Like a time bomb with a long fuse . .
Waiting for my match.
However, when Kitty improved my looks, I was childishly overwhelmed with gratitude, as I was for the least kind thing she did for me. I took all her small deeds and treasured them as if I had precious jewels to keep me forever safe. For each kindness, I took off a heavy block of hostility, and yet the very next word she said could make my tower even higher.
I woke up with what I thought was a brilliant idea. I would do something wonderful for Kitty-- perhaps just to hide the resentment I felt growing day by day. Now that she wasn't awful, I feared her even more. There was something in her eyes, those pale, more than strange eyes.
Cal called early the morning we planned to surprise Kitty with a spring party. "Isn't it too much work? We can't really keep it a surprise," he added with some exasperation. "She doesn't like surprises. I'll have to tell her. If she comes home with a hair out of place, or chipped fingernail polish, she'd never forgive me, or you. She'll want to look perfect, and wear her best dress, and have her hair done--so have the house spotless, and maybe then she'll feel pleased to show off."
He made out the guest list, including all Kitty's girls and their husbands, and her ceramic students (which included both sexes) and their spouses. He'd even given me one hundred dollars so I could buy Kitty a gift I chose myself. A hot-pink leather handbag that cost sixty-five dollars had been my choice. With the money left over I purchased party decorations . . . wasting money, Kitty would say later on, but I dared her wrath anyway.
Cal called the afternoon of the party, which we thought could be a kind of graduation party for her students. "Look, Heaven, don't bother making a cake. I can buy one at the bakery, and it won't be so much trouble."
"Oh, no," I said quickly. "Bakery cakes aren't nearly as tasty as a cake made from scratch, and you know how she's always talking about her mother's cakes, and how difficult cakes are to make right. She mocks my cooking, and baking a scratch cake will have to prove something, won't it? Besides, I've already baked one. You won't believe your eyes when you see all the sweet _ pink roses and little green leaves I put on the top and sides. If I say so myself, it's the most beautiful-looking cake I've ever seen-- and also the first one I've seen that I can eat." I sighed because I'd never had a party of my own, with guests; none of us had, back in the Willies. Even our birthdays had been celebrated by staring in
Winnerrow store windows at cakes probably made of cardboard. I sighed as I admired the lovely cake. "I just hope it'll taste as wonderful as it looks."
He laughed, assured me it would be delicious, and we both hung up.
The party was to begin at eight. Cal would eat in town, as would Kitty, who would then rush home to dress for her "surprise" party.
In my own room I took out my mother's bride doll, sat her on my bed so she could watch as I began to dress, pulling over my head a wonderful dress of cornflower-blue georgette. To me the doll represented my mother, and through those glassy eyes the soul of my mother was looking at me with admiration, love, and understanding. I found myself talking to the doll as I brushed my hair and arranged it in a new style that was more adult. Along with pretty new shoes and stockings, the dress had been a gift from Cal on my seventeenth birthday.
By six o'clock I was ready for the party. I felt silly to be ready so early, like a child who just couldn't wait to dress up. Once more I checked over the house. I'd strung gay paper ribbons from the dining-room chandelier, and Cal had hung balloons after Kitty had left this morning. How festive the house looked; yet I grew tired when there wasnothing left to do but sit and wait for guests to arrive. In my room again I stared out the window. The early evening grew darker exceptionally quickly as storm clouds gathered overhead, blackening the sunset. Soon a light rain was falling. Rainy days always made me sleepy. I carefully lay on my bed, spreading my skirt so it wouldn't wrinkle, and then cuddled my bride doll in my arms, and into sweet dreams of my mother I easily slid.
She and I were running in the hills, she with her shining pale hair, me with my long dark hair--then I had her color of hair and she had mine, and I didn't know who I was. We laughed in the silent way of dreams . . . and froze in a time frame . . . froze, froze .. .
I bolted wide awake. Seeing first the bulging yellow eyes of another green frog planter. What had awakened me? I rolled my eyes without turning my head. That golden fish? That elephant table that wasn't as perfect as some downstairs? All the junk went into my room, those ceramics not fit to be seen or sold. Why did everything have its glassy stare fixed on me?
A loud roll of thunder rumbled overhead. Almost immediately a bolt of lightning zigzagged through the room. I hugged my doll closer.
