Misty

  "That's a favorite expression of his," I explained, "Nowheresville. For a long time, I actually believed there was such a place and looked for it on the map."

  Jade's smile softened. Star shook her head and leaned back while Cathy suddenly clasped her hands and planted them firmly in her lap. She looked like she was holding on to herself, as if she expected her body might just decide to go floating away at any moment. I couldn't wait for her story.

  "Anyway, my mother, who hated serious conversations, tried to play the role of Daddy this one particular afternoon. I didn't know whether to laugh or feel sorry for her. She certainly tried to get me to feel sorry for her.

  "'I know what you're doing,' she said. She actually started by sitting behind Daddy's desk and then got up the way he always did. At least she knew the stage positions.

  "'You're trying to make me feel guilty about all this. You're punishing me,' she cried.

  "My mother doesn't actually cry real tears. She grimaces a bit, but not too much because her beauty guru told her that scowling and grimacing will deepen wrinides or even create them. It weakens the face in the same place so much, it makes grooves, she said. She told me this so I wouldn't grimace or scowl as much as I do.

  "'How am I punishing you?' I asked her.

  "'By embarrassing me!' she wailed. 'You're doing miserably in school just so the administrators will talk about you and call me, and then they'll blame it all on my problems with-your father. I know about these things. I read an article in Good Housekeeping. Actually, the article was about stress and its effects on the complexion, but it included a situation like this as an example. Divorced women age faster if they're not careful!' she emphasized. 'It's a proven, cosmetic fact.'

  "As my mother ranted and raved about my grades, the calls from the school, her stress and embarrassment that day, I suddenly realized how selfish she was and how selfish Daddy was. Neither of them were as concerned about my happiness as they were about their own. I made the mistake of telling my mother that and she nearly blew a false eyelash. Then she went into a list of her sacrifices that stretched from one side of the house to the other.

  "The best one was the claim that she was still very much a young and beautiful woman, but she was holding off involving herself in any new romance for my benefit, until I, not her, had adjusted to the new situation. According to my mother, men, who had found out about her new unmarried status, were circling the house like a war party of Indians, waiting to shoot their Cupid arrows through the windows and into her mushy heart. In short, all these lonely days and lonely nights were my fault. Get with it, Misty, I chanted to myself, accept and enjoy their divorce so Mommy Dearest can start dating."

  Jade laughed the hardest yet. Star's smile was a lot friendlier and Cathy suddenly looked like she was actually enjoying this. I glanced at Doctor Marlowe. Her eyes were darker, focused, her continually changing thoughts rolling together into a ball of rubber bands behind that intense scrutiny of the four of us.

  I sat back, sipped some lemonade, and continued.

  "Of course, Mommy felt she had to do something serious. I thought she might go as far as take away my lipstick, which she had chosen for me and which I didn't really use much, but she surprised me with the threat to take away my phone. I knew it was an empty threat because if there was one thing my mother hated, it was my friends or anyone calling me on her phone. She was the one who got my father to have my own phone installed when I was only eight.

  'She can barely hold a thirty-second

  conversation!' he bellowed. 'Why does she need her own phone?'

  "Mommy wouldn't argue with Daddy much. She would say what she wanted and then sulk until he gave in, which he most always did.

  "It was funny, because when I did get the phone, I used to sit and stare at it and wonder who I should call.

  If I called anyone, I would ask how she was and what she was doing and the other person would answer in monosyllabic 'Okay. Nothing,' and then I would hang up. If my phone ever rang, I would practically jump out of my skin.

  "'If your next set of grades aren't improved, the phone comes out of your room,' Mommy declared and felt confident she had fulfilled her responsibility. I could just picture her at lunch in a fancy restaurant proudly telling her friends how severe she was and how she had established new rules."

  Even Doctor Marlowe risked a small smile. She knew my mother well and she knew I wasn't exaggerating all that much.

