The Heavenstone Secrets

  “But our bed …”

  “It was the bed she died in, Daddy,” Cassie boldly reminded him. “It wasn’t a happy place for you anymore. I knew what it was like for you every night to come up here and face the scene of … of our tragedy. We knew,” she added, turning to me.

  Daddy looked at me, and I nodded.

  “I’m not saying I don’t appreciate it. I’m just … overwhelmed. You even had the curtains changed, I see.”

  “Well, you know how it is with decorators, Daddy. Once you substitute one thing, they talk you into coordinating it with another and another, until you’ve redone everything.”

  Daddy nodded and finally entered his bedroom. We followed but remained in the doorway. He stood at the foot of his new bed and looked around.

  “Where are my pictures?”

  “They’re all on the shelf in your closet, Daddy.”

  “I don’t want them hidden away,” he said. His tone was sharper, even a bit angry.

  “Oh, well, I … we just thought … but do whatever you think with anything.”

  He looked into the bathroom. “I can’t believe you had all this done in a day, Cassie.”

  “I was planning it for a while. I coordinated everyone.”

  “No question you could do that,” he said. “Well, let me change and freshen up, and we’ll talk about it at lunch.”

  “Okay,” Cassie said, and turned to leave.

  I stood there looking at him a little longer. I thought he was visibly shaken, and although he was containing it well, he was disturbed and far from as happy about it as Cassie had anticipated.

  “C’mon, Semantha,” she ordered.

  I followed her down the hall and the stairway.

  At the bottom, she turned to me. “You could have been more supportive, said more, agreed more, so he would know it was something we both thought of doing.”

  “But we … I didn’t.”

  “We’re the Heavenstone sisters, Semantha. What one does the other does, what one suffers the other suffers, and what makes one happy makes the other happy. We always defend each other and support each other. We’re two parts of the same person.”

  I had never heard her put it that way. It suggested that we were equal, but in Cassie’s mind, I was surely not her equal.

  “He didn’t look pleased.”

  She gazed up the stairway. “He will be pleased after a while. Mark my words, one night he’ll just come out and thank us profusely. But you have to understand, Semantha, his deeper sorrow can’t be cured with the things we do to ease his pain over Mother’s death. His loss of his Asa remains. For now,” she added, and headed for the kitchen. I hesitated, thinking about what she was saying. What did she mean, “for now”? Still confused, I followed her.

  Later, at lunch, it was easy to see that despite what Daddy had said upstairs, he wasn’t terribly happy about the changed bedroom. He ate silently. Finally, Cassie leaned toward him and, in a soft tone, asked, “Are you upset with what’s been done, Daddy?”

  “No, it’s just too soon,” he said. Then he smiled. “I know you two are just trying to help me get through this. It’s not that I don’t appreciate it. Give me some time.”

  Cassie extended her hand, and he took it, and then I extended mine, and he took mine. The three of us sat silently around the table holding hands. I was the first to cry. Daddy took a deep breath and looked down. Cassie held her face firmly and looked at me with annoyance. I pulled back my sob and rubbed off my tears, and then we finished our lunch in silence. For me, it was almost a religious experience, but for Cassie, it was obviously a deep disappointment.

  Despite the passage of time, Daddy didn’t express any greater joy at the changed bedroom. In fact, over the next week and a half, he seemed to do everything he could to avoid going there. He came home later and later and stayed up later and later. There were a number of mornings when he was gone before either of us rose and got down to make breakfast. It was as if he couldn’t wait to get out. I was afraid to ask Cassie about it or even make a comment, even though I could see the disappointment deepening in her face. This was, after all, the first thing she had done in a long, long time that hadn’t completely pleased him. It wore on her. She was cranky and short with me. When I told her I had gotten my period, as she had asked me to tell her, and I described how it was, she looked very annoyed.

  “You asked me to tell you,” I said, thinking she would be pleased I had followed one of her orders so well.

  “Yes, but not to give me a blow-by-blow description, Semantha. It’s a disgusting event as it is without your elaborating on your flow.”

