My Sweet Audrina

  “Was the First Audrina hard to handle?” I asked with some hope of hearing she was less than perfect.

  “Enough is enough,” Momma said more gently. “Just remember, the woods are off limits.”

  “But Vera goes into the woods …”

  Vera had risen and was standing behind the sofa, smiling at my mother in a knowing way that told me she knew the cause of my older sister’s death. Oh, oh, now, suddenly, I wished she hadn’t overheard Momma’s warning, for that gave Vera another weapon to use against me.

  From the way the party died after that, it seemed I was never going to be a social success. Aunt Ellsbeth put the photograph away. Vera hobbled up to her room, carrying one part of that naked man with her, and I sat on alone in the Roman Revival room, realizing I couldn’t ask direct questions and expect an answer. I had to learn how to be sneaky, like everyone else, or I would never know anything, not even the time of day.

  Valentine’s Day came that very week, and Vera limped home from school with a paper sack full of valentines from all her boyfriends. She came into my bedroom with a huge red satin heart that opened to reveal a delicious array of chocolates. “From the boy who loves me most,” she said to me arrogantly, snatching the box away without offering me even one piece. “He’s going to take me away from here one day, and marry me, too. It’s in his eyes, his marvelous amber eyes. Soon he’s going to move—well, never mind where he’s going to move, but he loves me. I know he loves me …”

  “How old did you say he was?”

  “What difference does that make?” She sat on my bed and dipped into the candy box again, eyeing me in a funny way. “I can be ten, twelve, fourteen, sixteen, any age. For I have caught the magic of the First Audrina, the Best and Most Perfect, Most Beautiful Audrina. Mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the fairest Audrina of all, and the mirror says, you are, Vera, you are.”

  “You sound crazy,” I said, backing away from her. “And you can’t catch a gift that’s meant only for girls with my name. Papa told me that.”

  “Oh, Papa would tell you anything, and you’d be stupid enough to believe. I’m never going to be that dumb. My mother was stupid enough to let some sweet-talking guy talk her into his bed, but that’s not going to happen to me. When the seducing is done, it will be me who does it. And I know how. That medical book is teaching me all I need to know. Those stupid sex courses they teach in school don’t give enough facts.”

  Soon all the chocolates were gone, and when they were, Vera gave me the empty red-satin heart. For some reason that red heart touched me. How nice of that boy to give Vera candy. I hadn’t known Vera could inspire love in anyone, not when she couldn’t inspire it even in her own mother.

  Lions and Lambs

  One day I heard the special-delivery man say to Momma, “Isn’t this a lovely spring day?” or else I might not have known it was spring from the cold way it was. The trees hadn’t budded out yet, and birds weren’t singing. I rejoiced to know the season, if not the month, but I was too ashamed to try and ask what month it was and have people look at me with pity. It wasn’t special to not know anything about the passing of time—it was crazy. Maybe that was why they were ashamed to tell me why the First Audrina had died. Maybe she’d been crazy, too.

  Daring his scorn, I ran after the deliveryman and asked my silly question. “Why, it’s the month of March, girl, come in like a lion. And soon it will go out like a lamb.”

  It was cold, the wind was wild, and that I could easily associate with a lion. The next day I woke up and the sun was out, squirrels and rabbits were gamboling on our lawn and all was right with the world, according to Papa and according to Momma.

  Dinner ended the next night with Papa bellowing at Vera, “Get out of the kitchen! I’ve been hearing tales about your getting caught cutting out dirty pictures in the drugstore. Any girl who’s stealing like that has already proved there’s fire beneath the smoke!”

  “I didn’t do anything, Papa!” Vera sobbed.

  Later, in my room, she hurled at me, “God cursed me with fragile bones and you with a fragile brain, but between the two, I got the best deal.” But then she was crying. “Papa doesn’t love me like he loves you … I hate you, Audrina, really hate you.”

  I was baffled. I was Papa’s child, naturally he loved me best. I tried to tell her this. “Oh, you,” she screamed. “What do you know about anything? You’re spoiled and pampered and babied like you’re too good for the world … but in the end it will be me who comes out on top. You just wait and see!”

