Wicked Forest

  "Okay."

  "I bet you will, too," he said with a smile. "Did your father practice any of his theories about human behavior on you?"

  If he did, it was so subtle. I didn't realize it," I said. "When I was old enough to understand and appreciate him more. I saw how cleverly and smoothly he used psychology on everyone, especially my adoptive mother.

  "Adoptive?"

  "Yes. I was adopted." I said.

  "Oh." He sat back. "I see. I just assumed..."

  I saw how disappointed he was that I was not a blood relation. I considered him for a moment, then decided to be forthcoming.

  "However. I am my father's daughter." His eyebrows hoisted.

  "Excuse me?"

  "My adoptive mother never knew, but I am my father's actual child. After both of them passed on. I learned the truth about my origins, and then visited my real mother and decided to live with her and go to school here."

  "Oh. So that's why you told me you were living with your mother and half brother."

  "Exactly."

  "I am prying, but not as a busybody. I hope you believe that."

  "Of course," I said.

  The waitress brought us iced teas.

  "There is and will always be that age-old debate about the relationship of heredity to behavior. A colleague of mine is developing a thesis that there is a so-called evil gene. Some people turn it into

  something society accepts, such as aggression in sports or the military or." he said with a wider smile, "politics."

  I laughed.

  "Daddy would never discount any theory out of hand."

  "I know. He was the quintessential Renaissance man, the man with an open mind. I imagine he had no prejudices."

  I thought for a moment,

  "The only thing I know my father couldn't tolerate was prejudice. He was prejudiced against people with closed minds," I said.

  They brought our food. and I immediately remarked on how delicious it was.

  "I'm happy I didn't disappoint you," he said. - So. I imagine your adoptive mother must have been quite a woman as well."

  "Quite," I said dryly. He raised one eyebrow.

  "Let just say that was where my father was a typical man first and the professor second, and leave it at that," I added.

  He smiled.

  "So." he said, dabbing his mouth with his napkin. "am I to assume you are romantically unattached, since you are recently arrived here?"

  "No," I said.

  "No. I shouldn't assume., or no, you're not romantically involved?"

  "No, you shouldn't assume," I said.

  He kept his smile. but I saw his eyes darken a bit. "And you, Professor? I see no wedding ring."

  "Close, but no gold ring, no," he replied. "It takes a special sort of woman to want to live with a man who is so dedicated to his work, especially because the work is so abstract. You don't see a finished product, like a house or a suit. Ideas are too mysterious."

  "Yes. My adoptive mother never really took my father's work seriously-- only seriously enough to see it as a form of competition for her attention and time." He nodded.

  "Are you working on some original theory?" I asked him, thinking I might just be a part of his research.

  "Yes. I'm not sure how original it is. but I am exploring the influence of certain aspects of the physical environment on the psyche. The obvious things are already well accepted-- people are more depressed in bad climates, et cetera-- but I think we have to continually evaluate the effects of technology on our personalities. But, please, don't let me get started and bore you with one of my lectures, at least not until you're trapped in my classroom." he added. and I laughed.

  He was a charming man. I thought. Daddy would have liked him.

  He asked me questions about my classes at UNC and we talked a bit about the school. I ate everything on my plate, not leaving a crumb,

  "You did enjoy this. I'm glad. Would you like anything else? Coffee, some deep-fried ice cream, perhaps?" he asked.

  "No, I'm fine," I said. "I have to get back anyway."

  "Well, thank you for joining me and permitting me to ask you these questions.

  "Thank you. Professor," I said. He signaled the waitress again, and paid the bill.

  I drove him back to the campus. On the way, he told me more about his family, their restaurant, and his own college education. I learned he was actually as young as he looked, only twenty-eight.

  "I was chosen to attend a school for special, advanced students and graduated high school at age sixteen, college at nineteen, and I had my master's and then my doctorate by twenty-two," he told me. "That is why I grew this beard. to cover up what my mother calls her cara del bebe, her baby face." he confessed, then added after a moment's pause, "Thanks again for sharing with me."