Abruptly the sky opened. It wasn't a pleasant summer drizzle that fell. I sat up and peered out the blurry window to see the street below was flooded, the houses across the street out of focus and distantappearing, as if they were in another world. Again I curled up on my bed, forgetful of my beautiful georgette dress. With my "mother" doll in my arms, I drifted off again.
The rain was a loud drumming sound, shutting out all other noise. The thunder overhead rumbled like those fabled giant bowling balls heard by Rip Van Winkle, all rolling at once, colliding in thundering crashes, creating fierce electrical bolts that lit up the darkness every few seconds. Like a magic movie director I fitted all nature's noises into my dream scenes . . .
In the misty dream more beautiful than reality, Logan and I were dancing in a forest green and shadowy. He was older, so was I. . . something was building between us, some electrical excitement that made my heart beat faster, louder . . .
Out of the dark loomed a figure, not in misty white like a ghost, but in hot pink. Kitty!
I sat up, rubbed my eyes.
"Well . . ." drawled Kitty's deadliest flat voice when the thunder stilled momentarily, "looky what hill-scum crud is doin now. All dressed up an on t'bed."
What was I doing so terrible that Kitty would look like the wrath of God come to end the world?
"Do ya hear me, idiot?"
This time I jerked as if slapped. How could she treat me like this when I'd slaved all day to make a party for her? Enough! I'd had enough! I was tired, at last, of being called so many ugly names, sick and tired and fed up. This time I wasn't going to be cowed, or weak. No! I wasn't hill-scum crud!
My rebellion rose like a giant fire--maybe because she glared her eyes so hard, and that reminded me of all the times she'd slapped without cause. "Yeah, I hear you, bigmouth!"
"WHAT'S THAT YA SAID?"
"I said, BIGMOUTH, I HEAR YOU!"
"WHAT?" Louder now, more demanding.
"Kitty BIGMOUTH. Kitty LOUDMOUTH. Kitty who yells NO every night to her husband so I have to hear it. What's wrong with you, Kitty? Have you lost your sexual appetite now that you're growing old?"
She didn't hear me. She was distracted by what I held in my arms. "What t'hell ya got there? Caught ya, didn't I? Lyin there on yer side, like I ain't done tole ya one million times not t'do nasty stuff like that!"
She snatched the doll from my arms, quickly turned on all the lights in my room, and stared down at the doll. I jumped up to rescue my doll.
"It's her! HER!" she screamed, hurling my irreplaceable heirloom doll at the wall. "Luke's damned angel!"
I scurried to pick up the doll, almost tripping because I forgot I was wearing high-heeled sandals. Oh, thank God she wasn't broken, only her bridal veil had fallen off.
"GIVE ME THAT THIN!" ordered Kitty, striding to take the doll from me. She was again distracted by my dress, her eyes raking down my length to see my nylons, my silver sandals. "Where ya get that dress, them shoes?"
"I decorate cakes and sell them to neighbors for twenty dollars apiece!" I lied with flair, so angry that she would sling my doll at the wall and try to ruin the most precious thing I owned.
"Don't ya lie t'me, an say stupid thins like that! An give me that doll."
"NO! I will not give
you this doll."
She glared at me, dumbfounded that I would
answer her back, and in her own tough tone of voice she said, "Ya kin't say no t'me, hill scum, an hope t'get by wid it."
"I just said no, Kitty, and I am getting by with it. You can't buffalo me anymore. I'm not afraid of you now. I'm older, bigger, stronger--and tougher. I'm not weak from lack of nourishing strength, so I do have that to thank you for, but don't you ever dare lay a hand on this doll again."
"What would ya do iffen I did?" she asked in a low, dangerous voice.
The cruelty in her eyes stunned me so much I was speechless. She hadn't changed. All this time when I'd lived apparently in peace, she'd been brewing some kind of hatred inside her. Now it was out, spewing forth from her pale gimlet eyes.
"What's t'matta, hill scum, kin't ya hear?" "Yeah, I hear you."
"What did ya say?"
"I said, Kitty, YEAH, I hear you."
"WHAT?" Louder now, more demanding.
