“But it has to be. You know how she comes to you at night, to help you when your mom straps you down?”
Melissa tried to swallow the lump of fear rising in her throat, and managed a slight nod.
“Well, maybe she came that night, too. Maybe she came and let you go to sleep, and then did something to Blackie. And when you woke up, you remembered parts of it and went upstairs to see.”
“But I saw—” Melissa protested.
“Maybe you didn’t see,” Teri suggested. “Maybe you just remembered what D’Arcy did.”
Melissa had begun to tremble, her mind spinning as she tried to cope with Teri’s words. Was it possible? Could D’Arcy have done something like that? She didn’t know.
“Wh-What am I going to do?” she breathed, her terrified eyes fixing on Teri. “If Mama finds out—”
Teri reached out and took Melissa’s hand. “She’s not going to,” she said. “If D’Arcy did it, it’s not your fault, is it? So we’ll just act like nothing happened. We’ll get rid of the collar and not tell anyone.”
Melissa blinked back the tears that threatened to overwhelm her. “You’ll do that for me?” she whispered. “You won’t tell Mama?”
Teri smiled. “Of course not,” she said. “Why would I want to do that?”
Taking the dress with her, she led Melissa out of the attic.
Charles glanced at his watch. It was almost seven, which meant they were going to be at least thirty minutes late for the predance buffet dinner at the Barnstables’. Not that it mattered, really. During the summer no one really cared if you were late for a buffet. He glanced in the mirror, adjusting the black cummerbund of the tuxedo that he’d finally agreed to wear. “I’m not putting on a costume,” he’d told Phyllis when she tried to convince him to go as George Washington. “I’ll put on my tux and go as a waiter, but that’s the limit.”
Phyllis, knowing better than to push him, had mentally shifted gears, deciding on a flapper costume from the twenties. It wouldn’t be as elaborate as the gown she’d originally planned, but at least it wouldn’t look out of place next to Charles’s tuxedo. Now, hearing his impatient sigh and seeing him glancing at his watch yet again, she checked her makeup for the last time and stood up from her vanity. “Ready,” she announced. “And we won’t be more than forty minutes late, which is fine.” She smiled happily. “Shall we check on the girls?”
Together they walked down the hall to Melissa’s room, but just as they were about to go in, Teri stepped out, pulling the door closed behind her. “You can’t see Melissa,” she said. “We’re planning a surprise, and we don’t want anyone to see her before the party.”
Charles arched his brow. “Well, that’ll make it interesting,” he observed. “What are you going to do? Throw a blanket over her when Brett and Jeff arrive?”
“Well, of course, they’ll see her,” Teri retorted, then spun around so her father and stepmother could see her dress. “Well?”
“You look lovely, dear,” Phyllis told her, bending over to give Teri’s cheek a kiss. “You’ll be the belle of the ball.”
Charles smiled proudly at his eldest daughter. “And I think the fairy godmother idea’s perfect,” he added. “You’ve certainly been one to Melissa. Without you … well,” he finished, feeling suddenly self-conscious, “let’s just say I suspect she wouldn’t be going to the party at all.” His eyes shifted nervously to the closed door. “How’s she doing?”
“She’ll be fine,” Teri told him. “Now go on to the Barnstables’ so we can finish getting her ready.”
Kissing her good-bye, Charles and Phyllis started down the stairs, but Charles abruptly turned back. “I’m leaving a camera on the table in the foyer,” he said. “Don’t forget to take pictures. This is Melissa’s first date, and—”
“I know,” Teri replied. “You already told me three times. I won’t forget.” Waving one last time, she turned and went back into Melissa’s room.
Melissa, clad only in her underwear and a slip, was looking doubtfully at the dress, which now lay across her bed. “What if it doesn’t fit?” she asked.
“We’ll make it fit,” Teri told her. “And look what I found at the thrift shop,” she said, opening a bag she’d refused to let Melissa peek into since she’d brought it home from the village late that afternoon. Reaching inside, she pulled out a long blond wig. “And I found all the right makeup, too,” she said. “Now let’s get the dress on you. The guys will be here in an hour.”