  'sao benvinido,' I replied.

  "Huh?"

  "Portuguese for 'you're welcome.' I'm showing off. If you're going to use Spanish on me. I'll use some Portuguese. I had a Portuguese nanny." I said, and he laughed,

  "We'll teach each other languages, then," he said, and waved after he stepped out of my car.

  What a nice man, I thought again, and then I wondered if it was proper for me to get so close and personal with my college teacher.

  It's only a friendship, I told myself. What's the harm? There were far more serious problems to solve, most of them inside the gated property of Joya del Mar.

  .

  "Thatcher asked me to tell you to call him the moment you stepped in the door," my mother said. greeting me. "He sounded very excited."

  "Oh?"

  He made me promise twice that I wouldn't forget!"

  I put my bags of books down quickly and went to the phone.

  The moment his secretary heard my name, she put me through to him.

  "I met with Kirby Scott," he said. When I told him what I wanted to know, he was afraid I was coming after him as an attorney. He was so shaken by my directness, he was probably more forthcoming with me than he's been with anyone in his life. I learned some things about his relationship with Jackie Lee and with your mother as well. I'll tell you what he said that I think is true.

  "But as far as what my sister and mother told me, the bottom line is. I have researched what he told me and I have confirmed it is impossible for him to be my father. He was a few thousand miles away from Joya del Mar and Palm Beach during the period when my mother would have conceived. It is as I suspected and hoped, a fabrication, a plot conceived by my lovely sister and my mother. I've already let Whitney know how upset I am by what they fried to do. My mother is next."

  "I'm happy for you. Thatcher. You wouldn't want to be tied to that man in any way or form."

  "Be happy for us. I'm no longer hiding anything from anyone here," he said with determination and fury in his voice. "I've changed our plans for dinner. You'll have to wait to enjoy my cooking genius. Instead. I've made reservations for us at TaBoo, the first place I ever took you and a virtual neon sign when it comes to announcing a relationship in Palm Beach. We can go to the beach house afterward. I'll pick you up at seven.

  Dress to kill," he ordered. "I don't want a single eye to miss you and me together tonight"

  Are you sure?" I asked. Actually. I was having trouble keeping my breath. Suddenly, my whole life, my future, was charging forward at a pace I had not expected.

  "Am I sure? I tell you what. Willow De Beers, get that ring finger lathered up and ready. We're coming out. Tonight is our coming-out party!" he practically screamed into the phone.

  The moment I hung up, my mother was there, holding her breath in anticipation.

  "Is everything all right?" she asked, looking at my crimson face. I could feel the heat in my cheeks and at the base of my throat. "Willow?"

  "I think so," I said. "I think I've agreed to become engaged tonight and for all the world to see and know."

  She looked astounded, but cautious. "Are you happy? Its what you want?"

  "I think so." I s
aid. "Yes. I think so."

  "Then let's celebrate and be happy together." she declared, and rushed to hug me.

  Regardless of the problems Linden continued to have, he didn't have to look at me twice to see and understand what was happening. Whatever perceptive and artistic ability he had to see things was well at work. He walked in on Mother and me still hugging and laughing, and when we parted and looked at him, his face registered his unhappiness.

  "You're going to marry Thatcher Eaton," he concluded before I had spoken a single word,

  "Be happy for her. Linden," Mother urged.

  "Happy? More like feel sorry for her. What are we going to do now, permit the Eatons to continue to live in our house?" he said.

  "No, Linden," I said. "One thing has nothing to do with the other."

  He looked skeptical.

  "Let's wait and see," he said. "Thatcher is a master at getting what he wants. He could sell anyone on anything. even Eskimos on buying ice."

  "Please, Linden," I begged. "Give him a chance. He wants to be your friend. He's expressed his concern for you many times."

