. Cindy’s hands clutched at his buttocks, her long red fingernails digging in, her head rolling from side to side as she moaned with pleasure, telling me this was not their first time.

What should I do now? Close the door and say nothing? Fly into a towering rage and drive Lance out of our home? Helplessly caught in a web of indecision I stood there as only seconds must have passed, until I heard a faint noise behind me.

Another gasped. I whirled around to see Bart, who was staring at Cindy, who’d rolled on top of Lance and was lustily riding him, crying out four-letter word vulgarities in between her moans of ecstasy, entirely unaware of anything but what she was doing and what was being done to her.

Bart had no indecision.

He strode directly to the bed and caught hold of Cindy around the waist. With a mighty heave he tore her off the boy, who seemed helpless in his nakedness and the bliss of what
had been going on. Bart ruthlessly hurled Cindy to the floor. She screamed as she fell face downward on the carpet.

Bart didn’t hear.

He was too busy handling the youth. Again and again his fists slammed into Lance’s handsome face. I heard the crack of his nose as blood spurted everywhere. “NOT UNDER MY ROOF!” he roared, repeatedly battering Lance’s face. “NO SINNING UNDER MY ROOF!”

A moment ago I felt like doing the same thing. Now I ran to save the boy. “Bart, STOP! YOU’LL KILL HIM!”

Cindy kept screaming hysterically even as she tried to cover her nudity with the clothes she’d dropped on the floor. They were all mixed up with Lance’s discarded garments. Joel was now in the room, raking his eyes scornfully over Cindy; then he was turning to smile at me with gloating satisfaction that said over and over again:
See, I told you so. Like mother, like daughter.

“See what you’ve raised with your pampering?” Joel intoned, as if behind a pulpit. “It was evident from the first time I saw her that that girl was nothing but a harlot under the roof of my father’s house.”

“You fool!” I stormed. “Who are you to condemn anyone?”

“You are the fool, Catherine. Just like your mother, in more than one way. She, too, wanted every man she saw, even her own half uncle. She was like this naked girl crawling lewdly around on the floor—ready to bed down with anything in pants.”

Unexpectedly Bart dropped Lance on the bed and hurled himself at Joel. “Stop it! Don’t you dare tell my mother she’s like her mother! She isn’t, she isn’t!”

“You’ll see it my way eventually, Bart,” said Joel in his softest, most sanctimonious tone. “Corrine got what she deserved. Just as your mother will get hers one day. And if justice and right still rule in this world, and God is in his Heaven, that indecent, naked girl on the floor trying to cover herself
will meet her end in fiery flames, as she deserves.”

“Don’t you say anything like that again!” bellowed Bart, so furious with Joel he forgot all about Cindy and Lance, who were both hastily pulling on the night clothes they’d abandoned. He hesitated, as if shocked to find himself defending the girl he incessantly denied was his sister. “This is my life, Uncle,” he said sternly, “and my family more than it is yours. I will deal out what justice is demanded, and not you.”

Seemingly very distressed and shaken, shuffling lamely like an older man, Joel ambled off down the hall, bent over almost double.

The moment Joel was out of sight, Bart turned his furious temper on me. “YOU SEE!” he roared. “Cindy has just proven what I suspected she was all along! She’s no good, Mother! NO GOOD! All the time she played the game of being sweet, she was planning how she’d enjoy herself when Lance came. I want her out of this house and out of my life forever!”

“Bart, you can’t send Cindy away—she’s my daughter! If you have to punish someone more than you have, send Lance away. You’re right, of course, Cindy shouldn’t have done what she did, nor should Lance have taken advantage of our hospitality.”

Somewhat mollified, he managed to simmer down a little. “All right, Cindy can stay since you insist on loving her no matter what. But that boy is going tonight!” He yelled at Lance, “Hurry and pack your things—for in five minutes I’m driving you to the airport. If you ever dare touch Cindy again, I’ll break the rest of your bones! And don’t think I won’t know. I have friends in South Carolina, too!”