  “Sorry,” I said, and made up my mind never to share my period with her again.

  She was irritable with Mrs. Underwood as well and continually snapped at her, criticizing her techniques and what subject matter she emphasized while working with me. She implied that Mrs. Underwood hadn’t kept up with what was important in education today and suggested that she visit a public school. The look on Mrs. Underwood’s face by itself could have sunk a battleship. I could see that Mrs. Underwood was losing her patience with Cassie, and I didn’t anticipate her staying on much longer as my tutor.

  Finally, one morning, after Daddy had left before Cassie again, she surprised me by greeting me with a much brighter and happier face. She looked more energetic and fresh as well.

  “I have a surprise for you,” she began.

  “What?”

  “We’re having the dinner for Porter Andrew Hall this Saturday night. Daddy is off to a convention in New Orleans and will be gone for four days beginning Friday, so we have our work cut out for us. I want the house gleaming from top to bottom. I’m going to design a special dinner, and I’m taking you to buy you something more glamorous to wear.”

  “Me?”

  “Of course, you. I can’t have you looking like poor Cinderella or something while I look dressed to the nines, can I? How many times do I have to repeat that we’re the Heavenstone sisters, Semantha? What that means is that when anyone looks at us, they look at us as descendants of the most established historically important families in this state. Imagine if a king had two daughters, and one was a slob or something and the other was elegant and royal.”

  “I’m not a slob,” I said.

  “No, but you want to look as bright and as imperial as I do, especially to Porter. I’ll take you to Mother’s beauty salon as well. I’ve already made the appointment for both of us, for that and a manicure. You should have your nails done by a professional.”

  Cassie had gone to a beauty salon only a half-dozen times, if that, in her whole life and only because Mother made her go. From her childhood into her teen years, she had carried her dislike of anyone touching her hair. I was now even more impressed with her feelings about Porter.

  “Couldn’t we get something Uncle Perry created for our stores?”

  “Are you brain dead? Do you think Porter Andrew Hall would even look twice at those teeny-bopper or whatever you call them fashions? I’m talking about spending real money on your first real dress, Semantha. As you know, I have Mother’s entire wardrobe at my disposal, because we are the same size, but it’s different for you. For you, we need something special.”

  Special? For me? At times over the next few days, I thought she was more interested in how I looked than in her own appearance. She dragged me from one upscale store to another, from one designer to another, until she was satisfied we had found that special dress, special because it emphasized my “best qualities.”

  What surprised me here was what Cassie thought were my best qualities. She never complimented me on my figure. Mother used to remark how lucky I was that I had developed so perfectly proportionally. I had a metabolism that wouldn’t permit me to grow too heavy in my waist or my legs, and my breasts were firm, perky. Cassie had a nice figure, too, but Mother had never spent as many compliments on her as she had on me. Daddy had been more economical with his praise, but I would never forget one su
mmer day when we were all out at our swimming pool.

  I had come out in a new two-piece Mother had bought me the day before. Daddy, Cassie, and Mother were already out at the pool on their chaise longues. Cassie always wore a one-piece, never a two-piece. Everyone was reading when I strolled over, and then Daddy lowered his paper and whistled.

  “Well, look who’s become a beautiful young woman,” he said.

  Cassie, who always wore tons of sunscreen even though she kept herself mostly in the shade, looked as if she had an instant sunburn.

  “Yes,” Mother seconded. “She is.”

  “I tell you what, Semantha,” Daddy said. “You’re pretty enough to be dangerous now.”

  “What does that mean?” Cassie asked sharply.

  Daddy smiled at her and nodded at me.“She can give a man a heart attack.”

  Mother laughed, but Cassie returned to her book. I did feel like a little princess that day. Cassie never said another word about it, or anything about my figure, but the dress she settled on for me now was far more revealing than I would have ever expected.