  Decided on a course of action, I went to Papa, who seemed terribly excited about something. He paced the floor of the Roman Revival Salon, glancing from time to time at his wristwatch. But he wouldn’t let me look when I tried to. “What do you want, Audrina?” he asked impatiently.

  “I want to talk about Vera, Papa.”

  “I don’t want to talk about Vera, Audrina.”

  I drew back. “Even if she’s not your daughter, you shouldn’t be so mean to her.”

  “What’s she been telling you?” he asked suspiciously. “Has she been trying to explain why you have that dream?”

  My eyes widened. I’d never told Vera about my worst nightmare. He was the only one who knew about my troubled dreams. I was sure he didn’t want Momma to worry about them, too. And that dream was my curse and my shame; never would I tell Vera. My head moved from side to side as I kept backing away.

  “Why are you acting afraid of your own father? Has that girl been filling your head with foul tales?”

  “No, Papa.”

  “Don’t lie to me, girl. I can tell when you lie, your eyes betray you.”

  The mean, uncaring mood he was in made me turn and run. I bumped into things like armed coat racks and umbrella stands and finally fell into a corner, where I stayed just to catch my breath. That’s when I heard my aunt coming down the hall with my father at her side. “I don’t care what you say, Ellie, I am doing the best I can to cure her. I am also doing the best I can for Vera, and that’s not easy. God, why didn’t you give birth to a child like my Audrina?”

  “That is exactly what this house needs,” answered my aunt coldly. “Another Audrina.”

  “You listen to me, Ellie, and listen well. You keep Vera away from my daughter! You keep reminding Vera each day of her life to keep her mouth shut or I’ll have the skin from her back and the hair ripped from her scalp. If ever I find out Vera was somehow connected—”

  “She wasn’t! Of course she wasn’t!”

  Their voices faded away. I was left in the shadows, feeling sick and trying to figure out what all that meant. Vera had the secret of why I couldn’t remember like everyone else. I had to get Vera to tell me. But Vera hated me. She’d never tell me anything. Somehow I had to make Vera stop hating me. Somehow I had to make her like me. Then maybe she’d tell me the secret of myself.

  The next morning at breakfast Momma was smiling and cheerful. “Guess what,” she said as I sat down to breakfast. “We’re going to have neighbors. Your father rented that small cottage where Mr. Willis used to live before he died.”

  That name rang a familiar bell. Had I known Mr. Willis?

  “They’re moving in today,” Momma went on. “If we weren’t expecting your Aunt Mercy Marie, we could stroll through the woods and welcome them. June is such a lovely month.”

  I stared at her openmouthed. “Momma, the deliveryman said yesterday it was March.”

  “No, darling, it’s June. The last deliveryman to come here came months ago.” She sighed. “I wish I had the department store deliver every day; then I’d have something to look forward to besides Damian’s return home.”

  All the joy I should have felt at the prospect of neighbors was spoiled by my disjointed memory. Vera limped into the kitchen then, throwing me a mean look before she fell into a chair and asked for bacon, eggs, pancakes and doughnuts. “Did I hear you say we’re going to have neighbors, Momma?”

  Momma? Why was she calling my mo
ther that? I shot my own mean glare her way. I tried not to let Momma see. She looked tired, rather distraught as she began to make goose liver pâté for the party. Why did she go to so much trouble when that woman was dead, and only Aunt Ellsbeth would be there to eat the best of everything?

  “I know who the new neighbors are,” smirked Vera. “The boy who gave me a box of candy for Valentine’s Day hinted he might be moving near us. He’s eleven years old, but he’s so big he looks like thirteen or fourteen.”

  My aunt stalked in, her long face grim and formidable. “He’s too young for you, then,” she snapped, making me wonder if Vera really was much older than I’d thought. Gosh, why couldn’t I know anyone’s age? They knew mine. “Don’t you start fooling around with him, Vera, or Damian will kick us both out.”

  “I’m not afraid of Papa,” said Vera smugly. “I know how to handle men. A kiss, a hug, a big smile and they melt.”