Aggressively, no longer willing to play humble and helpless, I held my head high and proud, flaring back: "You're not my mother, Kitty Setterton Dennison! I don't have to call you Mother. Kitty is good enough. I've tried hard to love you, and forget all the awful things you've done to me, but I'm not trying anymore. You can't be human and nice for but a little while, can you? And I was stupid enough to plan a party, just to please you, and give you a reason for having all that china and crystal . . . but the storm is on, and so are you, because you just don't know how to act like a mother. Now it's ugly, mean time again. I can see it in your watery eyes that glow in the darkness of this room. No wonder God didn't allow you to have children, Kitty Dennison. God knew better."
A lightning flash lit up Kitty's pale face gone dead white as the lights flickered on and off. She spoke in short gasps. "I come home t'fix myself up fer t'partyan what do I find but a lyin, tricky, nastyminded bit of hill-scum filth who don't appreciate anythin I've done."
"I do appreciate all the good things that you've done, that's what this party is all about, but you take away my good feelings when you hit out at me. You try to destroy what belongs to me, while I do all I can to protect what belongs to you. You've done enough harm to me to last a lifetime, Kitty Dennison! I haven't done anything to deserve your punishment. Everybody sleeps on theif 'Wes, on their stomachs-- and no one thinks it is sinful but you. Who told you the right and wrong positions for sleeping? God?"
"YA DON'T TALK T'ME LIKE THAT WHEN YER IN MY HOUSE!" Kitty screamed, livid with rage. "Saw ya, I did. Breakin my rules, ya were. Ya knows ya ain't supposed t'sleep on yer side huggin anything . . . an ya went an done it anyway. YA DID!"
"And what is so bad about sleeping on my side? Tell me! I'm dying to know! It must be tied up somehow to your childhood, and what was done to you!" My tone was as hard as hers, aggressive too.
"Smartmouth, ain't ya?" she fired back. "Think yer betta than me, cause ya gets A's in school. Spend my good money dressin ya up, an what fer? What ya plannin on doin? Ya ain't got no talents. Kin't half cook. Don't know nothin bout cleanin house, keepin thins lookin pretty--but ya think yer betta than me cause I didn't go no higher than t'fifth grade. Cal done told ya all bout me, ain't he?"
"Cal's told me nothing of the kind, and if you didn't finish school I'm sure it was because you couldn't wait to sleep with some man, and run off with the first one who asked you to marry him--like all hill-scum girls do. Even if you did grow up in Winnerrow, you're not one whit better than any scumbag hill-crud girl."
It was Kitty's fault, not mine, that Cal was beginning to look at rue in ways that made me uneasy, forgetting he was supposed to be my father, my champion. Kitty's fault. My rage grew by leaps and bounds that she would steal from me the one man who'd given me what I needed most--a real father. Yet it was she who found her voice first.
"HE TOLE YA! I KNOW HE DID, DIDN'T HE?" she screamed, high and shrill. "Ya done talked about me t'my own husband, tole him lies, made him so he don't love me like he used ta!"
"We don't talk about you. That's too boring. We try to pretend you don't exist, that's all."
Then I threw on more fuel, thinking that I'd already started the blaze, so I might as well heap on all the rotten wood I had been saving since the day I came. Not one harsh word she'd said had been forgotten or forgiven, not one slap, one bloody nose or black eye . . . all had been stored to explode now.
"Kitty, I'm never going to call you Mother again, because you never were and never will be my mother. You're Kitty the hairdresser. Kitty the fake ceramic teacher." I spun around on the heel of one silver slipper and pointed at the line of wall cabinets. And I laughed, really laughed, as if I enjoyed this, but I wasn't enjoying myself, only putting on a false front of bravado.
"Behind those locked cupboard doors you've got professional molds, Kitty, thousands of bought molds! With shipping labels still on the boxes they came in. You don't create any of these animals! You buy the molds, pour in the clay slip--and you display them and label them as one of a kind, and that's fraud. You could be sued."
Kitty grew unnaturally quiet.
That should have warned me to shut up, but I had years of frustrated rage locked up within, and so I spewed it out, as if Kitty were a combination of Pa and everything else that had managed to spoil my life.
"Cal told ya that," came Kitty's deadly flat statement. "Cal . . . done . . . betrayed. . . me."
"Nope." I reached for a drawer in my desk and pulled out a tiny brass key. "I found this one day when I was cleaning in here, and just couldn't help opening the cabinets you always keep locked."
