Hours later Vera limped into my room, flushed and happy looking. “What a silly prude you are,” she said as she fell into my best chair. “I’m not interested in your boyfriend. I’ve got my eyes on someone else.”
I didn’t believe her. “You leave Arden alone, Vera. To get him you’ll have to kill me first.”
It might have been better if I’d never said that. Her dark eyes lit up. “Ohh, if I really wanted him, he’d be easy enough to take,” she purred like some fat cat. “But he’s just a boy, too immature for me. But maybe he’s more mature than I thought and I owe him another chance. The next time I’ll let him apply the oil—all over.”
“Papa would kill you.”
She threw a bare leg over the velvet arm of my chair, exposing so much I had to look away. “But you won’t tell him, Audrina, his sweet Audrina, for you’ve got a great big secret. You’re taking lessons from the Don Juan of Whitefern Village. Lamar Rensdale has seduced every virgin within a radius of twenty miles.”
“You’re crazy!” I shouted. “He’s never done anything …”
She leaned over the opposite arm of the chair so that her hair dangled to the floor. The tiny bikini top rode up so high I saw she had tanned her breasts, too. “But Papa won’t believe that,” she answered smugly, shaking her hair to free it of sand. “Papa will believe anything the villagers tell him. So you’d better be nice to me, Audrina.”
I felt sick as she got up, went to the mirror and took off her bathing suit, showing me what she had and I didn’t. Then, still naked, she sauntered out of my room, leaving her wet suit on my rug.
Now I was nervous about my music lessons, afraid now of the man I’d trusted before. I cringed when he leaned above me, and shrank when his hand accidently touched mine. His handsome face showed puzzlement as his eyes tried to meet mine and failed. “What’s wrong, Audrina?”
“Nothing.”
“I hate it when someone says that, when obviously something is very wrong. What made you stop trusting me?”
“I guess I’ve heard a few things,” I whispered with my head bowed. “I’m afraid I can’t come here again.”
“So,” he began in a bitter way, “you’re going to be like all the others and believe the worst of me.” He jumped up from the bench and paced his small living room. “You happen to be the only student who keeps me tied to this hick town. I keep telling myself even if I’m not good enough for Broadway, I am contributing a fine musician to the world.”
I felt sorry for him, for me, too, for there wasn’t another qualified teacher except in the city thirty miles away, and I had no way to reach the city. “Mr. Rensdale—” I tried to begin.
“Lamar—why can’t you call me by my first name?” he shot out angrily, locking his long fingers together and flexing them back and forth.
“I can’t call you by your first name. Papa has warned me not to do that, for it’s the first step …” Here I hesitated, beginning to feel very hot and uncomfortable. “Vera talks a lot, remember that. If she ever told Papa about your reputation, he’d come after you. Papa is huge, and it’s not his way to stop and listen to reason. He’d believe anything Vera told him … and she hates me. He knows she hates me, and still he’d believe what she says, for he doesn’t trust any man around young girls. If he didn’t believe me so chaste and pure in mind, he wouldn’t have let me come in the first place.”
“I’ll speak to Vera when she comes for her next lesson.” He stopped pacing and stood before me. “She’s wasting her time with me, and your father’s money. She has no musical ability at all, yet she insists on trying. She’s competing with you, Audrina. She wants everything you want. She wants your young man, she wants the love your father gives you and not her. She’s jealous of you, and dangerous, too. Beware of Vera.”
Slowly my eyes lifted to meet his. He lightly touched my hair, then my cheek where the tear had slid. “Are you crying for me, or for yourself?” he asked softly. “Who will teach you the piano when I’m gone? What will you do with your talent then? Bury it under the dishes you wash and the babies you bear, like your mother did?”
“I’ll come back,” I whispered, terribly afraid of repeating my mother’s frustrations. “I’ll risk Vera’s telling Papa, but you be careful of her, too.”
His smile came thin and crooked as he wiped away my tears. It was a smile very much like Vera’s.