  “You are a manipulator, I know that. But leave that boy alone. Are you listening, Vera?”

  “Yes, Mother,” answered Vera in her most scornful voice. “Of course I am listening! Even the dead could listen! And I don’t really want a boy who’s only eleven. I hate living ‘way out here in the sticks where there aren’t any boys but the stupid ones in the village.”

  Papa came in next, wearing a new custom-fitted suit. He sat to tuck a napkin under his chin so nothing would spot his pure silk tie. If cleanliness was next to godliness, Papa was a god walking the earth.

  “Is it really June, Papa?” I asked.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “It seems only yesterday it was March—that man who brought Momma’s new dress said it was March.”

  “That was months ago, darling, months ago. Of course it’s June. Look at the flowers in bloom, the green grass. Feel how hot it is. You don’t get days like this in March.”

  Vera ate half her pancakes and then was up and heading for the foyer to pick up her schoolbooks. She’d failed her grade and had to spend eight weeks of her vacation going to summer school.

  “Why are you following me?” she bit out.

  I held fast to my determination to make Vera like me. “Why do you hate me, Vera?”

  “I don’t have time to list the reasons.” Her voice was haughty. “Everyone in school thinks you’re strange; they know you’re crazy.”

  That surprised me. “How can they when they don’t know me?”

  Turning, she smiled. “I tell them all about you and your quirky ways, staying close to the shadows near the wall, and how you scream out each night. They know that you’re so ‘special’ you don’t even know which year, month or day of the week it is.”

  How disloyal to spread family secrets. Again wounded, my desire to have her like me weakened. I didn’t really think she ever would. “I wish you wouldn’t talk about me to people who might not understand.”

  “Understand what—that you’re a nutty freak with no memory? Really, they understand you perfectly, and nobody, absolutely nobody, would ever want to be your friend.”

  Something hard and heavy grew in my chest, making it ache. I sighed and turned away. “I just wanted to know what everybody else knows.”

  “That, my dear little sister, is totally impossible for someone with no brain.”

  I whirled about and shouted, “I’m not your sister! I’d rather be dead than be your sister!”

  Long after she disappeared down the dirt road, I stood on the porch, thinking maybe I was crazy.

  Again, at three, Aunt Mercy Marie came to sit on our piano. As always, my aunt and my mother took turns talking for her. The bourbon was poured into the steaming hot tea, and I was given my cup of cola with two cubes of ice. Momma told me to pretend it was hot tea. I sat uncomfortably in my very best white dress. Because Papa wasn’t there, I was soon forgotten as those two women lit into each other, letting loose all the frustrations they had held in check all week.

  “Ellsbeth,” shrieked Momma after some insult about the house she loved, “the trouble with you is you’re so damned jealous our father loved me better. You sit there and say ugly things about this house because you wish to God it belonged to you. Just as you cry your heart out each night, sleeping alone in your bed, or lying there restless and awake, jealous again because I always got what you wanted—when you could have had what I have if you’d kept your damned big mouth shut!”

  “And you certainly know when to open your big mouth, Lucietta!” barked my aunt. “All your life wandering through this mausoleum and gushing about its beauty. Of course our father left this house to you and not to me. You made me want to vomit you were so sweet. You set out to rob me of everything I wanted. Even when my boyfriends came to call on me, you were there smiling and flirting. You even flirted with our father, flattering him so much you made me seem cold and indifferent. But I did all the work around here, and I still do! You prepare the meals and you think that’s enough. Well, it’s not enough! I do everything else. I’m sick and tired of being everybody’s slave! And as if that’s not enough, you’re teaching your daughter your tricks!”

  Highly indignant, my mother’s beautiful face flamed red. “Just keep it up, Ellsbeth, and you won’t have a roof over your head! I know what galls you, don’t think I don’t. You wish to God you had everything I do!”