  The saleslady described it as a “Sweetheart hourglass minidress.” It was a strapless style with built-in bra cups, giving me extra uplift. It had a seductive front leg split. It was made in a jet-black animal-print leather mixed with satin panels that shimmered as I moved. It was finished with a sexy lace back. When I tried it on, I saw other customers, women and men, stop to look at me.

  “Perfect,” Cassie said. “Let’s pick out some shoes to match. I have just the right string of pearls for you, too.”

  Although I would never have dared say it, it was tickling the tip of my tongue. Aren’t you afraid, Cassie, that I will steal away all of Porter’s attention? I almost did say it when I saw the dress she had chosen for herself. It was one of Mother’s plainer one-piece dresses in a light gray that did nothing for Cassie’s figure and complexion. It made me even more self-conscious, but she didn’t seem to care.

  Late Saturday afternoon, she came into my bedroom to give me another present, a bottle of one of Mother’s expensive perfumes.

  “Everything you have smells like candy,” she said. “This is perfume for a woman.” Then she said a strange thing to me. “Don’t look so surprised at everything I do for you, Semantha. When I do it for you, I do it for myself.

  “And,” she added before she left, “what you do for me you do for yourself.”

  It was something that should have made me feel happy, reinforced our being sisters, close and loving, but like so many things Cassie said and did, it left me standing with my heart skipping beats.

  Hangover

  WHEN THE DOORBELL rang, I felt as if I were about to step onstage as the curtain was raised. Cassie insisted that I answer the door and start showing Porter the house. She was still very busy in the kitchen. Porter was wearing a beautiful black silk sports jacket with a light wool black V-neck sweater and black slacks. He wore no jewelry aside from his gold watch. In his right hand, he had a bouquet of red roses and in his left a box of candy wrapped in a pink ribbon.

  “Hi, Sam, this is for you,” he said, handing me the box of candy. “Your sister told me chocolate mints were your favorite.”

  “Thank you.”

  I was more surprised at Cassie telling him what I favored than I was at receiving the gift. I couldn’t get used to the idea of them spending much time talking about me.

  “You look beautiful. That’s quite a dress, and I love what you had done to your hair.”

  The way his eyes moved over my body and the way he smiled made me very self-conscious. I held the box of candy against my breasts, covering my cleavage because his gaze seemed locked on that. When he widened his smile, I felt silly being so modest. What did I expect when I put on this dress? I blushed, and my heart did little flip-flops when I looked at myself in the mirror the first time I put it on. It still amazed me that Cassie, who was so critical of the way girls dressed to go to school, would have chosen this dress for me.

  I stepped back so he could enter.

  “Something smells really good, and I don’t only mean your delicious perfume,” he added, which only made me feel more nervous.

  “Cassie’s been preparing all day. She finally decided on surf and turf. She likes to marinate the filet for hours and hours, and she’s made special couscous. No one steams vegetables as well as she does, and there’s this dessert …”

  I saw from the amused look on his face that I was babbling, and stopped.

  “Your father told me what a great cook she is. I skipped lunch today so I could make a pig of myself.” He looked around. “This is an amazing house.”

  “Cassie wants me to start you on the tour. She’ll be right out,” I said.

  “Thank you.”

  I led him into the living room first and began to explain the portraits. I told him the story of Asa Heavenstone but didn’t mention how his father had died. After I described our furniture and why Mother loved this style, I showed him her artifacts, her collected pieces from Spain, Hungary, and England. He seemed very impressed and told me I was as good a guide as any he had met.

  “After all, this house is historic. I do feel as if I’ve entered a museum, although,” he added quickly, “it does have a warm, lived-in feeling. Your mother made wonderful choices.”

  “She spent most of her time in this room,” I said, gazing at the settee on which she would sit for hours and hours reading. “Let me show you the den.”

  “This is my kind of room,” he said when I took him to the den. He admired all of Daddy’s electronics and told me it was all high-end. He loved the leather furniture and thought our collection of movies and CDs was quite extensive.

  “My mother only liked to see films here. She loved this room as much as my father does,” I told him.

  “I can see why.”

