My Sweet Audrina

  He didn’t even look at me as he impulsively planted a resounding kiss on her cheek. “You surprise me, girl. I haven’t always been nice to you. I thought you wouldn’t care about my ruined shirt. I even thought you didn’t love me.”

  “Oh, Papa,” she said with her eyes gleaming, “I love you from the top of your hair to the tip of your toenails.”

  I hated her, really hated her for calling him Papa, when he was my father, not hers.

  For some strange reason, he backed away from Vera, glancing down at his shoes as if to check the horny toenails that embarrassed him. He cleared his throat and looked disconcerted. “Well, it’s an overdone compliment, but if it’s genuine, I’m pleased and touched.”

  Stunned, I watched him leave the room without once glancing my way. He didn’t come in that night to tuck me into bed, or kiss my cheek, or hear my prayers, and if I dreamed of boys in the woods, I was pretty sure on this night he wouldn’t come running to save me.

  In the morning it was Vera who poured Papa’s coffee, spelling Momma, who seemed wilted and looked very pale. She jumped up to put on three slices of toast and stood close to see that it didn’t toast too long. He liked it golden on the outside, tender on the inside. Vera fried his bacon to perfection, and I didn’t hear one complaint from him. When he finished eating, he thanked her for waiting on him, then got up to leave for work. Limping after him, Vera caught hold of his hand. “Papa, even though I know you’re not my real father, can’t we pretend you are … can’t we, Papa?”

  He seemed uncomfortable, as if not knowing what to say, and at the same time, touched. Papa belonged to me and Momma, not to Vera. I glanced at my aunt, who sat tight-lipped and grim, and I wished that both she and Vera would leave and go anywhere away from here.

  Soon Papa left. I watched as his car turned off the dirt road that would take him onto the expressway and into town, where he’d have lunch with businessmen and call it work. To my surprise, he stopped momentarily at the mailbox on the corner where our private road forked off to meet the main road. I wondered why he hadn’t picked up the mail last night. Had he been so eager to reach Momma and see how she fared that he’d forgotten again to check the mailbox?

  When I reached our mailbox, I found the mail was still there. In fact, magazines and newspapers were bulging from the door, which wouldn’t close.

  It took some doing to stack my arms with all that was addressed to Papa. This was just what I needed. I would win Papa back. I knew what he wanted from me. I knew what Papa cared about most—money. I had to use my “gift” to make Papa money. Then he’d love me best forever. I was trying to read the front page of The Wall Street Journal even before I reached the kitchen to toss the mail on the table. I raced off to find the items I needed: a pencil and notepad, and a length of string and a straight pin.

  In the closet under the back stairs was all the junk we wanted to keep and later throw out. It was there I found old copies of The Journal. I laid out the quote sheets and began to list the most active stocks, thinking two weeks should give me time span enough. Even as I worked I could hear Vera upstairs arguing with my aunt, who wanted her to help with the laundry. Vera wanted to go to the movies. She was meeting a friend.

  “No!” yelled my aunt. “You’re too young to start dating.” Vera said something else I couldn’t make out. “No, no, no!” I could hear very well. “Stop pleading. Once I say no I mean no—I’m not like some others around here who say no and later change their minds.”

  “You let me do as I want or I’ll spill out all our family secrets in the middle of Main Street,” shrilled Vera. “I’ll stand there until everybody knows who my father is, and what you did—and the Whitefern name will go even farther down on the list of scoundrels!”

  “Open your mouth about family secrets and you won’t get one dime from me or from anyone else. If you behave yourself, there’s a chance for us to profit sooner or later. You antagonize Damian and Lucietta. You’re a thorn in both their sides, but it can pay off for both of us if you just try to behave yourself. I used to rue the day I conceived you. Many a time I wished I’d have had an abortion, but when you had Damian’s shirt repaired and I saw how impressed he was, I regained some hope.” Pleading came into her voice. “Audrina doesn’t have to be the darling in this family, Vera. Remember all that’s happened to her has given you a certain edge. Take advantage of it. You know how he is, and what he needs. Admire him. Respect him. Flatter him, and you’ll become his favorite.”