  "I was at the point where I didn't care anyway. Many of my friends had stopped calling me. I knew it was my fault. I wasn't very nice to them in school or on the phone. Mommy was half right with her accusation. I was punishing her and punishing Daddy, but I was really punishing everyone I knew. Doctor Marlowe helped me to see that. Right, Doctor?"

  "You made your own discoveries about yourself, Misty. I merely showed you the way," she said softly.

  "A travel guide to Nowheresville," I retorted. Surprisingly, none of the three laughed.

  "Is that really who you think I am?" Doctor Marlowe asked.

  "No," I said. "But it sounded funny."

  I looked to the others because I hoped they would understand even more than our trained psychiatrist.

  "You reach a point where you can't stand yourself because you're so damn depressing to be with," I said. Now they all looked like they knew what that meant. "I suppose that's why I grabbed so fast at the first lifesaver tossed my way.

  "That's how you referred to him once, Doctor Marlowe, remember, drowning in sadness and grabbing onto the first emotional raft that comes floating by?"

  "I think it came from you," she said.

  I shifted my eyes.

  "Okay, okay. Our therapist isn't supposed to put things in our heads that aren't already there," I muttered.

  Jade turned to look at Doctor Marlowe and Cathy did the same. Star simply nodded.

  "His name is Charles Allen Fitch. Whenever he introduces himself, he always includes his middle name. He even prefers being called Charles Allen, rather than just Charles. He thinks the added name makes him sound richer or more important or something And you can't call him Charlie or Charlie Allen. He won't respond. He'll pretend he doesn't hear you. Even if one of his teachers does it, he'll keep this glazed, indifferent look on his face until the teacher realizes what's wrong and states his name correctly. Then, he'll turn and brightly respond. Good old Charles Allen Fitch.

  "He's not bad looking. Actually, he's a very good looking, six-foot-one-inch boy with thick, mahogany- brown hair that he keeps perfectly styled and trimmed. He goes to the hairdresser's twice a month. What I love are his eyes. They've got these hazel speckles floating in green, and there's just something very sexy about his lips.

  "He's in my class, but before my parents' divorce made the national news, he and I had said little more than a half dozen words to each other. I, along with all my girlfriends, just assumed he was too stuck-up. He comes from a very rich family. He told me the house he and his mother live in once belonged to Clark Gable's personal manager, who also managed other big stars.

  "It is a big house, so big it makes my castle look small. They have a room they actually call the ballroom. His mother has a small army of servants to tend to her and his needs. Charles Allen's butler functions as his valet as well. You all know what that is?" I asked.

  Star shook her head.

  "The butler puts out his clothes every day and sees that everything is kept clean and pressed and his shoes are polished," I said. "Charles Allen doesn't even pick out what he's going to wear to school. Groden, that's his name, does it for him."

  "You're kidding,' Star said.

  I raised my right hand.

  "Swear. I saw the clothes laid out for him myself. Even his underwear.

  "Anyway, one afternoon, just at the end of lunch, the bell had already rung, Charles Allen approached me and said, 'I can appreciate what you are going through. My parents are in the middle of their divorce, too.'

  "That was all he said.
I stopped and watched him saunter off. There's something about the way he holds himself that causes people to think he's a lot older than he is. When we were going places together, I always noticed that. He's got this air of confidence, this arrogance, I guess. Even the school's vice principal, Mr. Proctor, speaks to him differently, speaks to him as though he's speaking to an adult. Mr. Proctor seems to be aware of his own posture when he confronts Charles Allen. Most people are because Charles Allen is so correct he makes you aware of yourself. I guess even I was walking and standing better. I know I stopped slumping in my chair in class.

  "You're all looking at me as if I'm nuts, I know, but he's got these eyes that fill with criticism. You can see your faults reflected. You even speak better."

  Just talking about him now made me aware of my posture. I straightened my shoulders and sat up.

  "Charles Allen has very good grades, of course. He's diligent, responsible, reliable, trustworthy," I catalogued, "all the things teachers tell us to be. He's a little stiff when it comes to sports, but he's the school's best tennis player. He has a serve that turns the ball into a bullet.

