“Your birth parents died right after you were born and had no other children. Okay? Put that to rest. Go to sleep. I’ll be here tomorrow when you return from school. You’ll drive Marla and yourself. Ava has other things to do for me and then has to attend her own classes at college.”
“Okay, Daddy.”
“Good night, my sweet and beautiful daughter,” he said. He kissed me, touched my cheek, his eyes lingering on my face a moment, and then left.
I thought about what he had told me. It wasn’t much, but at least he had told me something about myself. Maybe I would get him to tell me more about my birth parents now. Even though they were dead, I’d like to know what they were like. What would be so terrible about that? Surely, now I was old enough to understand it all.
I gazed at my window. Why was he looking out there so hard? What else wasn’t he telling me?
And what could any of this possibly have to do with Mark Daniels and an innocent invitation to a party?
7
Sibling Rivalry
I was both surprised and happy that Ava had gotten up ahead of me in the morning and had gone to do whatever Daddy wanted her to do for him. Had she been there at breakfast, I thought my first words to her would have been “Thanks a lot, Ava. Are you satisfied now?” But knowing her, I was sure that would have led to more bitter words and perhaps brought Daddy downstairs. That would have displeased him. He was still upstairs with whomever he had brought home. Worried that I might go knocking on his bedroom door for something, Mrs. Fennel told me immediately that he was still entertaining a guest.
“Daddy’s not a slam-bam thank-you-ma’am kind of guy,” Ava once quipped when I commented on how long a particular woman had been with him in his room. “Most women are amazed at his stamina.”
“How do you know all this?” I asked her.
“A little bird told me,” she said, and laughed at the expression on my face. “You have a lot to learn, Lorelei, a lot to learn.”
She made it sound as if every little new tidbit of information was as sweet and wonderful as a ripe grape, especially anything new that I learned about Daddy.
Marla looked sullen and disappointed at breakfast when I stepped into the dining room. What had she been expecting to see? Me sour and tearful? Was she hoping I’d be sent away and she’d move up the ladder toward a bigger place in Daddy’s heart ahead of me?
“I bet Daddy was very angry with you last night,” she began. She made it sound like the first line of a song. Mrs. Fennel looked disinterested as she moved about the table, but I sensed she was listening closely.
“No, not really,” I said as casually as I could. Clearly, Ava had said something to her. “We had a wonderful conversation last night after you went to bed, in fact, and he told me things about myself, about my birth parents.”
Marla looked devastated. “He did?”
“I wouldn’t say it if he hadn’t, Marla. We don’t lie to each other, especially in this house, and we certainly don’t plot against each other,” I reminded her sharply with one eye on Mrs. Fennel. I saw her smile.
This pleased her? Did she like me to be snippy and more like Ava? Maybe in her way of thinking, I was too soft and easy and not, therefore, made of the steel and grit necessary to be one of Daddy’s daughters. However, I didn’t care what pleased her. I didn’t like being this way, but Marla’s attitude drove me to these darker places in myself.
“Well, what are you going to do about that boy? I’m sure Daddy doesn’t like the idea of your seeing him, right? Right?” she repeated to force an answer.
“Don’t worry about it, Marla. It’s not of any concern to you. Just look after yourself.”
“We are all supposed to worry about each other and look out for each other, because it’s the same as looking out for ourselves,” she said, wagging her head at me. “Isn’t that what Daddy has told us often?”
“I said I would take care of it. I don’t need you to remind me of anything, either.”
She smiled a bitter little smile at me. “You’d better take care of it and take care of it fast,” she said. She sounded as if she were the older sister now and not me.
“I don’t need you threatening me, Marla.”
“I’m not threatening you. Am I threatening her, Mrs. Fennel?”
“Stop!” Mrs. Fennel snapped at us both. “I will not have this sort of behavior in my house.”
Marla constricted like a balloon losing its air. I stared back at Mrs. Fennel. Her house? This is Daddy’s house, I thought. She saw the defiance in my face but didn’t challenge it or get angry. She didn’t look surprised as much as she looked more interested in me. It was as if she saw something in me she was afraid I didn’t have, like the killer instinct or something.