  There was a long silence up there and some whispering I couldn’t hear. That all too familiar lead ball came to reside in my chest again. They were plotting against me—and they knew what had happened to me when I didn’t.

  I had almost believed that my aunt liked me. Now I was hearing that she, too, was my enemy. I went back to the table to work with more determination to find just the right stock that would go up, up, up, and make Papa very, very, very rich.

  I tied my little birthstone ring to the string, figuring I could do the same as Mrs. Allismore and predict which stock would be a winner. Papa was always saying trading stocks was not a science but an art, and what I was doing seemed very creative. I’d fastened a pin to the ring with a bit of thread to use it for a pointer. Twice it touched down on the same stock. I tried to force it to touch a third time. Three of anything was a magic number. But it refused to choose the same stock three times, even when I opened my eyes and tried to control the ring. It seemed to have some power of its own, faltering, indecisive, the same as Momma’s wedding ring had been confused over her abdomen.

  Just then I heard a loud howl. “Where are my diamond-stud earrings?” shouted Aunt Ellsbeth. “They’re the only things my father left me of value, and my mother’s own engagement ring. They’re gone! Vera, did you steal my jewelry?”

  “No,” bellowed Vera. “Perhaps you misplaced them like you do everything else.”

  “It’s been years since I wore that ring. You know I keep all my best jewelry locked in a box. Vera, don’t lie. You’re the only one who ever enters my bedroom. Now, where are those things?”

  “Why don’t you ask Audrina?”

  “Her? Don’t be ridiculous. That girl would never steal anything; she’s got too much conscience. It’s you who doesn’t have any.” She paused as I began to fold up the newspapers, my stock list put safely away. “Now I know what you did to restore Damian’s one-hundred-dollar pink silk shirt,” said my aunt scornfully. “You stole my earrings and ring, hocked them and bought him a new shirt. Damn you for doing that, Vera! No, you are not going to the movies. Not today, or any Saturday! Until the day you earn enough money to reclaim my jewelry, you stay home!”

  I’d drifted to the bottom of the stairs to hear better; then I heard a thump, like someone falling. Then Vera came rushing down the stairs, with my aunt limping after her. “When I catch you, you’re going to be locked in your room the remainder of this summer!”

  Vera came flying in her best dress and new white shoes. I stood in her way. Brutally she shoved me aside and reached the front door before my aunt was down the back stairs. “Audrina, you can tell that beast of a woman that I hate her as much as I hate you, your mother, your father and this house! I’m going to the village, and when I get there I’m going to sell my body on the streets. I’m going to stand out before Papa’s barbershop and yell ‘Get your Whitefern daughter!’ I’ll yell it out so loud that the men in the city will hear, and they’ll all come running! And I’ll be the richest one yet!”

  “You tramp!” yelled my aunt, running through the kitchen and heading for Vera. “You come back here! Don’t you dare open that door and leave!”

  But the door was opened and slammed shut before my aunt ran out to the porch. I stood looking out a window, watching Vera disappear around the bend. The village was fifteen miles away. The city was thirty. Was she going to hitchhike?

  My aunt came and stood next to me. “Please don’t tell your father what you overheard here. There are some things bette
r left unsaid.”

  I nodded, feeling sorry for her. “Can I help?”

  Stiffly, she shook her head. “Don’t waken your mother. She needs to rest. I’m going upstairs. You’ll have to fix your own breakfast.”

  On Saturdays Momma liked to sleep late, and that gave my aunt her chance to stay in the little room off the dining room where she kept her television set. She loved to watch old movies and soap operas. They were the only entertainment she had.

  My appetite had fled with Vera. I didn’t doubt in the least that she would do just as she’d threatened. She’d destroy us all. I sat down and tried not to think of what Arden and his mother would think.

  My mind was a workshop of miserable thoughts, wondering what made Papa the way he was, lovable and detestable, selfish yet giving. He needed someone nearby at all times, especially to watch him shave, and since Momma had to fix breakfast it was usually me who perched on the rim of the bathtub and listened to all the interesting things that went on in his brokerage office.

