Daughter of Darkness

  Ava, in a rare moment when we were talking about high school boys, told me the thing they feared the most was rejection. “It’s why most of them aren’t very original or exciting, Lorelei. They practically want guarantees before they’ll risk approaching you or asking you on a date. Here and there, a rare one came along, and I was tempted, but only for a moment,” she added quickly. “Our lives begin after high school.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s the way it is,” she said, and would say no more.

  When I looked up at Mark and recalled Ava’s comments about high school boys and our restrictions, I thought her answer hadn’t been good enough then, and it certainly wasn’t good enough now. It wasn’t easy just to ignore the attention of someone as good-looking as Mark.

  “I’m not a new student,” I said.

  He pretended great surprise. “Are you kidding?” He sat across from me and then, in an overly dramatic display of amazement, glanced back at the other students and said, “Those bastards. They just told me you had to be a new student. No one recognized you. Are you saying you’ve been here all this time and I didn’t notice? What, have I become blind or just plain stupid? I thought I knew all the girls in this school backward and forward. Some look better backward.”

  I couldn’t help myself. I laughed, and that encouraged him.

  “I know I should know your name,” he said, and then pretended to be running through some possibilities. “Lois? Laura? Lauren?” He snapped his fingers. “L… Lorelei, Lorelei Patio, right?”

  I looked past him at the other students in the cafeteria. Many had stopped talking and had turned our way. They looked frozen, anticipating. What did they expect I would do? Get up and charge out?

  “Okay,” I said. “You’ve got my attention. What’s your point?”

  “My point? My point?” He thought. “Oh, yeah, my point. My point is that you are without doubt the most beautiful girl in this school and maybe in the entire city. And,” he continued with an amusing air of seriousness, “I find it downright rude of me not to have acknowledged that fact long before this. Can you see it in your heart to forgive me?”

  I was laughing inside, but I kept myself from even smiling. It was as if Ava were right there, looking over his shoulder at me and grimacing, just waiting for me to do something wrong or say something wrong.

  “I’ll try,” I said. “You’re forgiven.”

  It took a lot of self-control, but I turned to look at my opened English literature textbook as a way of dismissing him.

  “Oh, great. Thank you, thank you. Now that we’re past that, can I ask you if you are free this Friday night?”

  “What?”

  “Friday night. A few of us are going over to party at Gavin Murphy’s house in Malibu. You know the Murphy family, right? Very respectable. His father’s an important movie producer, did that film Deadly Verdict.”

  “I don’t know him,” I said. “And I never saw the movie.”

  “No problem. Their house is right on the beach. We’ll have a campfire, good stuff, and lots of music, plenty to eat. The weather promises to be terrific, and there’s no better view of the stars.”

  “I…”

  “Don’t say yes or no right now,” he said, holding up his right hand. “I don’t want you to regret you said yes too quickly. And I certainly don’t want you to regret you said no, because I’ll have to regret it, too. Let the idea just settle in your mind. Examine it from every angle. Turn it about like a precious diamond. Think of questions to ask me during the week. You know, like time, what to wear, who all’s coming, and all that. Oh, here is a list of references for me,” he added, and handed me a slip of paper that said, “Moses, President Lincoln, Buddha, Jesus, and Allah.”

  “You left out George Washington,” I said.

  “Didn’t know him.”

  He got up, which surprised me.

  “I’m not going to pressure you. Don’t worry about me haunting you the rest of the week. Just turn around whenever you come up with a question. I’ll be right behind you, at a discreet distance, of course. Enjoy the remainder of your lunch,” he added, and walked away.

  I knew I was smiling now, and I also knew Ava would be furious. I stuffed his list of references into my book bag and left the cafeteria a little before the bell rang. I didn’t look back at him, either, nor did I glance at any other students. I felt their eyes on me, however. Curiosity only grew stronger and more intense about me the remainder of the day. Everywhere I looked, every time I turned, some girls and some boys were talking and looking my way. Mark Daniels was true to his word, too. He was always nearby, smiling, shrugging. I tried to concentrate on the schoolwork and get him out of my mind, but it seemed impossible. His smile and his sexy eyes were frozen across my vision.

  He tapped me on the shoulder at the end of science class and handed me another slip of paper. “I forgot these two.”

  I looked at what he had written: “Albert Einstein and Mahatma Gandhi.”

  “But no pressure, no pressure,” he added, holding up his hands and backing away.

  I laughed. Maybe I shouldn’t have. Maybe it was wrong, but I couldn’t help it. He was funny, handsome, charming, and certainly what Ava would have described as original. Even she would have had trouble rejecting him out of hand, I thought.

  By the time I reached Mr. Burns’s class, I sensed that everyone was talking about me and Mark. I thought even Mr. Burns was looking at me with greater interest. Whether it was my imagination or not, the effect was the same. I felt myself blushing and tried to keep my eyes down. We were studying Shakespeare’s sonnets, and suddenly, after a discussion of one, he had us turn to Sonnet 18 and then moved down the aisle as he read, stopping right before my desk. He liked to be the one to read them completely before we talked about them. I felt his gaze on me and looked up.