Melissa stood up, and Teri slid the dress over her head, holding the sleeves while Melissa worked her arms into them. Finally she pulled the dress down and began buttoning it up the back.
It was a little too large, but not nearly as bad as the dress Melissa had found in the old steamer trunk, and Teri started to drop to her knees, but changed her mind as the yards of pink material that formed her own dress began to crumple beneath her.
“Stand on the stool,” she told Melissa. “I can’t get down on the floor, and I have to pin the hem.”
Melissa gathered the skirt up and climbed onto the stool in front of her small vanity. “What if it comes loose?” she asked.
“It won’t. I got safety pins, and the skirt’s got so many ruffles they won’t even show. Just hold still.”
She began working, folding the hem up a few inches and securing it with a neat row of safety pins. After fifteen minutes she straightened up and stood back, eyeing her work carefully. “Turn around,” she told Melissa. She made a few adjustments, then told Melissa she could get off the stool.
The hemline, almost perfectly even, hung only an inch off the floor.
“Now let’s do the back.” Teri began folding the material over on itself, carefully pinning the temporary pleat as flat as she could. “Well, it’s good enough,” she said. “Now let’s see what you look like.”
Hesitantly, Melissa moved over to stare at herself in the mirror.
The dress was the right length, but the bodice was way too loose and the left sleeve kept falling off her shoulder. “Oh, God,” she sighed. “I look awful, don’t I?”
Teri snickered. “Well, it’s not great yet, but give me a chance. Let’s get some socks to put in your bra.”
Melissa stared at her. “We can’t—” she protested.
“Sure we can,” Teri replied. “Why can’t we? What’s the big deal? I mean, D’Arcy must have been at least eighteen, and you’re only thirteen.” She went to Melissa’s bureau and pulled out two pairs of white socks, handing them to Melissa. “Go on. Try it!”
Feeling foolish, Melissa stuffed the socks into her bra, then looked into the mirror again. To her surprise, her chest seemed to have filled out, and even when she looked closely, the ruffles along the bodice of the dress concealed the socks completely.
And there was something else, something she couldn’t quite put her finger on.
She felt different.
She grinned crookedly at Teri. “Did you ever do this?” she asked. “I mean, before you—-”
“Of course,” Teri replied. “I started doing it when I was twelve. All the boys thought I had the biggest ones in the world. Except they were only there once in a while. Boys are so dumb—they never figure anything out. Now come on. Let’s get the makeup on.”
Melissa sat at the vanity, staring at her image in the mirror. “Wh-What are you going to do?” she asked.
Teri smiled at her. “I’m going to make you pretty,” she said. “I’m going to make you just as pretty as D’Arcy must have been.”
She began working, applying a base of light makeup to Melissa’s skin, then adding color. First she worked on Melissa’s cheekbones, highlighting them carefully so they appeared to stand out slightly. Then she began shadowing Melissa’s eyes, finally using a pencil to line the lids and draw the corners out slightly, so they appeared to be set wider than they actually were.
As Melissa watched, a new face slowly began to emerge. It was still her face, but somehow it had changed. Her featu
res seemed to have taken on a new definition.
And inside she felt different, too. As she watched her face develop, she began to feel a strange sense of confidence grow inside her. And then she knew what was happening.
I’m not me anymore, she thought. I’m turning into someone else. Someone … pretty!
She held perfectly still, hardly daring to move while Teri worked. Finally, after what seemed to Melissa to be an eternity, she stood back. “There. How’s that?”
Melissa stared at her image in the mirror, hardly daring to breath. “It—It’s weird,” she whispered at last. “I mean, I don’t even feel like myself anymore. I feel like—like somebody else.”
“That’s the way you’re supposed to feel,” Teri told her. “That’s the neat thing about costumes and makeup. When you put them on, you can be anybody you want. I mean—” The doorbell rang, and Teri glanced at the clock on Melissa’s bed table. “Oh, God,” she said. “It’s already after eight. They’re here.” She handed Melissa the wig. “Put this on while I go let them in, and I’ll come back to comb it for you.”
