She nodded, nearly in tears herself.
“I’d rather think about the here and now and pretend I never existed before I arrived. I don’t have that many good memories anyway, Karen. That’s why I don’t like talking about any of it.”
“Right. Right,” she repeated, her eyes brightening. “That’s a good idea, actually. Let’s pretend you always lived here. Don’t worry. I won’t let my idiot friends drive you mad with questions. They just want to be entertained and feel superior anyway.”
“Thank you.”
I was surprised at how honest she was about them. Did she mean herself as well? I smiled to myself. With a bodyguard like her, I’d probably be all right.
“Unless there’s something you want to tell them, something that’s important for everyone to know,” she said on second thought.
“Unless there’s something I want to tell? Right, but don’t worry about it. I’ll tell you first. For now, let me see where you are in math. I was good in math especially,” I said, eager to move off the topic of my past. She looked just as eager, if not more so, to do the same now and showed me her math text.
For almost the next two hours, we worked on school assignments, and I started catching up in the history text. Every once in a while, she’d insert a story about this one or that at school, but I didn’t keep her talking about any of them.
“We’ve got to concentrate,” I’d remind her.
“You are like one of the teachers,” she said, and said it so seriously I had to laugh.
“I mean it. You talk funny, too.”
“Why funny?”
“It’s just… you use words my friends don’t use, even Melina Forest doesn’t use. And you’re very responsible. And so serious most of the time!” She thought deeply a moment. “It’s like you grew up only with adults.”
Was it that obvious? She didn’t know me long. What did I have to do to change it? Imitate her? Her friends? I thought of what I had told Ava.
“It’s because I read a lot, I guess.”
“Yeah, maybe. I hate reading. I don’t even read the backs of cereal boxes at breakfast. I don’t like to read anything longer than a tweet.”
I laughed just as her phone rang. It was Adele, eager to gossip, mostly, I thought, about me, but Karen cut her short. I could see it didn’t please her girlfriend.
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said abruptly. “I said I’ll see you tomorrow, Adele. I have to finish this homework,” she added with her eyes on me. She ended the conversation without saying goodbye.
I pretended I wasn’t listening.
“Sometimes my friends can be so immature,” she said. Suddenly, she wanted to be grown-up, maybe in her mind as grown-up as I was. The irony was, I would rather switch places with her any day. To have a mother and father and live such a privileged life rather than the life I had would not be a hard choice to make.
Who really wanted to be forced to age beyond your years, to lose your youth so quickly, to seem like you had grown up with only adults anyway? More responsibility wasn’t something to rush achieving, especially when it was responsibility that stole your innocence. Everyone my age, even younger, was in a hurry to get older. Mazy taught me that later, when you were responsible for yourself entirely, you would yearn for the days when “you breathed bubbles and heard only laughter.”
Right now, someone else had to make sure you had enough to eat, enough clothes to stay warm, and a safe place to sleep. But I was inches away from having to do all that for myself and still might be. Karen could go to sleep dreaming of lollipops. I had to first shut away the nightmares, the main one being Ava coming to my room in the middle of the night and saying, I know who you really are.
“When you want to, you can tell me more about your mother,” Karen said with a lot more softness in her voice than anything she had said up to now. “I can’t imagine all the pain and sadness you’ve endured.”
She said “endured” like a terrible actor in a soap opera. She was trying to impress me with how well she could understand. Could she ever understand being left at a train station at night when you were only eight? Being taken away by a strange elderly lady and practically imprisoned in her house? I doubted she could even imagine it happening to her. I was jealous of how protected and spoiled she had been all her life. And yet something deeper inside me wanted me to be different, to hold on to what was true about myself.
“Yes, I’ll tell you more when I can,” I agreed. “It just takes time.” I recalled Mazy telling me that time was the only real cure for anything sad or painful.
She nodded. I paused. Were those actual tears in her eyes? Maybe I was missing something here by being so judgmental. It suddenly occurred to me that Karen was emotionally much younger than I was assuming she was. She wasn’t spoiled as much as she was frightened. What had she seen? What had she heard? For a moment, I sat there realizing that from the little Daddy had told me, Karen’s early life might not have been that great. It sounded like she and her mother, mostly she, were walled into the Saddlebrook estate until Daddy had finally married Ava and they had their own home. What had he done to win over Amos Saddlebrook, or was that his problem and the only reason he remained with my mother and me for Karen’s early years? It took him that long to get Amos Saddlebrook to accept him as the father of his grand-daughter.
Ironically, perhaps, there was almost as much to learn about Karen and her life as there was for her to learn about mine. We both lived under the umbrella of a grandparent, but the big difference, of course, was that she hadn’t lost her mother. I had.
“Your watch looks pretty old for someone your age,” she suddenly said. “It looks like one of my grandmother’s.”
“Actually, it was someone’s grandmother’s. My mother got it for me at a pawn shop for my birthday.”
“Really? She had to go to a pawn shop to buy you a birthday watch?”
“It was what it was,” I said. “Every dollar was important to us.”
She stared, thinking, and then burst into a smile.