  "Of course, it doesn't hurt that he has his own tennis court at home and when he was only ten was given lessons by a professional who had competed at the U.S. Open."

  "Is he an only child?" Star asked

  "No. He has a brother who is five years older, Randolph Andrew Fitch, who works with his father in their commercial real estate business. His brother isn't married, but he has his own condo in Beverly Hills. When Charles Allen would tell me about his parents' divorce, he would claim his brother sided with his father, although Charles Allen told me right away that his parents were having what he called a civilized divorce. There was, according to Charles Allen, little animosity. Don't you just love his vocabulary? Little animosity," I repeated speaking a bit through my nose.

  "Everything is in the hands of their lawyers,' he claimed."

  "Tell me about it," Jade said, twisting her mouth so that the corner cut into her cheek. "I think my mother's lawyer is after more than just his fee. He'd love to have my mother in his hands."

  Star laughed. Cathy's smile of amazement lit her eyes. I saw her whole body relax. For the first time this morning, she actually looked happy.

  "I didn't think Charles Allen would say anything else to me because of the way he had rushed off, but at the end of school that day, he was waiting for me in the hallway and he just started talking as if we were still in the middle of a conversation.

  "'Although every divorce has to be different by its very nature,' he declared like some professor lecturing on the subject, 'I'm sure we share a great deal in common '

  'Excuse me?' I replied. Are we speaking the same language? I wondered.

  "'I knew my parents were going to get divorced one day. For years- my father has had a mistress and my mother has known it but pretended not to,' he continued. 'Of course, I feel confident that she has had her assignations as well.'

  "'Her what?' I asked.

  "'Affairs,' he said with that dry tone. He has a way of lifting the right corner of his mouth when he's making a nasty comment. I called it his Elvis lip. He said he didn't know what I meant, but I knew he did. Charles Allen is very. . . sneaky," I said. "He'd probably call it subtle. As you can see, if I got anything at all out of knowing him, I got a better vocabulary."

  "Were you in love with him?" Cathy asked. The words just seemed to leap out of her mouth. They even surprised her and she looked about with terror after she had said them.

  I looked at the others and then quickly at Doctor Marlowe, who appeared very pleased about it.

  "I thought I might fall in love with him. Why? Are you in love with someone?"

  She shook her head quickly and looked down. "Because if you want, stop talking and you can tell us about it."

  "All right, Misty," Doctor Marlowe said.

  "I don't want to stifle anyone, Doctor Marlowe. if Cathy can't wait to tell us about herself. . ."

  "Stop being mischievous," she warned.

  "Am I being mischievous?" I asked Jade. She laughed and nodded.

  "What do you think, Star?"

  "I think if you're going to tell your story, tell it already. Afterward," she added, "we'll decide if you are mischievous or not. But if I had to vote now," she quickly added, "I'd say you had some of the devil in you."

  All of us laughed, even Cathy, but her laugh was short, insecure, careful. Who burned the smiles off her face? I wondered.

  "I didn't really think that Charles Allen and I would become an item just because we both had parents who were into divorcing. The gossip about Charles Allen was that he had an older girlfriend who was a freshman at the University of Southern California. What I found out was he had a cousin in her first year at USC, but there was nothing romantic about it.

  "He has his own car, a BMW convertible. I learned later that he has a trust left to him by his grandfather on his father's side. I don't know how much exactly, but it's pretty obvious that it's a lot of money. He offered to drive me home. I thought why not and it started.

  "On the way to my house we talked about our parents a little. It was easy to see he wasn't all that close with either his father or his mother. His mother is an elegant looking lady, tall and thin, but a little wide in the hips. My mother would blame that on her childbearing and say, 'See, that's why I didn't want to have another.'

  "Although Charles Allen's mother isn't as concerned about her looks as my mother is, she looked like she was the type who was never surprised."