  “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day?” he began. It did seem as if he was speaking only to me. I felt like getting up and running out of the room. “Thou art more lovely and more temperate… But thy eternal summer shall not fade, Nor lose possession of that fair thou owest; Nor shall Death brag thou wander’st in his shade, When in eternal lines to time thou growest…”

  When he finished the sonnet, he held his gaze on me. I held my breath. What was he doing? He was drawing all the attention to me. I thought it wasn’t only embarrassing for me but also for him. He was a grown man. Why didn’t he realize this?

  “So,” he said, finally pulling his eyes from me, “who wants to try to explain this in more modern terms?”

  Mark raised his hand quickly. Mr. Burns looked surprised.

  “You’re inspired, Mr. Daniels. What could have made our most recent new student more inspired than my old crows?”

  “Such is the power of real beauty on me and you,” Mark replied. I glanced at him and saw he was staring right at me. The other girls in the class looked as if they would chorus in a deep, heartfelt sigh. Some of the boys were grinning from ear to ear. Mr. Burns seemed lost for words for a moment but quickly regained his composure and started to ask his usual questions about the imagery and meter.

  Never since I had begun in this school had the sound of the bell ending class been more welcome. I practically leaped up to lunge for the door before anyone could say anything to me. Mr. Burns shouted out the assignment. I barely heard him. I didn’t look back.

  Marla was waiting for me at the entrance to the parking lot. Even my little sister, unsophisticated, still more boyish than girlish, looked up with surprise at what she saw in my face.

  “Something wrong?” she asked. “Some boy say something sexy to you?” She looked hopeful that it was true.

  I shook my head. “No, c’mon.”

  “Oh,” she said with disappointment, and followed me out.

  Ava was waiting in the car. I moved as quickly as I could toward it, but heard Mark shout out, “But thy eternal summer shall not fade.”

  “Huh?” Marla said, looking back. “That boy is t
alking to you, Lorelei.”

  “Forget about him,” I said, and turned her toward the car. I had hoped somehow to escape Ava’s scrutiny, but she was already gaping at me through the passenger-side window, her face a portrait of disgust and disappointment.

  “It’s not my fault,” I said, getting in quickly.

  She hesitated, continued to look toward the school entrance at Mark Daniels and some other boys who had joined him, and then put the car in drive and headed away. Her silence was a deception.

  “What did you do?” she finally asked.

  “Nothing. I followed your advice, your orders. It really wasn’t my fault.”

  “You’re not telling me the truth,” she said, nodding. “Who is that boy, and what was he shouting?”

  “It’s a line from one of Shakespeare’s sonnets. He’s a relatively new student. I hadn’t said a word to him until today.”

  “So you did speak to him,” she said, practically leaping out of her seat.

  “I had no choice, Ava. He came over to me in the cafeteria.”

  “What did he say? What did he want?”

  “He wants me to go to a party with him this weekend.”

  She glanced back through her rearview mirror and then looked at me with a scowl on her face. “You obviously didn’t shut him down firmly enough.”

  “Before I could say no, he got up and left,” I said. I didn’t think it was necessary to tell her about his joke, using famous people as personal references. In fact, saying anything positive about him would be a disaster.

  “I don’t like this,” she said. “If he approaches you again, shut him down clearly enough, even nastily enough, to end it firmly, Lorelei. Did you hear me?” she asked when I didn’t respond.

  “Yes. I just thought…”

  “What? What did you think?”

  “That maybe a little more experience with boys would help me later on, help me become more like you.”

  “What? That is such a load of crap,” she said. “I’m going to have to tell Daddy about this.”

  “Why? For heaven’s sake, Ava, didn’t boys approach you for dates in high school? You said you were tempted a few times. Why make a big deal of this?”

  “Yes, I told you I was tempted, but I quickly shut that down and afterward never entertained thoughts of going out with any of them like you’re doing.”

  “Yes, you did,” I said, and tightened my arms around myself. “You’re lying. You just want to make me look bad in front of Daddy.”

  “If any boy asked me out, I’d tell him where he could get off,” Marla piped up.

  I spun around on her. “No, you wouldn’t, Marla. Don’t tell us that now. You were all excited in there that some boy might have approached me. You couldn’t wait for the details.”

  “I might be interested in the details, but I wouldn’t think of doing something Daddy told me not to do,” she replied, now looking more like Ava to me.

  Ava nodded. “She has more sense than you do already.”

  Marla smiled smugly at the compliment. I could feel it coming, the day Marla would be breathing down my back to become Daddy’s best girl. She was different from the way I was at her age. She was more sophisticated, sharper, more intent, and, despite her sloppy ways at times, more anxious to please Mrs. Fennel. It wouldn’t be long before sibling rivalry would be spelled in all capital letters when it came to what went on between her and me.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not going to do anything wrong,” I said.

  “Oh, I’m not worried,” Ava said, “but that doesn’t mean you won’t.”

  We drove on in silence. I felt all the conflicts raging inside me. I would never say it now, but I was more than just tempted to say yes to Mark. I really wanted to go with him, to be part of something people our age were doing. Why wouldn’t it be good for me to have these experiences now? Wouldn’t it make me smarter, wiser for the future?