Each day I played better and better. At her piano I felt like Momma, enthralled by the music I created and somehow disappointed in the life I led. Something was missing, and I didn’t know what it was.
I stood that winter staring out at the softly falling snow, wistful and needing, and I allowed myself to believe it was Sylvia I needed for fulfillment. Once I had Sylvia home with me, where I could give her all the love and mothering she must desperately need, I’d feel happy. I wondered as I’d wondered a thousand times just what was wrong with Sylvia. Was it so awful Papa was sure the truth would deliver such a blow to my “sensitivities” that I might not recover? Was I really that sensitive? My aunt ridiculed the notion so often that I felt both she and Papa shared the proof of my hidden weakness.
The snow danced in the wind, whirling around like tiny ballerinas, bouncing up, drifting down, floating sideways, making pictures, telling me, always telling me that I was never, never going to be free, anymore than Momma had been free.
Vera came bounding through my bedroom door, the cold air clinging to her heavy coat as she threw it down and stained yet another delicate chair. “Guess what I’ve been doing!” she exploded, hardly able to contain herself. Her eyes were lit up like black coals. The cold had made her cheeks red as apples. There were red marks on her neck. Marks she pointed out to me. “Kisses made those,” she said with a smirk. “I’ve got those marks all over me. I am no longer a virgin, little sister.”
“You’re not my sister!” I flared.
“What difference does it make, I might as well be. Now, sit down and listen to what’s going on in my life, and compare it to the dull stuffiness of yours. I have seen a naked man, Audrina, a real one, not just a picture or illustration. He is so hairy. You’d never suspect just how hairy by looking at him fully clothed. His hair travels from his chest down past his navel and runs into a point and keeps on going and getting bushier until—”
“Stop! I don’t want to hear more.”
“But I want you to hear more. I want you to know what you’re missing. It’s wonderful to have all those nine inches stabbing into me. Did you hear me, Audrina? I measured it … almost nine inches, and it’s all swollen and hard.”
I ran to the door, but she was up and blocking my way. With surprising strength she threw me to the floor, then straddled my body. I thought about kicking her out of the way, but I was afraid she’d fall and break another bone.
She put her shod foot on my chest, which was just beginning to swell. “He’s got a marvelous body, little sister, really a fantastic body. What we do would shock you so much you’d scream and possibly faint… and I love every second of what we do together. Can’t get enough, never can get enough.”
“You’re only fourteen,” I whispered, truly shocked at the loony way she looked and the disgusting way she talked.
“Soon to be fifteen,” she said with a hard laugh. “Why don’t you ask me who is my lover? I’ll tell you, gladly tell you.”
“I don’t want to know. You tell lies all the time. You’re lying now. Lamar Rensdale wouldn’t want a kid like you.”
“How do you know that? Because he doesn’t want you? Who would want you but a kid like Arden? He feels obligated to you, protective of you … and I could tell you so much about that you’d probably lose your mind that already hovers on the brink of insanity. Anybody fully sane knows exactly what’s gone on in their lives—everybody but you.”
“Leave me alone, Vera!” I shouted. “You’re a liar and always will be. Lamar Rensdale wouldn’t want you after I told him about Papa.”
“What did you tell him ab
out Papa?” she asked with hard, narrowed eyes.
“I told him Papa was huge, and had a terrible temper, and even if Papa isn’t your father, you could ruin our name.”
She laughed so hysterically she fell on the floor and rolled around like someone demented. “Boy, you take the cake, Audrina! Ruin our name? How can something already destroyed be ruined? And if you don’t believe me, go and ask Lamar. He doesn’t object to my age. He likes young girls. Most men do. Why, if you could see him striding to me without a stitch on, with that great gun cocked and aimed …”
Appalled by what she said, I ran from the room, down to where Aunt Ellsbeth was in the kitchen. I forgot about Vera as I felt pity for my aunt, always working so hard, doing half my share of chores and most of Vera’s, too, now that I didn’t stay home all day.