That frightened me more. Did I have it? I felt as if I was being introduced to myself by myself in quick, sharp ways now. Every revelation would open my eyes wider and wash away the childhood fantasies to which I had clung. Ava once told me she carried Daddy inside her wherever she went. It was truly as if he saw what she saw and heard what she heard. She said she was happy about that, too. It helped her make sure she always made the right decisions.
I was happy to finish breakfast and get us off to school, despite what I knew awaited me there. Marla was still smarting from my sharp comeback at breakfast and sat sullenly as I drove. Then she suddenly smiled and turned to me to say, “Ava told me something very secret about Mrs. Fennel a few days ago.”
“Is that so?”
“Yes. It’s something I bet you don’t know.”
“Stop it, Marla.”
“Stop what?”
“This childish tit-for-tat. You don’t know anything I don’t know.”
“Oh, really?” She sat there with that smile frozen on her face.
“Okay, what is it?” I reluctantly asked.
“I don’t know if I’m supposed to tell you. Maybe Ava will get angry.”
“Please, will you,” I said, grimacing. “You’re behaving like a spoiled little brat.”
“Mrs. Fennel is Daddy’s older sister,” she blurted. “I bet you didn’t know that. Well?”
I smiled. “Ava was just teasing you, Marla. She once told me Mrs. Fennel was Daddy’s mother.”
“No. She was teasing you. She wasn’t teasing me. She trusts me more than she trusts you. She told me so.”
“You had better stop this lying, Marla.”
“I’m not lying. She said she and I have more in common. You can ask her yourself.”
“Right. I might just do that, and then you’ll be really sorry.”
“I won’t be sorry. Ava and I talk more than you know lately.”
I didn’t say anything, but I had a sick feeling at the base of my stomach that she was telling the truth. My silence gave her more courage to continue her little taunting. She was more like Ava, all right, I thought. She had Ava’s mean streak, especially whenever she was checked.
“I know something else you don’t know,” she sang. I didn’t respond. “What do you think happened to Mrs. Fennel’s husband, Lorelei?”
“You know?”
“Maybe,” she said. “Yes, I do,” she quickly added. “If you’re nicer to me, I’ll think about telling you.”
“I’ll hold my breath,” I said.
When we pulled into the school parking lot and I shut off the engine, she turned to me and in her most whiny voice said, “I don’t care if you hold your breath all day, Lorelei, but you’d better do exactly what you’re supposed to do with that boy today.”
Then she got out and walked ahead of me to the building.
How could Daddy ever think sibling rivalry was a good thing? I wondered, and got out.
When I reached the entrance, I was surprised to see Mark Daniels standing there. He opened the door quickly for me.
“Your majesty,” he said, bowing. “I am at your royal service. Your wish is my command.”
I looked past him and saw Marla standing near the cor
ridor she was to take to homeroom. She was watching us, looking like an evil child spy.
“In that case,” I said, walking past him, “I command you to leave me alone.” I paused and looked back. “In short, forget about me.”
I walked on, glaring back at Marla, who looked disappointed again. I was sure she had been hoping she would see something bad about me to tell Daddy.
She still had an opportunity for it, I thought later. Mark didn’t scare off easily. Right after homeroom, he was beside me in the hallway. I tried to walk faster, but he stayed alongside me.
“What do you want?” I muttered.
“What you’re asking for is impossible. It’s against Mother Nature.”
“Mother Nature?” I said, stopping and turning to him. The students around us paused as well because of how abruptly I turned and how loudly I spoke. “What stupid thing are you saying now?”
“The command to leave you alone, forget you,” he said in a very calm voice. He shook his head and looked sad. “Can’t be done. Every cell in my body, every beat of my heart, every corpuscle of my blood, is drawn to you the way nature intended. Even if I tried to forget you, my body wouldn’t listen. You’re like a beautiful magnet.”