“I have a few watches. I have very nice earrings and a few nice bracelets and necklaces. Sometimes when my father went on a trip, he brought something back for me. He doesn’t do that much traveling anymore, but he still buys me something from time to time, even though my mother says he’s spoiling me. Come look.”
She went to her jewelry box on the small marble-topped table just outside the door to her en suite bathroom.
“Take a look,” she urged.
I rose and peered into the drawer. The drawer had a black velvet bottom, so all the jewelry was highlighted.
“That is a lot.”
“Some of it was my grandmother Saddlebrook’s, but my grandfather doesn’t want me wearing those things until I’m older. He’s a bit of a fossil.”
“What?”
“Old-fashioned that way. To tell you the truth, a lot of this is old-lady-like anyway.”
“Why didn’t he give those things to your mother first?”
“I don’t know. She and him fight over him spoiling me, too.”
“He,” I said.
“What?”
“Not ‘him,’ subject pronoun ‘he.’ She and he.”
“Oh, brother. I do have a teacher living with me now,” she moaned, and then smiled. “I’d like to see you do that to my mother one of these days. She thinks she’s so perfect, you know. She hates being corrected about anything.”
“Being afraid of being corrected is a sure sign of insecurity,” I said.
“Huh?” Karen shook her head as if she had water in her ears. She stared and thought. “Better not talk too much with my friends for a while.”
“What? Why?”
“They’ll think you’re a spy or something. Here,” she said, handing me a pair of emerald earrings. “You haven’t had your ears pierced, so I can’t loan you any of the others. These are the only ones that clip on. I don’t wear them at all anymore. Take them,” she insisted.
“
Thank you.”
“That was a big fight, by the way,” she said, returning to our work on her computer desk.
“What was?”
“When my father let me get my ears pierced. He had taken me to the mall to get some shoe boots I wanted, and I begged him to let me do it. When we got home and my mother saw, she had what Grandpa Amos calls one of her shit fits. She didn’t talk to my father for days.
“Hey,” she suddenly said, “you should ask him to take you to do it. Then I could share more, or maybe he’d buy you a pair of your own.”
“I think I had better wait a few more days before I’m the cause of a fight between your parents,” I said.
“There,” she pounced, poking her right forefinger at me. “Only a teacher would say something like that.”
The shocked expression on my face made her laugh.
Whatever it was, it broke the wall of distrust she had thrown up between us. She said she was even willing, when we had time, to read me some of her diary. She claimed she had begun it when she was only seven.
That, I thought, I did want very much to hear.
Reluctantly, especially for her, instead we finished our homework, and I went to my room to catch up some more in the history text before going to sleep. I heard Garson crying and Ava complaining. Whatever Daddy said was mumbled, and then it grew quiet.
The next day at school, Karen was around me as much as Melina Forest, but I thought it was more to flirt with Tommy Diamond, who, according to Melina in a whisper, looked to be flirting more with me. Was I oblivious to it because I had so little experience with boys? Karen said nothing about it, maybe because she was so intent on flirting with him herself.
On Saturday, Ava was quite surprised at how eager and excited Karen was to help buy me some “desperately needed” clothing and something nice to wear to the party.
“I can help her choose what girls in our school favor, Mother. We can’t let her look stupid.”
From the look on Ava’s face, however, I wasn’t sure she was all that happy about it. I knew she had been hoping I would be that “teacher” when it came to Karen, that I’d have more influence on her than she had on me. The irony wasn’t lost on me. I, the girl who was confined and had almost nothing to do with real-world experiences, was seen to be the wiser one.
I couldn’t come out and say it directly, but I wasn’t here to save anyone besides myself. At least, that was what I had thought when I arrived. I believed the part Daddy had cast me in was exhausting and fraught with danger enough. My relationship with Karen, who was really my half sister, was delicate, even without all the true details revealed. There were so many undercurrents crossing beneath us, driven by her early childhood history and my own. Having the same father meant their merging seemed inevitable, a crashing of ocean waves driven by winds coming from opposite directions. Despite Daddy’s confidence, I knew deep in my heart that this imaginary world he had created for me would eventually collapse into itself. In the end, I would find myself standing outside our front door again, only this time it would close sharply and with a finality that clearly sent me off into a new world of darkness.
These thoughts lay silently but constantly behind every word I spoke, everything I did in this house, and everything that was done to and for me. It was probably no different from having a persistent headache like Garson’s persistent teething. Ava surely saw the stress in my face but for now blamed it on my difficult early life. I had no doubt that eventually, because she and Daddy were providing so much for me, she would begin to wonder if there wasn’t more.
Celisse had arrived to take care of Garson, but Daddy didn’t come along with us to shop for me. I recalled how much he hated shopping and how Mama would accuse him of rushing us so much that we always forgot something important. A few times, he did have to go back for something, mumbling and complaining like a madman out the door. Nothing, however, had prepared me for the shopping Ava would do. Karen wore a smug smile on her face, because she knew exactly how her mother would behave once we entered the mall and walked into the more high-end department store. Ava attacked the search for my wardrobe from the feet up.