Aunt Ellsbeth looked up from washing the dishes. What I saw in her dark eyes startled me. They were glowing radiantly, as if she’d looked all her life and had at last discovered something to be joyful about. No longer did she call Papa cruel and callous as once she had. He no longer called her a walking beanpole, tall, lean and mean, with the tongue of a shrew.
“Audrina,” she began, and in her voice I heard a bit of warmth, “you’ve got to be very careful not to let your father dominate your life. He’ll never do that to Vera because she doesn’t care what he thinks of her. Because you do care, you make yourself vulnerable. He’s self-serving to the point of being cruel enough to rob you of what you need. He lies; he cheats and deceives. He’s devilishly clever and likable but, I’m sorry to say, completely without honor or integrity. If he can possibly manage it he will keep you here with him until the day he dies and never allow you to have a life of your own. I can tell that you love him. In some ways I commend you for your loyalty and devotion. But blood ties are not supposed to be chains. You don’t owe him, or Sylvia, your life.”
Oh, what did she mean?
“He’s bringing Sylvia home this spring,” she said in that flat monotone that sent chills down my spine. “Once she’s here you won’t have time for music lessons, or time to do anything but wait on her.”
I was thrilled to know that at last Sylvia was coming, but the joy of that was shadowed by her words and her expression. “Sylvia was two years old last September, Aunt Ellsbeth. Doesn’t that mean she’s past the time of being a troublesome baby?”
She snorted. “Your father doesn’t want me to discuss Sylvia. He wants you to grow very attached to her. I’m warning you, don’t let that happen.”
I stared at her, completely bewildered. Wasn’t I supposed to love my own sister? Didn’t Sylvia need me to love her?
“Don’t look at me like that. I’m thinking of you, not her. Nothing can help Sylvia, and that’s too bad, but you can be saved and that’s what I’m trying to do. Keep yourself detached. Do for her what you can, but don’t love her too much. In the long run you’ll thank me for saying this now and not when it’s too late.”
“She’s deformed!” I cried out, horribly distressed. “Why didn’t Papa tell me, Aunt Ellsbeth? I have the right to know. What is wrong with Sylvia, Aunt Ellsbeth, please tell me. I need to be prepared.”
“She’s not deformed,” she said in a kind way, looking at me with such pity. “Indeed, she’s a beautiful child, and in many ways she looks very much as you did at her age. Her hair is not colored as remarkably as yours, but then, she’s hardly more than a baby, and it may change and become exactly like yours—and your mother’s. I only hope that someday she will look exactly like you. Lord God above, if that happened, perhaps he’d set you free from playing those silly dream games he believes in so much. For an adult man with a high degree of intelligence, he can sometimes be as superstitious as any moron. I’ve seen you swing that ring on a string over the stock lists you make, so I give you credit for being clever. Be clever enough to save yourself when the time comes.”
What did she mean?
“Audrina, heed my advice and stop what you’re doing. Don’t try to help him. Try, instead, to see him for what he is, someone determined to keep you tied to him in as many ways as he can dream up. He’s convinced himself that you are the only female in the world worthy of his love and devotion, and to you he will give everything he possesses, never realizing he’s stealing from you the best the world has to offer.”
“But I don’t understand!”
“Think about it, then. Think of how afraid he is of growing old and infirm so he’ll be put away in some old-age home. It’s like a phobia with him, a sickness, Audrina. We all have to grow old. There’s nothing we can do to stop it.”
“But, but…” I sputtered. “Why are you trying to help me, when I didn’t know you even liked me?”
“Let me try to explain,” she said, folding her work-reddened hands primly on the slight lap she made. “When I came back here to live with my daughter, I was made into a servant. I was afraid to let myself feel anything for you. I had Vera, and Vera had nobody but me. The trouble was, Vera adored Lucietta and soon grew to despise me for being a slave, when I had to be that or get out. I had my reasons for wanting to stay. And I was right to stay on … for it worked out just as I knew it would if I had the patience.”
My breath caught. “Tell me more,” I whispered.
