Petals on the Wind

  I stifled the sob that she might have heard. My emotions raged out of control. I wanted to run up and scream accusations before her husband, and shock him and terrify her! I also wanted to run up and throw my arms about her, cry out her name and plead that she love me again. But all the tempestuous emotions I felt were submerged in the tidal wave of spite and vengeance I felt. I didn't accost her, for I wasn't ready to face her yet. I wasn't rich or famous. I wasn't anybody special and she was still a great beauty. She was one of the wealthiest women in the area and also one of the luckiest.

  I dared much that day but they didn't turn to see me. My mother was not the type to look behind her or stare at passers-by. She was accustomed to being the one who drew all the admiring glances. Like a queen among peasants she strolled as if no one was on the street but her and her young husband.

  When I had my fill of viewing her, I looked at her husband and drank up the special kind of virile, pantherlike handsomeness that was his. He no longer sported a huge thick mustache. His dark hair was waved smoothly back and was styled modishly. He reminded me a bit of Julian.

  The words my mother and her husband exchanged weren't particularly revealing. They were discussing what restaurant they should dine in, and did he think the furniture they'd shopped for this afternoon could be bettered if they shopped in New York? "I do love the breakfront we chose," she said in a voice that brought back my childhood. "It reminds me so much of the one I bought just before Chris was killed."

  Oh, yes. That breakfront had cost two thousand five hundred dollars and was so needed to balance one end of the living room. Then Daddy died on the highway and everything unpaid for was repossessed, including the breakfront.

  I followed where they led, daring fate to let them see me. They were here, living in the home of Bart Winslow. As I tagged along, full of vengeful schemes, despising her, admiring him, I planned which way to hurt her most. And what did I do--I chickened out! I did nothing, absolutely nothing! Furious with myself I went home and raged in front of the mirror, hating my image because it was her all over! Damn her to hell! I picked up a heavy

  paperweight from the special little French provincial desk Paul had bought me and I hurled it straight at the mirror! There, Momma! You're broken in pieces now! Gone, gone, gone! Then I was crying, and later a workman came and replaced the glass in the mirror frame. Fool, that's what I was.

  Now I'd wasted some of the money I was planning to use for a wonderful gift for Paul's fortysecond birthday.

  Someday I'd get even, and in a way in which I wouldn't be hurt. It would be more than just a broken mirror. Much, much more.

  A Birthday Gift

  . Medical conventions ruined many a plan of mine, as did patients. On this unique day I skipped ballet class to rush straight home from high school. I found Henny in the kitchen slaving over a gourmet menu I had planned--all Paul's favorite dishes. A Creole jambalaya with shrimp, crabmeat, rice, green bell peppers, onions, garlic, mushrooms and so many other things I thought I'd never finish measuring out half teaspoons of this and that. Then all the

  mushrooms and other vegetables had to be sauteed. It was a troublesome dish I wasn't likely to make again.

  No sooner was this in the oven than I began another cake from scratch. The first was sunk in the middle and was soggy. I covered up the hollow with thick frosting and gave it to the neighborhood kids. Henny bustled and bumbled around, shaking her head and throwing me critical glances.

  I had the last rose squeezed from the pastry tube when Chris dashed in the back door bearing his gift. "Am I late?" he asked breathlessly. "I can't stay longer than nine o'clock; I have to be back at Duke before roll call."

  "You're just in time," I said, all flustered and in a flurry to get upstairs and bathe and dress. "You set the table while Henny finishes up with the salad." It was beneath his dignity, of course, to set a table, but for once he obliged without complaint.

  I shampooed my hair and set it on large rollers, and polished my nails a glowing, silvery pink, my toenails too. I painted my face with an expertise born of hours of practice and long consultations with Madame Marisha and the beauty assistants in the department stores. When I was done no one would have guessed I was only seventeen. Down the stairs I drifted, borne aloft by the admiration that shone from my brother's eyes and by the envy from Carrie's and a big grin that split Henny's face from ear to ear.