Kitty smiled. Her smile couldn't have been sweeter.
"What do ya know about art, hill scum? I made t'molds. I sellt'molds t'good customers--like myself. I keep em locked up so sneaks like ya won't steal my ideas."
I didn't care.
Let the sky fall, let the rain swell the ocean and wash over Candlewick, carry it to the bottom of the sea, to sleep forever next to lost Atlantis . . . what did I care? I could leave now that the weather was hot. I could hitchhike--who'd care? I'd live. I was tough. Somehow or other I'd make my way back to Winnerrow, and when I was there I'd tear Fanny away from Reverend Wise, find Tom, save Keith and Our Jane . . . for I'd thought of a way we could all survive.
To prove my strength, my determination, I turned and stuffed my doll far under the bed, then deliberately fell on the bed and curled up on my side, reaching for a pillow that I hugged tight against me. It hit me then--the thing I'd not thought of before--just what was the evil thing Kitty presumed I did. The girls in school talked about it sometimes, how they pleasured themselves, and foolishly I threw my leg over the pillow and began to rub against it.
I didn't do that more than two seconds.
Strong hands seized me under my armpits, and I was yanked from the bed. I screamed and tried to fight Kitty off, tried to twist around so my hands could rake Kitty's face or do some other damage that would force her to let me go. It was as if I were a struggling kitten in the jaws of a powerful tiger. I was carried and dragged down the stairs, into the dining room I'd made pretty with party decorations she picked me up, plunked me down on the hard glass-top dining-room table.
"You're putting fingerprints on your clean tabletop," I said sarcastically, idiotically dauntless in the face of the worst enemy I was likely to ever have. "I'm finished with shining your glass tabletops. Finished with cooking your meals. Finished with cleaning your stupid house that has too many gaudy animals in it."
"SHUT UP!"
"I DON'T WANT TO SHUT UP! I'm going to have my say for once. I HATE YOU, KITTY DENNISON! And I could have loved you if you'd given me half a chance. I hate you for all you've done to me! You don't give anyone half a chance, not even your own husband. Once you have anybody loving you, you do something ugly so that person has to turn on you and see you for what you are--INSANE!"
"Shut up." How calmly she said that this time. "Don't ya move from that table. Ya sit there. Ya be there
when I come back."
Kitty disappeared.
I could run now. Flee out the door, say goodbye to this Candlewick house. On the expressway I could catch a ride. But this morning's papers had spewed ugly photos on the front page. Two girls found raped and murdered alongside the freeway.
Swallowing, I sat frozen, snared by indecision, regretting, too late, all the things I'd said. Still . . I wasn't going to be a coward and run. I was going to sit here, show her I wasn't afraid of anything she did-- and what worse thing could she do?
Kitty came back, not carrying a whip or a stick or a can of Lysol to spray in my face. She carried only a thin long box of fireplace matches.
"Goin home, back t'Winnerrow fer a visit," said Kitty in her most fearsome monotone. "Goin so ya kin see yer sista Fanny, an yer grandpa. So I kin see my sista, Maisie, my brotha, Danny. Goin back t'touch my roots again, renew my vows t'neva get like em. Gonna show ya off. Don't want ya lookin ugly, like I might neglect ya. Ya've grown up prettier than I thought. Hill-scum boys will try and get ya. So I'm gonna save ya from yer worst self in a way that won't show. But ya'll know from this day on not t'disobey me. Neva again. An if ya eva want t'find out where yer lit sister Our Jane is, and what happened t'that little boy named Keith, ya'll do as I say. I knows where they are, an who has em."
"You know where they are, you really do?" I asked excitedly, forgetting all I'd said to anger Kitty.
"Does t'sky know where t'sun is? Does a tree know where t'plant its roots? Of course I know. Ain't no secrets in Winnerrow, not when yer one of em . . an they thinks I am."
"Kitty, where are they, please tell me! I've got to find them before Our Jane and Keith forget who I am. Tell me! Please! I know I was ugly a moment ago, but you were, too. Please, Kitty."
"Please what?"
Oh, my God!
I didn't want to say it. I wiggled about on the slippery tabletop, gripping the edge so hard the glass if it hadn't been beveled would have sliced off my fingers.
"You're not my mother."
"Say it."
"My real mother is dead, and Sarah was my stepmother for years and years . . ."