Lightning Strikes

by Virginia Andrews

“Maybe that’s not the right word. Catherine?”

  “Joyful, pleasureful,” Catherine explained. “If you moan and groan and sigh and cry over every little kiss and touch, you will miss the raison d’être, the reason to be. To be is to enjoy. Joie de vivre, no?”

  I thought about the gloom back at Endfield Place: Boggs growling at everyone, Mary Margaret whimpering and shy, Mrs. Chester a work hog, and my formal and stiff great-uncle and -aunt barely showing any feeling for each other.

  “Maybe you’re right,” I said as Randall returned.

  “Right about what?” he asked.

  “Making love,” Leslie eagerly offered.

  “What?”

  “Shouldn’t we get started?” I asked quickly.

  “Making love?” Leslie teased.

  “Making love to the sights of London,” I countered and they laughed again.

  “Touché, chérie. Come, show us your London, Monsieur Glenn,” Catherine declared, jumping up. She put her arm through Randall’s and tugged him toward the front door. He looked back at me helplessly. Leslie and I followed and we all headed for the underground and our day on the Thames.

  As Randall had planned, we took a sightseeing boat up the river and stopped at the Tower of London. Now that he had three of us in his party, Randall was even more of a guide, but he didn’t fool around as he had with me. He remained as serious as a schoolteacher.

  “William the Conqueror founded the Tower. It has served as a military citadel, a royal residence, a political prison, mint, observatory and repository of royal property from precious documents to jewels.

  “Those men in the brilliant red, black and gold outfits are known as Yeoman Warders,” he said.

  “That one is very good looking,” Leslie whispered.

  Randall ignored her.

  “The White Tower is the major building. It was home to a long line of medieval kings who lived on the top floor, but everyone is interested in the Bloody Tower.”

  “Why?” Catherine asked.

  “It’s where the ghoulish fifteenth-century royal murders occurred, the murder of the young princes, Edward V and the Duke of York.”

  “I want to see the jewels,” Leslie cried. “Who wants to look at some dirty old prison house?”

  “We can see it all,” Randall said firmly.

  The sisters smiled at each other, enjoying it when Randall took control. I started to laugh with them. Maybe they were right; maybe I was too serious about life. It was more fun to be carefree.

  After our tour, the sisters wanted lunch so we bought bread and cheese and to my surprise, two bottles of wine. When I questioned it, they looked at me as if I had been locked away with the poor dead princes.

  “How do you eat without wine?” Leslie wanted to know.

  I explained that where I came from, wine was not something adults wanted younger people to drink.

  “There are too many winos on our streets, guzzling some cheap wine out of paper bags.”

  They finally looked serious as I described some of the scenes I had witnessed where men were sprawled on sidewalks, homeless, living in cartons or in alleys, getting a cheap high from wine that would probably take paint off a car.

  Like Randall, the sisters came from a privileged life. They lived in a château outside of Paris with land that bordered on the Seine. They, too, had gone only to private schools, and my stories and illustrations were as fascinating to them as some television drama.

  “We have heard about such things in America, but you are the first one we know who lives in such a place,” Catherine said.

  Then, as if unpleasantness was nothing more than a bubble to be burst, they both clapped their hands and declared we should never talk about sad things.

  “You will be a great actress and never go back to such a world anyway,” Leslie declared.

  Even Randall had to laugh.

  “That’s why we’re all here, to become stars,” he said.

  I actually enjoyed our little picnic and the wine, too. I was surprised at how much Catherine and Leslie knew about good wine, how important it was to know from what area in France the grapes were grown, and how it all had an important effect on the taste. They taught me how to taste wine, how to hold it for a moment in your mouth and suck air over it to feel the burn. How they laughed at my confusion and surprise.

  We really were having a fun day, but Randall wanted us to go back early so he and I had time to prepare for the theater. The sisters wanted to know where I had gotten the tickets and I told them about my great-uncle, referring to him as Mr. Endfield. They exchanged subtle smiles.

  “What?” I asked while Randall went to throw away our bags and paper from lunch.

  “An older man, chérie?”

  “What? You don’t think. . .”

  “Why not? Leslie almost had an affair with a married man last year,” Catherine said as if it was something about which to brag.

  “You did?”

  “He was really just married, but still, he was desperate to have me as his mistress. He swore he might even kill himself if I refused.”

  “What did you do?”

  “Refused. Imagine, to have a man kill himself over you, eh, chérie?”

  “You’d like that?” I looked at both of them and smiled. “You’re making fun of me, telling me fantastic stories to see what I’ll believe.”

  “No,” Catherine said. “It’s true.”

  They exchanged knowing glances again.

  “What?” I demanded.

  “Our papa has a mistress,” Leslie revealed.

  “He does? And you know about it?”

  “Mais, oui. But of course,” Catherine said.

  “What about your mother? Does she know?”

  “Oui.”

  “I like her,” Leslie said.

  “Who? Your father’s mistress?”

  She nodded.

  “But he’s having an extramarital affair, isn’t he? How can you like her?”

  She shrugged.

  “She’s nice. She buys us nice things, too. These earrings are from her,” Leslie said indicating the tiny pearl earrings she wore.