  Even thinking these thoughts created a battle within me. I tried to chastise myself, to make myself feel bad about thinking of doing something that would displease Daddy and in some way endanger the family. I could feel the tug of war going on in my brain, thoughts wrestling with thoughts.

  Why was any of this surprising, anyway? Daddy said I was stunning now. Ava taught me how to flirt and be attractive. Where did they think I was going to school, a nunnery? This is just Ava’s jealousy again, I concluded. Daddy won’t be angry. He knows she’s been even more jealous of me these days. Let her go tell him. She’ll be disappointed in his reaction.

  She was frustrated when we arrived at the house, because Daddy was still away. I thought she would tell Mrs. Fennel as a consolation, but she apparently said nothing to her, because nothing was mentioned at dinner. Just after ten, when I was thinking of going to sleep, Daddy arrived. I could hear he had brought a woman home with him, so I thought Ava surely wouldn’t trouble him with her complaints about me tonight, but to my surprise, she did. When he came to my room, he didn’t look angry, however. He looked more concerned than anything.

  He was still wearing his tie and jacket and looked as handsome as ever. I had just gotten into my nightgown and sat on my bed when he entered.

  “I must speak with you, Lorelei,” he began.

  “I don’t care what she said, Daddy. It wasn’t my fault, and I didn’t do anything.”

  “I know.” He sat next to me and took my hand. I felt like a little girl again, sitting with him on the gazebo in New York, hanging on his every word, his every look. “It’s my fault this has happened.”

  “Your fault? Why?”

  “I pushed you a little faster than I have the others,” he said. “Usually, I wait a little longer before I unveil one of my daughters, but I thought, and still think, you’re a little different, Lorelei, wiser in some ways, and certainly one of the most intelligent. From your questions, the way you look at things, I could see you were going to be… how shall I say… more complete. And you are, you are.”

  He paused and took a breath.

  “Of course, I would expect boys to pursue you, and vigorously, too. The feelings you’re having and the desires you have are natural but also dangerous. Oh, I don’t mean dangerous the way other fathers might feel it was for their daughters. You know that. I don’t believe you would lose yourself in some love affair and get pregnant or anything. But if you developed even a small romance now, you would have far too much to explain. You understand, right?”

  I nodded.

  “You’ll have plenty of time and plenty of opportunities very soon to enjoy yourself out there, Lorelei. Just be a little more patient and listen to your sister. She’s been through it.”

  “I’m not sure she has,” I said, perhaps too quickly.

  “Oh? What do you mean?”

  “Ava’s a harder person than I am. She seems almost angry all the time, especially at men.”

  He didn’t laugh or smile. The look he gave me instead put icicles down my back. It was as if he was learning more about me than about Ava from what I was saying.

  “Well, then, try to be more like that,” he said. He rose. “I don’t want to hear any more talk about this boy at school, Lorelei.”

  “Okay, Daddy,” I said quickly. His look and his tone were frightening me and causing my heart to thump.

  I think he saw that in my face and softened his expression without quite smiling. “It will all be fine. Just be patient,” he said. He started to turn away and then stopped and turned to my window. The look that came over him now reminded me of the times he would stop whatever he was doing and listen hard.

  “What…”

  He put up his hand for me to be silent. I barely breathed. And then he surprised me again by returning to sit next to me on my bed.

  “Tell me about this boy,” he said.

  “There isn’t much to tell, Daddy. I don’t know much about him. He recently entered the school but quickly has become very popular. He is very good-looking and different.”

  “Different? H
ow?”

  “He’s more mature, I think. I barely spoke to him today and never before today.”

  “He never approached you before today?”

  “No. He acted barely interested in me, no different from how he acted toward most of the girls. He’d grunt a hello in the hallway but never waited to hear me respond or try to have a discussion.”

  “Until today?”

  “Yes.”

  He looked out the window again and was silent. Then he turned back to me and said, “I want you to tell me exactly what he says and how he responds tomorrow when you tell him you can’t go with him on any date.”

  “What should I tell him is the reason, Daddy?”

  “Don’t give him any reason. No excuses. A simple ‘no, I’m sorry, thanks for asking.’”

  “And if he asks why not?”

  “Tell him you don’t want to go with him. If you say it strongly and firmly enough, he should be quite discouraged. He’ll be angry, of course, but he’ll not bother to ask you out anymore. If he does bother you, annoy you, you let me know that, too. Understand?”

  “Yes, Daddy.”

  “Good.” He rose again.

  “Daddy?”

  “Yes?”

  Maybe it was the wrong time to ask, but the way he had looked at me when I complained about Ava made me think more about myself, more about the differences between us.

  “Why can’t I know more about myself, about where you found me and who my birth parents might be?”

  “What for, Lorelei? What difference does any of that make now?”

  “I read this story about an adopted girl who accidentally meets her real brother when both of them are in their twenties and…”

  “And they don’t know they’re brother and sister and they fall in love?”

  “Yes.”

  He smiled. “Don’t worry about that. You have no brothers.”

  “How can you know for sure?”