  I asked many questions about the stock market, and what made stocks go up or down. “Demand,” was his answer for high fliers. “Disappointment,” was his explanation for those that went down. “Rumors of mergers and takeovers are great for sending stocks soaring but by the time the general public knows about those things, it’s too late to get in. All the banks and big investors have bought and are ready to sell off to the poor unknowing investor who buys in at the top. When you’ve got the right connections, you know what’s going on—if you don’t have those connections, keep your money in the bank.”

  Bit by bit, I’d gained a great deal of knowledge about the market. It was Papa’s way of teaching me, too, about arithmetic. I didn’t think of money in cents but in eighths of points. I knew about triple tops that were sure to slide, and double bottoms that should take off. He’d showed me charts and how to read them, despite Momma ridiculing him about my being too young to understand. “Nonsense. A young brain is a quick brain; she understands much more than you do.” Oh, yes, in some ways I loved my father very much, for if he couldn’t restore my memory, he did give me hopes for my future. Someday he was going to own his own brokerage firm, and I’d be his manager. “With your gifts, we can’t miss,” was the way he put it. “Can’t you just see it now, Audrina: D. J. Adare and Company.”

  Once again I went back to the most active lists and performed my string and ring trick, and again my pin pointer touched down twice on that same stock. Happiness swelled in my heart. I hadn’t left it to Providence. Papa was going to make money when I gave him this dream.

  And if this stock I’d chosen did go up, as by now I was fully expecting it would, then never again would I have to sit in that First and Best Audrina’s rocking chair. I’d have her gift—or one even better. I knew Papa. It was money Papa wanted, and money he needed, and money was truly the one thing he didn’t have enough of.

  I raced upstairs to dress, sure that soon I’d have my memories back, too. Maybe the string-and-ring trick would work if I swung it over the Bible. I laughed as I sped on by the First Audrina’s bedroom and hurried down to the kitchen, still tying my sash.

  Momma was up and in the kitchen with blue curlers as fat as tin cans in her hair. “Audrina,” she began in a weary voice, “would you mind watching the bacon while I whip the eggs?” Dark circles were under her eyes. “I tossed and turned all night. This baby is unusually restless. Just as I fell asleep toward dawn, your father’s alarm went off, and he was up and talking ten miles a minute, trying to tell me not to worry about what that old woman said. He thinks I’m depressed, not tired, so he decided that he’s going to invite twenty people over tonight to a party! Can you imagine anything more ridiculous? Here I am, in my sixth month, so tired I can hardly manage to get out of bed, and he thinks I need cheering up by preparing fancy little goodies for his friends. He tells me I’m bored, when he’s the one who’s bored. I wish to God he’d take up golf or tennis, or anything that would use up some of his energy and keep him away from home on the weekends.”

  Oh, oh, now I understood perfectly! Somehow that sixth sense Papa possessed had told him that today I had the gift—that had to be the real reason he wanted to celebrate. A hundred or more times he’d told me he’d celebrate with a party on the day my gift came to light. So it was true. I did have the gift now. Otherwise, the ring wouldn’t have settled twice on the same stock, when nine others were listed there. I felt so good I wanted to shout.

  “Where’re Ellsbeth and Vera?” asked Momma.

  I couldn’t tell her about the argument and what Vera had threatened to do. Momma’s maiden name was her most cherished possession. And if someone had picked Vera up, at this very moment she could be in the village shouting out all our secrets.

  To think of Vera was to think of reality, and soon my confidence in my gift began to wane. All my life, or so it seemed, Papa had dumped all kinds of junk into my head about the supernatural, which he believed in and Momma didn’t. I was convinced what he told me was true when I was with him, and convinced it wasn’t true the moment he left the house.

  “Where’s Ellsbeth?” Momma asked.

  “She tripped and fell, Momma.”

  “Cursed,” murmured Momma, reaching to prod me into turning over the bacon. “A house of idiots, determined to make you and me idiots, too. Audrina, I don’t want you to sit in that rocking chair anymore. The only gift your older dead sister had was an extraordinary amount of love and respect for her father, and that’s what he misses. She believed every word he said. Every one of his crackpot notions she took seriously. Think for yourself, don’t let him rule you. Just stay out of the woods—take that warning very seriously.”