She hurried out of the room, and Melissa fingered the wig for a moment, her eyes still fixed on the image in the mirror.
The image that wasn’t her but was still familiar.
She started to put the wig on, then hesitated as a strange thought drifted into her head. Once the wig was on, once her own hair was covered, the transformation would be complete.
The last vestige of her real self would be gone and she would become someone else.
Who?
D’Arcy?
But D’Arcy wasn’t real, she told herself once more. D’Arcy was only a story, and a friend she’d made up.
Taking a deep breath, she put the wig on her head and let the long blond hair cascade down over her shoulders to frame her face.
And now, in the mirror, she was looking at a stranger.
But it was a stranger who was familiar to her, a stranger whom she had met before.
She picked up the brush on her vanity and began stroking it gently through the mass of blond hair.
And with every stroke, she felt the personality in the mirror, the personality that was not her own, gaining strength inside her …
* * *
Teri pulled the front door open, smiling at Brett Van Arsdale, who was wearing a black matador’s costume trimmed in a pink that matched her dress almost perfectly. She grinned at him and pulled the door wider. “How did you know?” she asked. “Did someone tell you what I was wearing?”
Brett cocked his head. “Maybe I’m psychic.”
Teri rolled her eyes, but then as she looked outside at the empty black Porsche sitting in the driveway, her grin faded. “Where’s Jeff?”
For a split second she thought a guilty look flashed through Brett’s eyes, but then he shrugged. “He got sick,” he said. “He called me half an hour ago and said he was barfing all over the place.”
Teri’s eyes narrowed. “If you’re making this up—” she began.
Brett held up both his hands in a protesting gesture. “Hey, is it my fault if Jeff got sick? I got him to ask Melissa, didn’t I? And that was the deal—if I got him to ask her, you go with me. But if he got sick, what am I supposed to do? I mean, I can’t make him go, can I?”
Teri thought quickly. How was she going to get Melissa to go to the dance if Jeff was standing her up? She could already see the tears streaming down Melissa’s stupid cheeks. She’d probably throw herself on the bed and have a tantrum or something. But then, as she thought about it, the answer came to her.
It would be just like the story.
She grinned at Brett. “Do me a favor, okay? I’m going to tell her that something happened and that Jeff’s going to meet us at the club. If I don’t, she won’t come.”
Brett snickered. “So what if she doesn’t come?” he asked. “Nobody’ll care.”
“Oh, yeah?” Teri asked, her grin turning into a sly smile. “The way she looks tonight, nobody at the club’s going to want to miss her. Just wait here.”
She hurried up the stairs to Melissa’s room, already working out the details of the story she would tell her half sister.
But when she got there, Melissa’s room was empty.
Quickly, she searched the second floor, then went up and looked in the attic. But Melissa seemed to have disappeared off the face of the earth. At last she went back downstairs where Brett was waiting by the door.
“She’s gone,” she said. “She must have heard us talking and taken off.”
“Taken off?” Brett repeated. “Where would she go?”
Teri rolled her eyes once more. “Who knows?” she said. “But you know Melissa—when something gets to her, she runs away.”
“Yeah,” Brett agreed, his grin widening again as he opened the door and led Teri down the steps to the Porsche. “And maybe this time we’ll get lucky. Maybe this time she won’t come back.”
Teri said nothing, but as the Porsche sped down the driveway, she glanced back at the house.
And, as she had on the night she’d taken Blackie’s body out to the pottingshed, thought she saw a flicker of movement in one of the attic windows.
But she’d looked in the attic and Melissa hadn’t been there.
Or had she?
CHAPTER 19
Jeff Barnstable lay on his back staring at the ceiling. The television on his desk was on but he was oblivious to it, concentrating instead on the rock music blaring directly into his ears from the headset of his Walkman. His right foot moved in a steady rhythm, keeping time to the beat, and every now and then his arms swung wildly as he smashed at an imaginary percussion set.