I stared at him. He had a soft smile on his face, but his eyes were full of deep, serious feeling. If Daddy saw this boy, I thought, he’d understand why doing what he asked me to do was so difficult. In fact, if Daddy had a son, his son would surely look and act like Mark Daniels.
“Listen to me,” I said, imitating his soft tone but still speaking firmly. “I don’t want to go out with you this Friday. I don’t want you asking me to go out any Friday or any Saturday, ever. I would like you to leave me alone. Do you need that translated into any other language, or do you get the point?”
“That’s very good,” he said.
“What’s very good?”
“Your performance, for I know it’s a performance. You want to go out with me. I can see the struggle going on inside you. You’re saying these things, but you’re hoping I won’t listen.”
“Believe what you want,” I said, and walked away, but my heart was pounding so hard I thought I might faint. The truth was he was right, but how would he know that and be so confident knowing it?
For most of the day, I assumed that was that. Despite what he hoped he saw in me, he had gotten the message loud and clear. I had turned him off, and he would leave me alone. I avoided looking at him, and whenever I did see him, he appeared to avoid looking at me. He didn’t approach me again before lunch or in the cafeteria, but I could see that my outburst at him was the talk of the school. Some of those girls who I knew had been jealous of me from the start saw another chance to pounce. In P.E. class, Ruta Lee and a clump of her friends accused me of being gay.
“No one can come up with any other reason why you would blow off Mark Daniels,” she said. “You don’t date anyone. You refuse any other boy’s invitations. This clinches it. It’s all right if you want to be gay. We just want you to know we know and don’t appreciate your staring at us when we change clothes in here.”
All of her friends were grinning from ear to ear. I could hear Ava’s words: “Daddy sees through my eyes, hears through my ears.”
I nodded and stepped toward her. “Ruta,” I said softly, sympathetically, “we both know that you’re saying this in front of your friends just because I rejected your advances in the girls’ room. I’m right, aren’t I?”
“What?” She turned red.
I looked at the others. The tone of my reaction and comment took them all by surprise. “Has Ruta approached anyone else? If so, you know what I’m talking about. I couldn’t stop her in the bathroom. It was embarrassing.” I looked at her again and shook my head, my face locked in a sad-serious expression. “The way you came at me, complimented me on my clothes, my makeup. Really, Ruta, you should return to the therapist you said you were seeing.”
All the girls looked at her.
“I never saw any therapist. Shut up.”
I sighed and shook my head at the other girls. “I thought she was having an orgasm in the toilet stall beside me. I was so afraid Mrs. Gilbert would walk in on us. Ruta hasn’t noticed it, but Mrs. Gilbert has been very suspicious. She sees when you touch my hand in class, Ruta. I’ve asked you to stop.”
“You’re disgusting!” Ruta cried.
I didn’t smile. One thing about accusations, I thought. You could always depend on them to ruin or weaken someone else. I could see the possibilities swimming in the eyes of her friends. Had she ever touched any of them in a suggestive way or talked about homosexuality, maybe even wondered aloud what it would be like? She wasn’t very popular with boys. Would they think this might be why? She was the one who had used that to strengthen her accusations about me. As the Wiccans warn their own: do evil to someone, and it can come back at you three times.
Ruta seemed to shrink back, her eyes revealing a new sense of desperation. “I wouldn’t turn down Mark Daniels,” she claimed, searching for a strong comeback. She looked at the other girls. “No one here would. That’s for damn sure.”
“That’s not the issue here, is it? Now that you’ve brought it up, let’s talk about it. Why wouldn’t he or any other really good-looking boy in this school be after you? I’ll tell you why, Ruta. Boys can sense when a girl’s gay,” I said, looking at the others and nodding. “It’s instinctive.”
I saw Ruta’s eyes begin to tear. She looked as if she would turn and run.
“After all,” I delivered as a final killing blow, “why would being gay be the first thing to come into your mind when you thought about attacking me just now? Anyone else think that?” I asked the others. One or two actually shook their heads. Ruta’s lips began to tremble.