Lance Spalding was very pale as he hurried to throw his clothes back into suitcases he’d just emptied. He couldn’t even look at me as he hurried by and whispered huskily, “I’m sorry and so ashamed, Mrs. Sheffield . . .” and then he was gone, with Bart right behind him, shoving him on faster from time to time.

Now I turned to Cindy, who had donned a very modest granny gown and was huddled under the covers of her bed, staring at me wide-eyed and scared-looking. “I hope you are satisfied, Cindy,” I said coldly. “You have truly disappointed me. I expected more from you . . . you promised me. Don’t your promises mean anything at all?”

“Momma, please,” she sobbed. “I love him, and I wanted him, and I think I waited long enough. It was my Christmas gift to him—and to myself.”

“Don’t lie to me, Cynthia! Tonight wasn’t your first time with him. I’m not as stupid as you presume I am. You and Lance have been lovers before.”

She wailed loudly, “Momma, aren’t you going to love me anymore? You can’t just turn it off, ’cause if you do, then I’ll want to die! I don’t have any parents but you and Daddy . . . and I swear it won’t happen again. Please forgive me, please!”

“I’ll think about it,” I said coldly as I closed her door.

*  *  *

The next morning as I dressed, Cindy came running into my room, crying out hysterically, “Momma, please don’t let Bart force me to leave too. I’ve never had a happy Christmas when Bart was around. I hate him! Really hate him! He’s ruined Lance’s face, ruined it.”

More than likely she was right. I had to teach Bart how to hold back his rage. How terrible for such a good-looking boy to have his beautiful nose broken, to say nothing of his black eyes and many cuts and bruises.

However, after Lance was gone, something peculiar laid a ghostly hand on Bart and turned him very quiet. Lines I hadn’t seen before etched from his nose to his beautiful shaped lips, and he was too young for face lines. He refused to look or talk to Cindy. He treated me as if I weren’t there, either. He sat sullen and quiet, staring at me, then rested his dark eyes fleetingly on Cindy, who was weeping, and I couldn’t remember
another time when Cindy had allowed any of us to see her cry.

Through my mind flitted all kinds of dreary thoughts. The place where owls and foxes resided, remembering the Bible we used to have to study every day. Where could understanding be found? There was a time for planting, a time for reaping, a time to gather in . . . where was our time for joy?

Hadn’t we waited long enough?

Later that morning I had a talk with Cindy. “Cindy, I am shocked at your behavior. Bart had every right to be enraged, even though I disapprove of the way he was so rough on that boy. I can understand
his
actions, but not yours. Any young man would have entered your room when you willingly opened your door and invited him in. Cindy, you have to promise not to do anything like that again. Once you are eighteen, you become your own boss—but until that day, and while you are under this roof, you will not play sex games with anyone here or anywhere else. Do you understand?”

Her blue eyes widened, took on the shine of forthcoming tears. “Momma, I don’t live in the eighteenth century! All the girls are
doing it
! I held out much longer than most do, and from all I’ve heard about you . . . you went after men too.”

“Cindy!” I snapped sharply. “Don’t you ever throw my past or present in my face! You don’t know what I had to endure—while you have had nothing but happy days full of everything that was denied me.”

“Happy days?” she asked bitterly. “Have you forgotten all the nasty, mean things Bart did to me? Maybe I wasn’t locked up, starved, or beaten, but I’ve had my problems, and don’t think I haven’t. Bart makes me feel so unsure about my femininity that I have to test all the boys I meet . . . I just can’t help it.”

We were at that time in her bedroom, while Bart was downstairs.