  "Surprised?" Star asked.

  "What I mean is no matter what time of day anyone sees her, his mother would always be stylishly dressed. Charles Allen said she was involved in various charities and sat on the boards of a number of non-profit organizations. He thought it was ironic that she gave so much of herself to the sick and the downtrodden and so little to him

  "Like me, he had a nanny when he was little. After that, he was mostly cared for by maids and butlers and chauffeurs. He said his parents even hired people to play with him One day, he said he felt as if his parents were doing all they could to avoid being with him 'Keep me occupied and away from them,' he muttered, 'that was their motto.' "

  "Don't they like their own son?" Star asked.

  I shrugged. "I think they just don't like children, their own included."

  "Rich people make me sick," she said.

  "Poor people can behave just as poorly," Jade reminded her.

  They looked like they could get into a real argument, so I quickly went on with my story.

  "The second time we left school together, I went to his house and got the tour. His mother was just on her way out to a meeting. Charles Allen made sure to perform the proper introductions, however.

  "Perform was his word. He told me he felt most of the things he did for and with his parents had always felt like little scripted acts.

  "'Mother,' he said, 'I'd like you to meet Misty Foster. Misty, this is my mother, Elizabeth Howe Fitch.'

  "Wow. I take it that his parents are very formal," Jade said.

  "That's an understatement. His father's name is Benjamin Harrison Jackson Fitch:'

  "I bet it takes him forever to fill out forms," Star quipped.

  "He probably doesn't fill out anything," Jade returned. "He has lawyers who do it for him, I'm sure."

  "Can I continue?" I asked them. They both zipped up their lips.

  I went on.

  "His mother offered her long, thin, bejeweled fingers. The moment I touched them, she pulled them away as if I might be diseased. Charles Allen told me not to be offended by that. His mother had a thing about contact. She absolutely hated hugging and was an expert at the false kiss."

  "What's that?" Cathy asked Star and Jade turned as if just remembering she was there.

  "She kisses the air and not your cheek. Charles Allen said she even kissed his father that way. He said he had never seen his mother and father kiss on the lips."


  "No wonder he had a woman on the side," Star said. I nodded.

  "How did Charles Allen kiss?" Jade asked with a sly smile and impish eyes.

  "Not very well at first. He took me through the house that day, as I said, and we played some PingPong in the game room. There's also a pool table and a hockey game in it. He showed me their gardens, pool and tennis court and then, he took me to his room. It was as big as my parents' bedroom, only his has a built-in television set and CD player, and everything. You should see his closet. It's so organized, color coordinated. And his drawers, the socks, underwear, everything looks brand new. Some of his things are even in wrappers!

  "We sat and talked for a while about each other's home life. He claimed he didn't see his father that often before the divorce, but now he said it was more of an organized, scheduled meeting. Once a week, he had to go to his father's office and give him a report about his schoolwork. --

  "I think what bothered me about his world was how formal everything was. All of his servants called him Charles Allen. His mother called him Charles Allen and, although I never met him, I imagined his father did, too. Everyone was so . . . proper. It made me uncomfortable.

  "Anyway, toward the end of our little talk, which he called a tete-a-tete. . . ever hear of that?"

  Jade nodded, but Cathy and Star shook their heads.

  "We were sitting on this small sofa in his room. He was on one end and I was on the other. There was enough space between us to put another person, and toward the end of this little talk as I said, he paused, looked at me with those heart-melting eyes and said, 'I've always wanted to talk to you, but I never could think of anything to say until I heard about your parents divorcing.'

  "'At least one good thing has come out of it,' I said and he laughed.

  "Charles Allen has two definite kinds of laughs. One, sounds more like a robot, each sound perfectly spaced from the other and always the same amount, like ha, ha, ha. It's hard to explain, but his other laugh, what I call his real laugh, is soft. It makes his eyes brighten and does something cute in the corner of his mouth. You're looking at me as if I'm crazy, but you've just got to see and hear it to understand.