  Fussily I arranged the table again, changing around the noise-makers, the snappers and the colorful, ridiculous paper clown hats. Chris blew up a few balloons and suspended them from the chandelier. And then we all sat down to wait for Paul to come and enjoy his "surprise party."

  When he didn't show up and the hours passed, I got up to pace the floor as Momma had done on Daddy's thirty-sixth birthday party when he never came home, not ever.

  Finally Chris had to leave. Then Carrie began to yawn and complain. We fed her and let her go to bed. She slept in her own room now, especially decorated in purple and red. Next it was only Henny and me watching TV as the Creole casserole kept warming and drying out, and our salad was wilting, and then Henny yawned and left for bed. Now I was left alone to pace and worry, my party ruined.

  At ten I heard Paul's car turn into the drive and through the back door he strode, bearing with him the two suitcases he'd taken to Chicago. He tossed me a casual greeting before he noticed my fancy attire. "Hey, . . ." he said, throwing a suspicious glance into the dining room and seeing the party decorations, "have I somehow managed to spoil something you planned?"

  He was so damned casual about being three hours late I could have killed him if I hadn't loved him so much. Like those who always try to hide the truth, I lit into him, "Why did you have to go to that medical convention in the first place? You might have guessed we'd have special plans for your birthday! And then you go and call us up and tell us what time to expect you home, and then you're three hours late--"

  "My flight was delayed --" he started to explain. "I've been slaving to make you a cake that tastes as good as your mother's," I interrupted, "and then you don't show up!" I brushed past him and pulled the casserole from the oven.

  "I'm ravenous," said Paul humbly,

  apologetically. "If you haven't eaten, we might as well make the most of what looks like it could have been a very festive and happy occasion. Have mercy on me, Cathy. I don't control the weather."

  I nodded stiffly to indicate I was at least a little understanding. He smiled and lightly brushed the back of his hand over my cheek, "You look absolutely exquisite," he breathed softly, "so take the frown off your face and get things ready, and I'll be down in ten minutes."

  In ten minutes he had showered and shaved and changed into fresh clothes. By the light of four candles the two of us sat down at the long dining table with me to his left. I had arranged this meal so I wouldn't have to hop up and down to serve him. Everything that was needed was put upon a serving cart. The dishes that had to be served hot were on electrical heating units, and the champagne was cooling in a bucket. "The champagne is from Chris," I explained. "He's developed a liking for it."

  He lifted the champagne bottle from the ice and glanced at the label. "It's a good year and must have been expensive; your brother has developed gourmet taste."

  We ate slowly and it seemed whenever I lifted my eyes they met with his. He'd come home looking tired, mussy; now he looked completely refreshed. He'd been gone two long, long weeks. Dead weeks that made me miss his presence in the open doorway of my bedroom as I practiced at the barre, doing my warm-up exercises before breakfast to beautiful music that sent my soul soaring.

  When our meal was over I dashed into the kitchen, then glided back bearing a gorgeous coconut cake with miniature green candles fitted into red roses made of icing. Across the top I'd written as skillfully as I could with that pastry tube, Happy Birthday to Paul.

  "What do you think?" Paul asked after he blew out the candles.

  "Think about what?" I questioned back, carefully se
tting down the cake with twenty-six candles, for that was the age he appeared to me, and the age I wanted him to be. I felt very much an adolescent, floundering in the world of adult quicksand. My short, formal gown was flame-colored chiffon, with shoestring straps and lots of cleavage showing. But if my attempts to look sophisticated had succeeded, inside I was in a daze as I tried to play the role of seductress.

  "My mustache--surely you've noticed. You've been staring at it for half an hour."

  "It's nice," I stammered, blushing as red as my gown. "It becomes you."

  "Now ever since you came you've been hinting how much more handsome and appealing I'd be with a mustache. And now that I've taken the trouble to grow one you say it's nice. Nice is such a weak word, Catherine."

  "It's because . . . because you do look so handsome," I stumbled, "that I can find only weak words. I fear that Thelma Murkel has already found all the strong words to flatter you."