“In the beauty race your mother always won, so naturally I was envious of her in all ways. I was jealous of her figure, her face, her talent and, most of all, of her ability to make men love her exceedingly well.” A tightness came into her voice. “There was one man I loved, only one—and then he saw her. Once he saw her, it was all over for me. It hurts to lose, Audrina, hurts so badly sometimes you wonder how you can live with it. But I did live with it, and perhaps one day I will even win one race by default.”
It hit me then, hard, why my aunt had always been so jealous of Momma, and why Momma had always flung back at her sister that she always got what she wanted and my aunt never did. Aunt Ellsbeth had been in love with my father! Despite the fact that she argued with him, disapproved of him, still she loved him. It seemed that way back in my mind I’d guessed this long, long ago and tried to tuck it away into one of my memory holes.
“Aunt Ellie, do you love him even when you know he cheats and deceives and has no honor and no integrity?”
Alarmed, her eyes fled from mine. “I’ve talked enough for one day,” she answered shortly, stalking into the dining room with a fresh tablecloth. “But you take heed of what I said, and be aware that things are not always as they seem to be. Put your trust in no man, and, most especially, discard any dreams that disturb you.”
Sylvia
Time had slowed down for me. Now I could retain my memories and store them in the safest places in my brain. With the help of my daily journal, I read over my memories daily to deeply implant them. The rocking chair was helping in more ways than one. I had hold of peace now. I had a refuge now, a sanctuary where I could find Momma’s image floating on the clouds.
I was eleven years and eight months old that May when Sylvia came home. My aunt had confirmed this, and I believed she was telling me the truth this time. She also confirmed Vera’s age as being three years and ten months my senior. Nothing, I told myself, would ever make me forget my age again. I wouldn’t allow the gray mists of forgetfulness to come again and obscure important events. I looked in my mirrors and saw small, hard breasts swelling out my sweaters. I wore my sweaters loose, hoping Arden wouldn’t notice, but already I’d seen him looking there and trying not to let me see him when he did. I saw other boys in school taking interested surveys on how my figure was improving. I ignored them and concentrated on Arden, who was still in the same school Vera attended. What I had under my sweaters was small in comparison to what Vera displayed by wearing the tightest sweaters she could squeeze into.
Papa never objected to Vera’s tight sweaters. Vera was allowed to date and go to movies and school proms. She belonged to half a dozen clubs, or so she reported when she came home very late sometimes. I never had time
to socialize. I had to hurry to Mr. Rensdale every day after school, but I was uneasy with him now. I couldn’t help but think of what Vera had told me about what she did with him. Half the time I thought she lied; half the time I thought maybe she didn’t. One day he had his sports shirt open at the throat, and his chest was very hairy, just as she’d said. She had described his naked body to me in such detail it was almost as if he wore transparent clothes. I couldn’t look his way.
The girls I met at school asked me to their slumber parties, but Papa always refused to let me go. He wanted me home with him, listening to him, watching him shave, hearing of his trials and tribulations at work. While he shaved and I still perched on the edge of his tub, I learned how to short stocks, what buying long meant. I heard about wash sales and municipal bonds, and tax shelters, and percentage rates, and hedging, and tax loopholes. The stock market was a crazy gambling game for the very rich. Only the ones with millions were sure to profit—unless they were somehow “intuitive.”
“And you are,” said Papa with a wide smile as he wiped off the excess shaving father. “Audrina, the rocking chair did help, didn’t it?”
“Yes, Papa. Can I go now? I want to call Arden and make plans to meet him tomorrow. There’s a movie showing I’d like to see.”
“I’ll take you to the movie.”
“Vera goes to the movies with boys. Why can’t I?”
“Because I don’t give a damn what Vera does.”
I’d argued this out before and lost; I was sure to lose again. Then Papa smiled at me. “Well, my love, my impatient one, you are soon to have again what you want most. Tomorrow morning early, I’m taking off to drive to where Sylvia has lived since she left the hospital. I’ve already called and made all the necessary arrangements. Sylvia will come home with me tomorrow morning.”