  “You took a gift from the woman who is cheating with your father?”

  “You don’t like them?”

  I guess I had my mouth open in shock when Randall returned. He looked at me askance and asked if I was all right.

  “Yes,” I said. “I think.”

  On the way back to the residence, the sisters talked more about their love affairs. They prided themselves in being what they called femmes fatales, women who deliberately inflicted emotional pain on their lovers. They called it the agony of desire or some such expression Leslie had read in a romance novel. I was afraid to ask them how many times and with how many different men they had made love, but there was no doubt in my mind they would reply honestly—even in front of Randall.

  Yet, I had to admit there was something about them that kept me from thinking of them as merely loose girls, like some of the girls Beni had been friendly with despite my and Roy’s warnings. Catherine and Leslie still had a good image of themselves. I couldn’t explain my feelings; although I didn’t approve of what they were telling me about themselves, I didn’t disapprove of them either. It was as if the lives they were leading were good lives for them and should be left at that. I did keep coming back to what they called joie de vivre, wondering if there wasn’t something for me to learn and something for me to imitate and accept.

  Goodness knows, I wanted to throw off the chains of depression and sadness that the last year of my life had wrapped around me. Maybe throwing myself into a romantic fling or two was the way to do it.

  “Remember,” Grandmother Hudson had advised before I had left for England, “when in Rome, do as the Romans.”

  I wasn’t exactly in Rome, but I wasn’t back home either.

  We parted in the lobby of the residence hall because Leslie and Catherine’s room was downstairs. As we said good-bye, Leslie smiled
softly at Randall and then leaned over to whisper in my ear.

  “Make him long for you, chérie,” she said, “until he is in pain.”

  I started to laugh. Randall looked away quickly and then we went upstairs.

  He had a comfortable, nice sized room, but I suppose anything would look good to me considering the closet I inhabited back at Endfield Place. I saw that he kept it very neat, everything in its place. There were two windows that looked out on the street and got the afternoon sun, each draped in white cotton curtains. A light brown oval area rug was under and around the bed so he didn’t have to put his feet down on a cold wooden floor. The bed itself was a rich cherry wood. It had a headboard with an embossed crest that was designed around the head of a lion. The room had a large closet and a matching armoire as well as a dresser, a desk and chair and two nightstands with a standing lamp next to the desk. The room was lit mainly by an overhead fixture that washed the antique white ceiling in a warm glow.

  “I share the bathroom with two other students,” he told me, “but they’re both away for the weekend.”

  I was happy to see the bathroom had a decent shower in the tub.

  “Why don’t you go first,” he said. “I know how long girls take. I have a sister. Here,” he added, reaching into his closet to come out with a terry-cloth robe, “use this.”

  “Thank you.”

  He gave me some towels and a fresh bar of soap and I went into the bathroom and took a long, hot shower. Living in the servants’ quarters at Endfield Place after having been spoiled at Grandmother Hudson’s was difficult, but it helped me appreciate things I had taken for granted.

  After I showered, I brushed out my hair. Randall was waiting in another robe when I returned to his room, lying on his back and staring up at the ceiling, trying to be patient. He sat up quickly as soon as I appeared.

  “I’ll just be a few minutes,” he said. His eyes lingered on me as if he was unable to stop them from staring.

  “I miss my shower,” I said. “I’m sorry I took longer than I should have.”

  “It’s all right.” He smiled. What a beautiful smile he has, always so fresh, I thought. His well-protected life had kept him so unscathed there wasn’t a mark or a scar, not an ugly sight or thought souring what nature had given him at the start. The purity and innocence of his eyes made me feel young and fresh and full of hope.

  As he started past me, we touched and the contact stopped him only inches from my lips. I could see the confusion in his eyes, the struggle within him between the forces that wanted him simply to reach out and seize me, and that part of him that demanded he be respectful and polite. At the moment, I hated that part and perhaps tempted him by moving my face closer.

  “Rain,” he whispered, and we kissed. It was a sharp, clean touch that put little sparks on my lips, tiny explosions sending a hot sensation down through my stomach. I was still naked beneath the soft terry-cloth robe and he was naked beneath his as well.

  We kissed again. His hands undid my robe and mine undid his. His lips went to my neck, to my chin, to my nose and eyes as he leaned forward. I felt his hardness grow against me, but my robe remained partially closed.

  He lifted his face away and gazed at me.

  “Rain,” he said, “I can’t pull myself out of your eyes. I felt myself drawn to them as soon as we looked at each other.”

  He made it sound like a confession. It was as if he was a little boy admitting his mischief.

  “It’s all right,” I said and he kissed me again as his hands moved under my robe and over my breasts.

  I moaned, and my legs felt weak. I thought he would lift me into his arms and bring me to his bed, but he kissed me again and again and then he pulled himself back and closed his robe quickly, grimacing as if he was in terrible pain.

  “We’d better stop,” he said.

  Before I could reach for him or even shake my head, he turned and fled the room. I stood there, trembling. I had to sit on the bed and wait for my heart to stop pounding and the blood in my body to cool. I could hear the shower going. I would rather never have been brought to this point than brought here and left dangling, I thought. A surge of anger rushed through me and then I lay back and told myself he was only trying to do the right thing.