  “You’re a fool. And you married a fool. Damian Adare only wanted what wealth he thought you’d inherit. But you never told him until it was too late for him to back out that our dear father hadn’t paid his taxes or had one lick of repair work done on this house. You claim to love gaslight, but the truth of it is you know electric lights would show Damian just how shabby this house really is. The kitchen and this room dominate our lives. The kitchen is so bright when he steps in here he can hardly see—none of us can. In your place, I would have been honest, and if you call honesty a fault, then by God, you are flawless!”

  “Ellsbeth,” screamed a high voice from the piano, “stop being nasty to your beloved sister.”

  “Go cook yourself,” yelled Aunt Ellsbeth.

  “Mercy Marie,” said my mother in her most arrogant, haughty voice, “I think you’d better leave now. Since my sister cannot be kind to a guest, or kind to my daughter, or kind to this house, or kind to anyone, not even to her own flesh and blood, I think there’s no reason to go on having these teatimes. I say goodbye with reluctance, for I loved you and hate to think of you as dead. I can’t bear to see people I love die. This has been my pitiful attempt to keep you alive.” She didn’t look at my aunt as she said, “Ellsbeth, kindly leave this room before you say something to make me hate you more.” Momma appeared on the verge of tears as her voice broke. Had she forgotten this was only a pretend game? Was I just a pretend game for her, too, so she could keep the beloved first Audrina alive?

  Wednesday morning came, and I was happy I’d written myself a note to remind me that Tuesday was yesterday. Now I had a grip on reality. It was Wednesday. I’d write that down tonight. At last I’d figured out a way to keep track of the days.

  As I was passing by my parents’ room on the way to the kitchen, my mother called me inside. She was brushing her long hair with an antique silver hairbrush. Papa was leaning close to the dresser mirror, making a knot in his tie. Ever so carefully he made the turns, the twists, the pull-throughs. “You tell her, Lucky,” said Papa in a soft voice. He looked happy enough to burst. Momma turned to smile at me, too.

  Eagerly I ran to be embraced and held against the soft swell of her breasts. “Sweetheart, you’re always complaining about having no one to play with but Vera. But someone new is coming to take away your loneliness. Come November or early December, you are going to have what you’ve wanted for so long …”

  School! They were going to send me to school! At last! At long last!

  “Darling, haven’t you told us many times you’d love a brother or sister? Well, you are going to have one or the other.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Visions of happy school days vanished. W
ill-o’-the-wisp dreams never came true for me, never. Then, as I stood trembling in the circle of her arms and Papa came to softly stroke my hair, I felt a surge of unexpected happiness. A baby. A little brother or sister would surely set me free from all their demanding attention. Then maybe they’d want me out of the house and in school, learning how to do many things I didn’t know about now. There was hope. There had to be hope.

  Momma gave Papa a long, distressed look, full of unspoken meaning. “Damian, surely this time we’ll have a boy, won’t we?”

  Why did she put it like that? Didn’t she like girls?

  “Keep calm, Lucky. The odds are with us. This time we’ll have a boy.” Papa smiled at me lovingly, as if he could read my thoughts in my wide eyes. “We already have one beautiful and special daughter, so God does owe us a son.”

  Yes, God did owe him a son after taking the First and Best Audrina and replacing her with only me.

  On my knees that night beside my bed, I put my palms together under my chin, closed my eyes and prayed: “Lord above, even if my parents do want a boy, I really won’t mind if you send them a girl. Just don’t let her have violet eyes and chameleon hair like mine. Don’t make her special. It’s so awfully lonesome being special. I wish you’d made me only ordinary and given me a better memory. If the First and Best Audrina is up there with you, don’t use her to model from, or Vera, either. Make this baby wonderful, but not so special it can’t even go to school.” I started to close out and say amen, but I added a postscript. “And Lord God, hurry up and let those neighbors move in. I need a friend, even if that boy does like Vera.”

  I kept a daily journal now to aid my faulty memory. That Thursday my aunt and my cousin were told the news I’d known for a full day. It made me feel special for my parents to confide something so important to me first. “Yes, Ellie, Lucky is pregnant again. Isn’t that wonderful news? Of course, since we already have the daughter we asked for, now we’re going to demand a son.”