  As I took him toward Daddy’s office, Cassie joined us, and he gave her the roses. I showed her my box of candy.

  “How thoughtful. Thank you, Porter. Semantha, why don’t you put these in a vase for me and put it on our dining-room table? You can get the salad ready to serve and open one of the bottles of wine I have out so it can air.”

  I nodded, and she led him on to see the rest of the house. They were gone for a good fifteen minutes. The moment I heard them coming down the stairs, I brought out the salad.

  “What a beautiful dining room and table,” Porter said, standing back to admire it. “Where was the set made, Semantha?” he asked with a tight smile, as if we shared secrets.

  “Spain.”

  “I thought so,” he said. “We don’t sell furniture this expensive, of course, but I know something about it.”

  “You’d better. We’re slowly going to upgrade our merchandise,” Cassie told him.

  Cassie had set her place where Daddy normally sat and had me on her right and Porter on her left. When she moved to her seat, Porter rushed to pull her chair out for her and then mine.

  “May I?” he asked, reaching for the wine.

  “Please do,” Cassie said. “Semantha is having wine with us tonight.”

  “Good,” he said, and poured our glasses and his own.

  Cassie leaned over to whisper.“I forgot to tell you to bring out the bread. And bring the olive oil, too.”

  I jumped up and quickly fetched them. She had the bread all sliced, with a touch of garlic, in the bread warmer. Porter was up again to pull out my chair as soon as I had returned. Cassie nodded at me as if to say, This is what a gentleman is like. Get used to it.

  I had wondered what we would all talk about, but Cassie answered that almost immediately when she continued to talk about the Heavenstone Stores, especially the one Porter was in. She praised him, but I could see that he was far more pleased with how critical she was of the store’s manager. Porter was his assistant. When she started to discuss her financial analysis of the store in dry details and he responded, I felt invisible. I drank my glass of wine before Cassie and I went into th
e kitchen to bring out the surf and turf.

  When we returned, I saw that Porter had poured me another glass of wine, and I looked to Cassie to see if she had noticed or cared. She said nothing. Porter raved about the food. Everything was wonderful, but I was surprised that I was beginning to feel the effects of the first glass of wine so soon. It actually slowed down my eating. I didn’t want to say anything and look like a little fool who couldn’t hold two glasses of red wine. I could just imagine my friends at school laughing at me. Wine was probably like soda to most of the girls. Most important, I didn’t want to embarrass Cassie. This was, after all, the first time she had invited a young man to our home. All I had to do was ruin it for her.

  Neither Cassie nor Porter seemed to notice how I was feeling, anyway. They talked on and on about the business and Cassie’s plans for changing this and that. Their voices began to drone in my ears, their words merging until I couldn’t distinguish one from the other. I felt myself waver and put my right palm down on the table to steady myself. It was as if the room was tilting first to the right and then to the left. I envisioned everything sliding off the table. Finally, their words were distorted, slowly pronounced, deeper in tone. I realized Cassie was talking to me, but I couldn’t respond. I was only vaguely aware of Porter rising and coming around the table. I thought I shouted as I slipped off my chair and fell into his arms.

  The rest of the night seemed to be one long dream. I was floating like an astronaut in space. My body had lost all of its weight. Like a helium balloon, I drifted up over the stairs, bounced off a wall, and floated into my bedroom. I thought I could hear Cassie and Porter talking, but their voices were very far off, and I couldn’t understand anything they said. I do remember Cassie’s fingers on my clothes and laughed to myself, imagining that I was a banana being peeled.

  In my dream, when I turned my head to the right, I saw Porter totally naked. He seemed to take forever to come toward me, but finally he did, and I could feel his hands over my now-naked breasts before he ran his palms down the sides of my hips and gently lifted my legs so he could fit himself comfortably between them. When he entered me, the shock sent me reeling backward into some dark cloud. My whole body seemed to undulate like a wave in the ocean. It went on and on, pushing me deeper into the darkness and then, when I began to emerge, pushing me back.