“That’s ridiculous,” Meg Logan said, stepping up to her defense.
“Is it? Haven’t you slept overnight at Ruta’s, Meg? Ruta told me how hot and heavy you two can get,” I said. “Did you put her up to this? Was it because you were jealous of how strong her feelings have been for me?”
“What?”
Some of the other girls looked shocked.
“You bitch!” Ruta cried, and swung at me. I caught her wrist in midair and turned it sharply. She screamed, and I stepped forward, my face in hers so closely that, as Shakespeare would say, our breaths did kiss.
“Don’t you dare make up any more stories about me,” I said in a cold, gruff whisper. I felt more like Ava, the rage in me rising to the top and spilling out like milk boiling over in a pan. Ruta wilted with the pain. “If I hear that you are, I’ll come see you in your sleep.”
I let go of her and returned to my locker. No one spoke. Ruta turned away, rubbing her wrist. Meg started to put her arm around her to comfort her, but Ruta threw it off.
“Stop!” she cried.
I smiled to myself. How quickly an innocent gesture would look telling to the others. She had tried to poison them against me but only poisoned herself. I couldn’t wait to tell Daddy all about this and how well I had handled it and Mark Daniels.
But Mark Daniels wasn’t as discouraged as I had thought. He was right, though. Despite myself, I still felt a longing to be with him, to have fun together. Pressing all that down was like smothering a starving baby.
“Okay,” he said, stepping up beside me as I made my way through the halls at the end of the day. “This is my final offer. Maybe they’re more to your liking and you’ll reconsider.”
He handed me a slip of paper and walked faster. I watched him head toward the exit to the parking lot, and then I looked at the paper. He had listed four more personal references: Elvis Presley, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Madonna.
It was certainly difficult being hard with him, I thought, laughing to myself, but one thing I knew for sure, I couldn’t let Daddy know that.
“Well, what happened with him?” Marla asked me when we got into the car. “I saw him talking to you even after you told him off at the school entrance this
morning.”
“What, were you spying on me?” I thought for a moment. “Ava didn’t tell you to do that, did she?”
“Maybe Daddy told me to do it.”
“You’re lying. I’m going to ask him, and he’ll be enraged. You said it yourself. He wants us to look out for each other, not hurt each other.”
“Nobody told me to do it. I’m just trying to be a good sister and help you,” she whined. I had frightened her. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”
I felt myself calm down. “It’s over, Marla. Stop asking me about him.”
“Good, but you don’t sound happy,” she said. “I’m just telling you as a good sister would. You’d better be careful.”
I didn’t speak for the remainder of the trip. When we arrived at home, Mrs. Fennel told me my father was waiting for me in the living room.
“Marla, you go to your room,” she added. Marla’s shoulders sank. She had so hoped to listen in on any discussion. Maybe she was afraid I would still tell Daddy what she had done and said.
“Tell me everything,” Daddy said when I entered the living room. Dressed in his ruby velvet robe, he was sitting in his armchair. He put down the book he had been reading while waiting for me and folded his hands.
I told him what I had said to Mark and his reaction and then how he had continued approaching me. “He kept kidding around about it, but I didn’t smile or laugh at anything he said.”
“Very persistent. Are you sure you were stern enough?”
“Oh, yes, Daddy,” I said. I repeated the words I had used and then told him what had happened in the girls’ locker room and how I had turned the tables on Ruta Lee. That brought a smile to his face.
“Very clever of you, Lorelei. But,” he added with concern, “I don’t want you getting into trouble at school. None of my girls gets into trouble like that and brings unpleasant attention to us. Ignore them from now on. Your days at that school are limited.”
The way he said that made me think we might be moving again very soon.
“Are we moving?”
“Soon, yes.”
“How soon?”
“I’m not sure yet, but don’t worry about it, Lorelei. Moving at short notice is not a problem for any of us,” he added. “Okay. You can go do your homework if you’d like.”