  “But Momma,” I began uncomfortably, “Arden Lowe lives in the gardener’s cottage in the woods. He’s my only friend. I’d want to die if I couldn’t see him often.”

  “I know it’s lonely for you without friends your own age. But when the baby comes, you’ll have a friend. And you can invite Arden over here. And we’ll invite his mother to tea, and we won’t let Aunt Mercy Marie sit on the piano.” I ran to hug her, feeling so happy I could have burst.

  “You like him a lot, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Momma. He never tells lies. He never breaks a promise. He isn’t so fussy he’s afraid to get his hands dirty, like Papa. We talk about real things, not like the things Papa talks about so often. He told me once he read somewhere that a coward dies many deaths. He says that once he was so petrified he acted like a coward, and he can never forgive himself. Momma, he looks so troubled when he says that.”

  Pity filled her beautiful eyes. “Tell Arden that sometimes it’s better to run away and live to fight another day, for there is such a thing as odds too great.”

  I wanted to ask what she meant, but she had everything ready now to put on the table, and Papa wasn’t home, and my aunt was upstairs, and Vera … Lord only knew what Vera was doing this minute.

  “Set the table, darling, and stop looking worried. I think Arden is a very noble-sounding name, and he’s living up to his name as best he can. Just try to love your father as much as his first daughter did, and he’ll stop forcing you into the chair.”

  “Momma, when he comes home, I’m going to tell him to cancel the party.”

  “You can’t do that,” she answered dully. “He’s driven into town to pick up party food and fresh flowers. As soon as his business meeting is over, he’ll be rushing back here. You see, your father never had parties when he was a boy, and now he uses any excuse to make up for that lack. Men stay children at heart, Audrina, remember that. No matter how old they become they manage to keep some boy inside them, always wanting what they wanted then, not realizing that when they were boys, they wanted to be manly instead of boyish. It’s strange, isn’t it? When I was a girl I wished we’d never have parties, for when we did have them I wasn’t invited and I had to stay upstairs, dying to come down. I’d hide and watch and feel so unwanted. It wasn’t until I was sixteen
that I danced in my own house.”

  “Where did you dance?”

  “We’d roll up the rugs and dance in the Roman Revival room or in the back parlor. Other times I’d steal out the window and meet a boyfriend who’d drive me to a dance. My mother would leave the back door unlocked so I could sneak back in and my father would never know. She’d come into my room when she heard me return and sit on my bed so I could tell her everything. That’s the way it’s going to be with us. When you’re old enough to go to dances, I’ll see that you go.”

  If my gift didn’t set me free, maybe my mother would. “Did you have lots of boyfriends, Momma?”

  “Yes, I guess I did.” Wistfully, she stared over my head. “I used to promise myself I wouldn’t marry until I was thirty. I wanted my musical career more than I wanted a husband and children—and look what I got.”

  “I’m sorry, Momma.”

  Then she was touching my hair lightly. “Darling, I’m sorry. I’m talking too much and making you feel guilty when it was I who made the choice. I fell in love with your father, and love has a way of brushing aside all other considerations. He swept me off my feet, and if he hadn’t, I would probably have died of a broken heart anyway. But you be careful not to let love steal what aspirations you have for yourself. Though your father fills your head with silly ideas, in one he’s perfectly right. You are special. You’re gifted, too, even if you don’t know what that gift is. Your father is a good man who just doesn’t always do the right thing.”

  I stared up into her face, feeling more and more confused. First she said Papa gave me idiotic notions, and then she told me his craziest one about my being special was true.

  Moments later, Papa was home with his sacks of groceries and florist’s flowers. Vera came straggling after him. She looked dirty; her hair was a mess, and she’d been crying. “Momma,” she sobbed, running to my mother and making me feel mean again because she was trying to claim not only my father but also my mother. “Papa pulled me into his car by my hair—look what he did to my hair, and I just set it last night.”