  "Oh, has he? I wonder She'll recall the many times he and his rich Palm Beach friends mocked me and ridiculed me. Ask him about the practical jokes they pulled on me." he urged. "Get him to explain all that while he's telling you how much he's concerned about me."

  "Everyone grows up. Linden." Mother said softly. "I'm sure there were things you did as a young boy that you wouldn't want to speak about now."

  He turned and squinted at Mother as if he wanted to be absolutely positive the woman who was speaking was indeed his mother.

  "I don't understand how you can be happy about any of this." he told her. "especially after the way you've been treated by that family for years!"

  "I'm tired, Linden. I'm tired of unhappiness, of anger, of sorrow. I want us to have some happiness now. I want us to look forward more than we look back. Please try to do what Willow asks and give it all a chance. Will you? Please."

  He looked from her to me and then back to her.

  "When it's over," he predicted. "when you're both sorry, don't apologize to me. Don't even look at me and expect any sympathy." Then he stepped toward me. 'You know what it's like for me to wish you or anyone else good luck? It's like a crippled rabbit wishing another crippled rabbit good hick during the fox hunt. So, good luck. Willow." he said, and left the room.

  "He'll come around," Mother told me, now sounding like the optimistic one. "When he sees how happy you are and how good things will be, he'll lose some of that anger."

  "I don't know." I said. "Maybe I should wait until he shows more improvement."

  "Don't be foolish. I told you before and I meant it. Willow. I don't want us to hold you back. If] ever feel we are dragging you down. I'll ask you to leave us," she threatened.

  "That'll never be." I promised, and we hugged again, but not with as much vigor and excitement.

  Later. I considered my wardrobe and what I would wear on this most special of all evenings out Thatcher wanted me to wear something eye-catching. I did have a dress I was always afraid to wear because I thought it looked so sexy it didn't leave all that much to the imagination. It was a pleated snakeskin fitted tank dress, short enough to make it impossible to bend over I had worn it only once before when I went out with Allan. He told me he had mixed feelings about it.

  "On one hand." he'd said, "I'm proud to have you on my arm, but on the other... when I see the way other men gape lustfully at you. I am not

  comfortable."

  In the end. I never wore it again when I went out with him, but somehow, looking at myself in the mirror and considering Palm Beach and Thatcher. I thought. Thatcher will have a different feeling about it. He won't have any doubt or hesitation.

  I brushed out my hair. All at once. I did a double take, realizing that Mother had come in behind me and was watching me quietly.

  "I'm sorry." she said. "I didn't mean to sneak up on you."

  "You didn't." I said. "I'm just thinking and dreaming too hard. I'm in a daze."

  "Standing here and watching you get ready, I was reminded of watching my mother when I was a young teenage girl. I would stand behind her and she would brush her hair and talk to me in the mirror. It was like we were looking at each other through a magic window. She would speak to me as if] were a full adult, never talking down to me. I suppose that was because we went through so much together, losing my father, moving here, starting new. Struggles like that mature you faster. I sometimes think I didn't have a girlhood.

  "I did enjoy those moments we had together," she added, smiling at her reminiscences. "usually right before she went somewhere with Winston, some ball or elegant dinner. She was a very attractive woman, you know."

  "I know. I saw some photographs on your dresser."

  "I think you look a lot like her."

  "I wouldn't mind that," I said.

  "She never did any of the things women do today to keep their figures. She could eat the worst things and not get fat, and she had skin like alabaster, so smooth with just a slight peach tint in her cheeks, like you have. She didn't wear very much makeup, either, just a bit of lipstick and a little eye shadow sometimes, but she loved expensive perfumes, and of all the jewelry she had, she favored this.," she said, and opened her hand to show me a platinum hair clip set with diamonds,

  "Oh, that is so beautiful," I said.

  "It's one of the few pieces Kirby Scott didn't get his greedy fingers around. This was made especially for her, Winston commissioned it. I think it would look perfect in your hair," Mother said, offering it to me.

  I started to shake my head.