  "How the hell do you know about her?" He fired this at me as he narrowed his beautiful eyes.

  Gosh, he should know--gossip--and so I told him this: "I went to that hospital where Thelma Murkel is the head nurse on the third floor. And I sat just beyond the nurses's station and watched her for a couple of hours. In my opinion she's not quite beautiful, but handsome, and she seemed to me terribly bossy. And she flirts with all the doctors, in case you don't know that."

  I left him laughing with his eyes lit up. Thelma Murkel was a head nurse in the Clairmont Memorial Hospital and everyone there seemed to know she had her mind set on becoming the second Mrs. Paul Scott Sheffield. But she was only a nurse in a sterile white uniform, miles and miles away, and I was under his nose, with my intoxicating new perfume tickling his senses (as the advertisement had said, a bewitching, beguiling, seductive scent no man could resist). What chance did Thelma Murkel, age twenty-nine, have against the likes of me?

  I was giddy from three glasses of Chris's imported champagne and hardly alert at all when Paul began to open the gifts Carrie, Chris and I had saved up to buy for him. I'd embroidered for him a crewel painting of his gingerbread white house with trees showing above the roof and a part of the brick wall to the sides with a little of the flowers showing. Chris had sketched it for me and I'd slaved many hours to make it perfect.

  "It's a stunningly beautiful work of art!" he said with impressed awe. I couldn't help but think of the grandmother, and how she'd cruelly rejected our tedious and hopeful gesture to win her friendship. "Thank you very much, Catherine, for thinking so much of me. I'm going to hang it in my office where all my patients can see it."

  Tears flooded my eyes, smeared my mascara as I furtively tried to blot them away before he realized it wasn't just the candlelight making me this beautiful, but three hours of preparation. He didn't notice the tears or my handkerchief that came from the cleavage of my low-cut gown. He was still admiring the small stitches I'd so carefully made. He put the gift aside, caught my glance with his own shining eyes and stood to help me up. "It's too beautiful a night to go to bed," he said as he glanced at his watch. "I've got a yearning to walk in the garden by moonlight. Do you ever have yearnings like that?"

  Yearnings? I was made of yearnings, half of them adolescent and too fanciful to ever come true. Yet as I strolled by his side through the magic of his Japanese garden and over the little red-lacquered footbridge, and as we ascended marble steps and walked on hand in hand, I felt we'd both entered a magical never-never land. It was the marble statues, of course, life-size marble statues standing in their cold and perfect nudity.

  The breezes were blowing the Spanish moss, and Paul had to duck to escape it, while I could stand straight and smile because having height did cause a few problems I could escape. "You're laughing at me, Cath-er-ine," he said, just as Chris used to tease, and separate my name into slow and distinct syllables. My lady, Cath-er-ine.

  I ran on ahead and down the marble steps to the center where Rodin's The Kiss dominated the garden. Everything seemed silvery bluish and unreal, and the moon was big and bright, full and smiling, with long dark clouds streaking its face and making it seem sinister one moment and gay the next. I sighed, for it was like that strange night that put Chris and me up on the roof of Foxworth Hall, both of us fearful we'd roast over the eternal fires of hell.

  "It's a pity you are here with me and not with that beautiful boy you dance with," said Paul, yanking me back from thoughts of yesterday.

  "Julian?" I asked in surprise. "He's in New York this week--but I suspect he'll be back again next week."

  "Oh," he said. "Then next week will belong to him, and not me."

  "That all depends. . . ."

  "On what?"

  "Sometimes I want him and sometimes I don't. Sometimes he seems just a boy and I want a man. Then again, sometimes he's very sophisticated and that impresses me. And when I dance with him I fall madly in love with the prince he's supposed to be. He looks so splendid in those costumes."

  "Yeah," he said, "I've noticed that myself."

  "His hair is jet black, while yours is sort of brownish smoky black."

  "I suppose jet black is more romantic than brownish smoky black?" he teased.

  "That all depends."

  "Catherine, you are female through and through-- stop giving me enigmatic answers."