The tape came to an end, the last chord fading away, and Jeff reached for another one, glanced at the label, then tossed it back on the night table. Getting up, he wandered over to the window and gazed out into the gathering dusk. In the distance the lights of the Cove Club were beginning to glow brightly on the tip of South Point. A small frown furrowed his brow as he imagined his friends all dancing to the music of a live band.
Still, when he’d awakened this morning and thought of actually taking Melissa Holloway to the dance, just the idea of it had almost made him sick to his stomach, and by the time he’d made up his mind to follow through on Kent Fielding’s idea of pretending to be sick, he wasn’t even sure it was a lie anymore. Now, though, an hour after the time he was supposed to have picked up Melissa, he felt fine.
In fact, maybe he’d change his clothes and go to the dance after all. By then it would be too late to go get Melissa—knowing her, she’d be in the middle of a crying fit anyway and wouldn’t want to go even if he showed up at her house.
He grinned as he imagined himself showing up at her door, all dressed up, maybe even with a bunch of flowers from his mother’s garden. And there she’d be, her eyes all red and swollen, staring at him. She’d probably slam the door in his face, and then he’d get credit for actually trying to take her to the dance. But what if she were just sitting there, waiting for him? Then he wouldn’t have any excuse at all for getting out of it.
The soft buzzing of his parents’ party, still going strong downstairs, suddenly increased as his bedroom door opened. He turned around to see his mother, standing with her back against the jamb, her face set in an expression of disapproval that always meant she’d caught him doing something wrong.
“Feeling better?” Paula Barnstable asked, her voice neutral but her eyes betraying her anger at her son.
Jeff started back toward the bed, doing his best to look sick again. “I—I just needed some fresh air,” he stammered.
“It seems to me,” Paula said slowly, “that perhaps you need some fresh manners, as well.”
Jeff dropped down onto the bed. “I’m not feeling so good—” he began.
But his mother didn’t let him finish. “I suppose I should have known you were up to something when you said you didn’t feel well this afternoon. It isn’t really like you to ski
p a party, is it?” Jeff glanced uneasily at his mother but said nothing. “How do you think I felt when Phyllis Holloway told me how nice it was of you to have asked Melissa out tonight?” Paula went on. “Aside from the fact that I knew nothing about it, I also knew you were up here, ‘sick.’ ” The last word flicked from her lips like a whip, and Jeff cringed, knowing he was indeed in trouble.
“But I was sick,” Jeff began again.
“I don’t want to hear it, Jeff,” she told him. “I don’t want to know what led up to this, and I don’t want to hear any excuses. What I want to know is if it’s true. Did you invite Melissa to the dance tonight?”
“Y-Yes, but—”
“Then you’ll go,” Paula informed her son. “I can’t imagine why you invited Melissa, but I can tell you right now that since you did, you will take her. Aside from the fact that there’s nothing wrong with Melissa that getting out from under her mother’s thumb wouldn’t cure, there’s the matter of simple good manners.” Her voice dropped, a sure sign that she was angry. “You don’t make a date with no intention of keeping it, Jeff. It’s not only rude, but it’s cruel, and no matter what you or anyone else thinks of Melissa or her mother, you have no right to be cruel to her.”
“But—”
Paula shook her head. “No buts,” she said. “If I’d known you had a date tonight, I’d have called the doctor this afternoon. And if you’d been sick enough to warrant it, I’d have called Phyllis and Melissa myself and explained the situation. But now,” she went on, her voice dropping further, “if you’re really sick, I’m sorry for you. Because you’re going to get off that bed, get dressed, and go get Melissa. You’re going to take her to that dance, and you’re never going to leave her side. And if you don’t, believe me, you’re going to have a very lonely summer, because there will be no more parties, no more days at the club, no more days on the beach. You’ll sit here and think about what it means to go back on your word.” Without waiting for her son to reply, Paula turned and left his room, silently closing the door behind her.
Jeff sat on his bed for a moment as if paralyzed, his mother’s words echoing in his head. He should have known he’d get caught—he’d been stupid even to think he could get away with it. Sighing, he pulled himself off the bed and went to his closet. It was too late to figure out a costume now. He’d just have to wear a sports jacket and make the best of it.