I stepped forward to take Cindy into my arms. “Don’t cry, darling. I do understand how you must feel. But you must try
to understand how parents feel about their daughters. Your father and I want only the best for you. We don’t want you to be hurt. Let this experience with Lance teach you a lesson, and hold back until you are eighteen and able to reason with more maturity. Hold out longer than that if you can. When you grab at sex too soon, it has a way of biting back and giving you exactly what you don’t want. It did that to me, and I’ve heard you say a thousand times you want a stage and film career, and husbands and babies have to wait. Many a girl has been thwarted by a baby that started because of uncontrollable passion. Be careful before committing yourself to anyone. Don’t fall in love too soon, for when you do you make yourself vulnerable to so many unforeseen events. Give romance a try without sex, Cindy, and save yourself all the pain of giving too much too soon.”

Her arms were tight about me, her eyes turned soft and told me we were again mother and daughter.

Later Cindy and I stood side by side downstairs, watching everything whiten with snow, grow misty with distance, cruelly isolating us even more from the rest of the world. “Now all roads from Charlottesville will be blocked,” I said tonelessly to Cindy. “What’s more, Melodie is acting so strangely she makes me fear for the good health of her child. Jory’s staying in his room as if he doesn’t want to encounter her, or any of us. Bart saunters around like he owns all of us as well as the house. Oh, I wish Chris were here. I hate it when he’s gone.”

I turned to find Cindy staring at me with a kind of wonderment. She flushed when she met my eyes. When I asked why, she murmured, “I just wonder sometimes how the two of you hang on to what you have, when I fall in and out of love so often. Momma, someday you’ve got to tell me how to make a man really love me, and not just my body. I wish boys would look first into my eyes like Daddy looks into yours; I wish they’d look at my face at least once in a while, for it’s not an ugly face, but they all stare at my boobs. I wish their eyes
would follow me around like Jory’s follow Melodie . . .”

Cindy put her arm around me and buried her face against my shoulder. “I’m so sorry, Momma, really so sorry I caused all that trouble last night. Thank you for not scolding me more than you did. I’ve been thinking about what you said, and you’re right. Lance has paid a heavy price, and I should have known better.” Pleadingly she gazed into my eyes. “Momma, I was serious, all the girls at school started way back when they were eleven, twelve, and thirteen, and I love Lance. And I held back, although all the boys chased after me more than they did the others. The girls thought I was doing it when I wasn’t. I pretended to be really with it, but then one day I heard some boys comparing notes and they were all saying they hadn’t scored all the way with me. They talked as if I were some kind of freak—or maybe a lesbian. That’s when I decided I’d let Lance have his way this Christmas. The special gift I had for him.”

I stared at her hard, wondering if she told all the truth, as she went on to tell me she was the only girl in her group to hold out until sixteen, and that was really old for a girl in today’s world. “Please don’t be ashamed, for if you are, then I’ll be. I’ve wanted to do it since I was twelve but held back because of what you said. But you’ve got to understand that what I did with Lance wasn’t casual. I love him. And for a while, before you and Bart came in . . . it felt . . . felt . . . so good.”

What could I say now ?

I had my own willful youth clearly tucked in a memory closet, ready to jump forward and put the vision of Paul before me . . . and the way I’d wanted him to teach me all the ways of love, especially when my first experience with sex had been so devastating, filling me with the kind of guilt that even now I could cry to look up at the moon that had seen Chris’s sin, and mine.

About six Chris called to say he’d been trying to reach me all day but the lines had been down. “You’ll be seeing me
Christmas Eve,” he said cheerfully. “I’ve hired a snowplow to precede me to the Hall, and I’ll be right behind. How are things going?”

“Fine, just fine,” I lied, telling him Lance’s father had fallen down the stairs and he had to fly home immediately. Then I rattled on and on, saying we were all set for Christmas, gifts wrapped, tree up, but Melodie was, as usual, clinging to her rooms as if they offered her the only sanctuary in the world.

“Cathy,” said Chris in a tight voice, “how nice it would be if you’d only level with me on occasion. Lance didn’t fly home. All the planes are grounded. Lance is, at this moment, not ten feet away from this very phone booth. He came to me and confessed everything. I took care of his broken nose, his other wounds, and cursed Bart all the time. That boy is a mess.”