  "I'm not enigmatic, I'm just telling you love isn't enough, nor romance. I want skills to see me through life so I'll never have to lock away my children to inherit a fortune I didn't earn. I want to know how to earn a buck and see us through, even if we don't have a man to lean on and support us."

  "Catherine, Catherine," he said softly, taking both my hands in his and holding them tight. "How hurt you've been by your mother. You sound so adult, so hard. Don't let bitter memories deprive you of one of your greatest assets--your soft, loving ways. A man likes to take care of the woman he loves and his children. A man likes to be leaned on, looked up to, respected. An aggressive, domineering woman is one of God's most fearsome creatures."

  I yanked free of him and ran on to the swing and threw myself down on the seat. I pushed myself high, higher, fast, faster, flying so high it took me back to the attic and the swings there when the nights were long and stuffy. Now here I was, free, on the outside and swinging crazily to put myself back into the attic! It was seeing Momma and her husband again that was making me desperate, making me want what should be put off until I was older.

  I flew so high, so wild, so abandoned my skirts fanned up into my face and made me blind. Dizzy, I suddenly fell to the ground! Paul came running to my side, falling down on his knees to lift me up in his arms. "Are you hurt?" he asked, and kissed me before I could answer. No, not hurt. I was a dancer who knew how to fall. He started murmuring the love words I needed to hear between his kisses that came slower and lasted longer, and the look in his eyes made me fill with a drunkenness far headier and far more sparkling than any imported French champagne.

  My lips parted beneath his prolonged kiss. I gasped because his tongue touched mine. His kisses came hot, soft, moist on my eyelids, my cheeks, my chin, neck, shoulders, cleavage as his hands endlessly roamed and sought all my most intimate places.

  "Catherine," he gasped, pulling away and gazing down at me with his eyes on fire, "you're only a child. We can't let this happen. I swore I'd never let this happen, not with you. ' Useless words that I snuffed out by encircling his neck with my arms. My fingers sank into the thickness of his dark hair as I murmured huskily, "I wanted to give you a shiny silver Cadillac for your birthday, but I didn't have enough money. So I thought I'd give you second best--me.

  He moaned softly. "I can't let you do this--you don't owe me." I laughed and kissed him, shamelessly kissed him long and deep.

  "Paul, it's you who owes me! You've given me too many long, desiring looks to tell me you don't want me now. If you say that you're lying. You think of me as a child. But I grew up a long time ago. Don't love me, I don't care. For I love you and that's enough. I know you'll love me the way I
want to be loved, because even though you won't admit it, you do love me and want me."

  The moon lit up his eyes and made them shine Even as he said, "No, you're a fool to think it will work," his eyes were speaking differently.

  To my way of thinking, his very restraint proved exactly how very much he did love me. If he had loved me less he would have eagerly taken long ago what I wouldn't have denied. So when he made a move to rise, to leave me and have done with temptation, I took his hand and put it where it would pleasure me most. He groaned. And groaned even louder when I put my hand where it would pleasure him most. Shameless what I did, I knew it. I shut off my thoughts of what Chris would think, of how the grandmother would consider me a scarlet harlot. Oh, was it fortunate or just the opposite that that book in Momma's nightstand drawer had shown me well what to do to pleasure a man and how to respond?

  I thought he would take me there on the grass under the stars, but he picked me up and carried me back into the house. Up the back stairs he stole quietly. Neither of us spoke though my lips traveled over his neck and face. Far off, in the room to the rear of the kitchen, I could hear Henny's TV as she listened to a late-night talkshow.

  On his bed he laid me down and with his eyes alone he began his lovemaking, and in his eyes I drowned, and things grew blurry as my emotions swelled higher like a tidal wave engulfing both of us. Skin to skin we pressed, just holding close at first and thrilling in the exaltation of sharing what the other had to give. With each touch of his lips, of his hands I was shot through with electrifying sensations, until at last I was wild to have him enter me, no longer tender, but fervent with his own fierce, demanding need to reach the same heights I was seeking.