  What was the right thing? Leslie and Catherine would have tackled him at the door and dragged him back to the bed, I imagined and laughed to myself. I sat up, gazing at myself in the mirror on the back of the armoire door. I looked flushed, my eyes still electric. Calm down, Rain Arnold, I told myself. Get some control.

  I took deep breaths and then went to my things and started to dress. He came in while I was still in my bra and panties.

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said, starting to back out.

  “Randall, after what just happened, I don’t think you have to step out,” I said.

  He smiled, nodded and came in, going right to his closet.

  “I didn’t mean for it to happen like that,” he said with his back to me. “I mean, I didn’t intend. . .that wasn’t why I suggested you come here and all. I don’t want you to think that,” he said.

  “Stop worrying about it,” I told him after I slipped on my dress.

  He turned to me. He had his pants on, but no shirt.

  “Really? You’re not angry at me or anything?”

  “There’s no reason to be angry at you, or even myself,” I said. “We’re both adults, aren’t we? If I didn’t want to be here, I wouldn’t.”

  He smiled.

  “Yeah, that’s right.” He thought a moment. I could almost hear him telling himself that he had been a fool to rush out. It brought a smile to my face. Then he glanced at the clock on his desk. “We’d better get going,” he said. “They might not let us in if we get there after the play has begun.”

  We completed our dressing in silence, moving safely around each other in his room, actually trying not to touch. It was as if we both believed that if we touched, we would lock in a passionate embrace and throw all caution out the window.

  He looked very handsome in his blue blazer and tie. I fixed his hair for him and then we hurried out and down the stairs. As we rounded the turn in the lobby, I heard a door open and saw Leslie. She gave me a big wide smile, then laughed and stepped back into her room.

  If only she knew, I thought, she’d wonder why we were bothering with the play.

  Even a play by Shakespeare.

  Giggling to myself, I clung to Randall’s hand and hurried down the sidewalk with him into the warm evening, excited, never more alive and eager to see what lay ahead on this roller coaster Fate had decided I should ride.

  7

  The Hand of Fate

  Unlike Randall, I had never seen professionally performed theater, but I didn’t reveal that until after the play. Of course, I had read Macbeth in school, but seeing and hearing the actors, watching Lady Macbeth go mad and hearing the poetry was so overwhelming for me, I sat with my eyes glued to the stage, afraid to look away even for a moment. Throughout the production I sensed that Randall was gazing at me from time to time. If he tried to speak, I quickly shut him off. I didn’t want to miss a word.

  “That was wonderful,” I announced when the actors took their last curtain call. Everyone in the audience was standing. My palms were red from clapping so hard. “I can’t wait to see my next play!”

  Randall laughed at my enthusiasm. That was when I confessed.

  “Maybe you think I’m weird, but I’ve never been to one of these before.”

  “Never been to a play?”

  “Nothing but school productions,” I said.

  “You’re kidding?”

  “No, I’m not kidding, Randall. You still don’t understand what I’ve been telling you, where I came from, what my life was like. We didn’t have enough money for food, let alone for plays, and my school in Washington, D.C., didn’t arrange for us to go see any productions. Maybe they thought only a handful of us would go or those who would go would ruin
the performance with our behavior. They were probably right.”

  “I did forget all that,” he admitted as we walked from the theater.

  “Well, it’s all true, and now that I’ve seen how professionals perform, I really don’t know what I’m doing here pretending I’m going to be an actress. I can’t even begin to imagine myself up there, doing what they do.”

  “Oh, I’m sure you can do it, Rain. I’m sure you will,” he said.

  I gave him a side glance and smirked.

  “I don’t believe in the fairy godmother anymore, Randall. Some gang member in my old neighborhood mugged her,” I told him.

  “What?”

  “Nothing. Let’s just say I’m not making any plans to be disappointed, okay, and leave it at that.”

  He nodded.

  “You want something to eat, right? We really didn’t have any supper.”

  “I’m still too excited to eat, but if you’re hungry, I’ll eat something,” I said.

  He found a small place nearby called the Captain’s Private Table where he ordered us fish and chips. When he asked for two pints of lager and lime, we exchanged quick glances, nervous as to whether we would be served without a check of identification. The waitress was overwhelmed with the noise and the crowd and just wrote our order down and brought it without question or comment.

  “Now there’s a successful performance,” Randall told me. “We pulled it off together. Otherwise, it would have been embarrassing for me again. It’s because you have that real sophisticated look.”

  “Getting by a distracted waitress is a little different from being on a stage in front of thousands of people, Randall Glenn.”

  I sipped my beer and gazed around. The restaurant looked like it was a local favorite, with no one but us appearing to be from out of town. At the table beside us, two young men spoke in what I thought was gibberish.

  “I’ll have Kate and Sydney,” the taller of the two young men told the waitress.

  “Me? I’ll take the Lillian Gish with a pint of salmon and trout. Got a cigargette?” he asked his friend who quickly produced a cigarette and then stood up.

  “Where ya off to?”