Once a size was established, be it for shoes or jeans, she had to choose a half dozen of this or a half dozen of that. When I showed some amazement at the quantity, she let it be known in no uncertain terms that she didn’t intend to be shopping for me or even for Karen that often. She always claimed to have better things to do with her time, whatever that was. Eventually, I learned it had a lot to do with her father’s business empire here and, of course, whatever time she had to devote to her baby.
The one thing I did appreciate at the department store was her turning to me to make the choices of colors or styles. But I wasn’t confident about it, and I didn’t want to make fashion mistakes in front of Ava. I looked to Karen, who eagerly jumped in to help. She ended up with two new pairs of shoes, two new pairs of jeans, three new blouses, and, on the way out, another pair of earrings. Ava insisted on buying my winter coat as well. The prices of everything practically made me stutter. Mazy would have been quite shocked. I tried to keep track of it all and lost count somewhere after three thousand dollars.
I was suspicious of Karen’s choice of jeans and blouse for the party. The skinny-jeans style seemed too tight, and the blouse as well, but Ava didn’t voice any objections. In fact, once we chose the color of the blouse, she plucked a jean jacket off the rack and tossed it at me to try on. Karen complained that hers was getting ratty, so she bought her one, too.
Because there was now so much for the two of us, most was to be delivered, but, arms loaded, Karen and I headed for the exit behind Ava. The driver hurried to pack everything, and we were on our way home. Looking at my watch, I realized we had shopped for over four hours. Mazy wouldn’t last more than a half hour at most, and Daddy ten minutes.
Once home, Karen threw her things, still in boxes, into her room and came to mine to help me unpack, hang, and fold the clothes I had carried. I suspect because it was Ava Saddlebrook buying, the complete order was delivered less than a half hour after we had arrived.
“I’m glad I have something new to wear tonight,” Karen said. “When I was with you yesterday at school, did you see how much Tommy paid attention to me? He’s flirted with me before,” she claimed. “But Melina gets in the way all the time. Guess what, though?”
“What?”
“Tommy’s invited tonight, but Melina isn’t. I’m going to look extra special.” She fluffed her hair, looking in the mirror, and then looked at me.
“What do you know about makeup?” she asked me.
“Very little,” I said. I thought for a moment. “I don’t even have lipstick.”
“I noticed. Well, what do you think we’re going to do between now and leaving for the party? Homework?”
“No. What?”
“We’ll do your face,” she decided. “Makeup done well will highlight all your good features. Any cousin of mine has got to look as good as I will. Attaching yourself to something or someone ugly and blah will affect how people view you. My mother’s exact words. So? Ready?”
I had to confess to myself, I was excited about doing something like this with her. Cousin? Maybe, just maybe, we could become sisters without her realizing it.
“Come on,” she said. “To my room.”
I thought she was even more excited about it than I was, and it was my face.
“Everything I know my mother taught me,” she announced as she pulled out the chair at her vanity table. “And you can see how pretty and put together my mother always is. I helped Adele with her makeup, too. Her mother is sort of… plain and disinterested in fashion. Adele is always moaning about it and wishing she was my sister instead of my friend. But a lot of girls at school do.”
She opened a makeup kit. I knew she was imitating Ava when she spoke now. She had that same arrogance in her tone.
She put her hands on my shoulders and looked at me in the mirror.
&
nbsp; “You have a pretty nice complexion, but it’s a little dull.”
“Dull?”
“We’ll start with this,” she said, opening a jar. She plucked a small brush out of the kit and began applying the slightly tinted cream. “We call it foundation,” she said, as if she belonged to a special species of female “we.” She brushed it on. “I’m going to use this bronzer,” she said when she was finished doing that. “My mother says it adds warmth.” She did, and then she stood back as if she really was a makeup artist. “Let’s put a little blush on your cheeks.”
“Isn’t it too much?”
“It’s nothing yet,” she said. “And then let’s get some eye shadow, just a single shadow across your eyelid.”
I squirmed when she did this.
“It’s good. Stop being so nervous,” she said.
“What’s that now?” I asked when she picked up a pencil.
“Wait a minute,” she said, finally realizing my reactions. “You act like you’ve never done this for sure or seen it done. Didn’t your mother wear makeup?”
“Yes, but I never paid attention to it, and she didn’t want me to wear any yet.”
“Why not?”
I was silent, thinking. Mazy never even thought to mention it.
“She wanted me to stay a little girl forever,” I offered, and waited while she digested the thought.
“Oh. Well, maybe because of the way you lived…” She shrugged. “Let’s see how some lip liner works. Watch me, and then do it yourself.”
I did.
“That’s good,” she said.
She displayed an array of lipsticks.
“This one goes well with the lip liner,” she said, choosing a bright ruby tint. “Try it. We’ll wipe it off if it’s too much.”
I started, and she seized my wrist.
“Don’t dab it on like that. It won’t be even. And you’ll miss the corners.”
I followed her instructions and demonstration, and then we both studied my face.
“I think I’m pretty good,” she declared. She grabbed my hand to pull me up. “Let’s go show my mother.”
Out of the Rain Page 14