  "I know she would want you to be wearing it. Willow, Something as beautiful as this doesn't belong hidden under socks in the bottom of some dresser. And besides, it's a special enough occasion to justify it being worn. Go on, put it in your hair," Mother urged me.

  I plucked it carefully from her palm and did as she asked. Then I sat back and we both looked at me in the mirror, I could see the look of pleasure settled in Mother's face like strawberries sitting in whipped cream. She bent down to hug me and press her cheek to mine.

  "I'm sorry I wasn't there for your growing up. Willow. I should have brought you back here with me. but Mother was sick then. She had been fighting breast cancer for two years and the battle took its toll an her. She was like some beautiful flower, deprived of sunshine and water, fading, crumbling, with only a hint of its former beauty left for someone to see.

  "It always bothered me that I wasn't here when she needed me the most in her life, and I regret not being there for you when you needed a real mother."

  "You're here now," I said, "And I'm here, and we're together." "I hope it's not too little too late."

  "It's not. We have many years to enjoy together," I assured her,

  Hearing Linden in the hallway, we both looked through the doorway, I wondered if he had been standing there and listening.

  "I'll go spend some time with him," she whispered, and patted my arm. "Don't worry","

  She left. and I looked through my wardrobe to find my black shawl. Then I gazed at myself in the mirror again and imagined Daddy standing behind me.

  You look very nice, I thought he would say. I hoped he would say. He was never a prude, and with a wife like my adoptive mother, he was used to fashionable clothing and expensive jewelry.

  Suddenly. I imagined his smile hardened into that psychiatrist's face of his. Are you sure about all this, Willow?

  Sometimes I feel very sure, and then sometimes I don't. Did you ask yourself why that is?

  No. but I imagine it's not unusual. Don't we all have doubts when we make big decisions?

  His smile softened.

  Now who's being the psychiatrist, answering a question with a question?

  I had a good teacher.

  He laughed, and then his image faded. "Daddy," I whispered to the mirror.

  There was only I. looking hard, looking alone,
looking afraid.

  .

  Linden and Mother were on the loggia when I came out of my room. The door was open. so I could hear their conversation. I heard Linden complain. "I bet you wish you had two daughters."

  "Of course not. Why, most married people want to have one of each."

  "You weren't married, either time," he said harshly.

  "I don't love either of you the less because of that." she said.

  "Willow was born out of a love relationship, at least" he muttered bitterly.

  "I've told you a hundred times if I've told you once. Linden. I would go through all of it, the pain, the disgrace, the misery, if it meant I would have you."

  "You're just saving that because its too late to give me back," he snapped.

  "No, that's not so." "Right," he said.

  "Hi," chimed in a new voice. It was Thatcher, approaching the house.

  Linden rose immediately and came in, moving so fast he almost didn't see me standing in the entry. He stopped short and pulled himself up.

  "Your Prince Charming has arrived. Have a good time," he said, and started by me.

  I seized his arm, which surprised him.

  "I wish when you said that, you really meant it. Linden."

  He blinked and relaxed his shoulders. Then he looked down, ashamedly. I thought, before looking up at me again.

  "I do. I'm sorry. I do," he said. I smiled.

  "Thank you, Linden," I replied, and he nodded and walked more slowly away from me, looking suddenly years older.

  I stepped outside. Thatcher, wearing a gold sports jacket, black slacks, a black shirt, and a black tie, looked up at me and whistled. Then he turned to Mother, laughed, and shook his head.

  "Grace, the hens will be cackling about this for a month."

  "As long as they don't lay any eggs on my front steps," Mother said. and Thatcher laughed again.

  He held out his arm.

  "Mrs. Future Thatcher Eaton." he said in an exaggerated southern accent. "may I escort you?"

  Why, Mr. Eaton. I thought you'd never ask," I said. and Mother laughed harder than either of us.

  On such a wonderful, happy note, how could anything bring back the clouds of despair? I thought.

  7

  Tea with Bunny