“Maybe I should stay home, too, and help.”
“Absolutely not. If you did that, it would make them both feel terrible. They would clearly see how disruptive this foolish pregnancy really is.”
“Foolish?”
“Of course, foolish. What else can we call it, Semantha? She is simply too old, and her body is reminding her of it. I don’t understand what possessed them to decide to do this.”
“But Dr. Moffet said it was all right, and you said Daddy … the Heavenstones needed a boy, needed someone to manage it all after Daddy retires.”
“Yes, but,” she added, looking toward Mother and Daddy’s bedroom, “not with Mother now.”
“What? What does that mean?”
She looked at me as if she’d just realized I had been standing there listening to her.
“Nothing. Except it means we’re all in a crisis now for months and months, so don’t cause anyone any more trouble or worry,” she told me, then turned and started for the stairway.
“What trouble have I caused?”
“Do your homework,” she muttered instead of answering, and descended the stairway.
I watched her for a moment and then went to Mother and Daddy’s bedroom. I knocked on the open door and entered. Daddy was seated right beside the bed, holding Mother’s hand. She was lying back on her pillow, her hair down, her eyes closed, and a cool cloth compress on her forehead.
“Oh, hi, Semantha. Come in, come in.”
Mother opened her eyes and reached out for me. I hurried to take her hand.
“What happened?”
“A little incident,” she said. “I’ll be fine. I didn’t lose the baby,” she added.
“Just lucky Cassie was home,” Daddy said. “Your mother wanted her to go to school and not bother,” he added, giving her a look of chastisement.
“I could have stayed home, too,” I said.
“There’s no need for both of you to do that,” Daddy said. “Cassie’s quite capable of handling it all.” He smiled. “So. Is there a lot of excitement about the basketball game Friday?”
“Very much. No one’s talking about anything else.”
“These are your best years, Semantha,” Mother said. “Enjoy them, and don’t dare worry yourself about me. It will all be fine, just fine.”
“There’s a rally the last period of the day on Friday. The whole student body will be brought down to the gym, and the coach will speak, and the cheerleaders will cheer.”
“How exciting,” Mother said. “Your father told me Cassie’s taking you to the game.”
I nodded. Was it terribly selfish of me to mention the party now, considering what had happened? Once again, my open-book face spoke for me.
“What is it, Semantha?” Mother asked. “Is something wrong at school?”
“Oh, no. It’s nothing.”
“It’s something,” she said.
Daddy nodded.
“It’s just that I was asked to go to an after-game party,” I said, trying to make it sound insignificant so neither she nor Daddy would think I was being self-centered.
“Where is this party?”
“At the home of a boy in our class, Eddie Morris. His father owns that big pharmacy.”
“Oh, yes,” Daddy said. “He’s always in politics. Very respectable people.”
“This boy I know, Kent Pearson, has asked me to go. He said his father would take us and take me home afterward, but it’s not important now.”
No one spoke for a moment, but they both smiled at me. I looked toward the doorway, terrified that Cassie might have come back upstairs and overheard me.
“Well, it sounds fine,” Mother said. “One thing is for sure. Of course it’s important. I don’t want anyone moping about and wringing her hands over me while she could be enjoying herself. That goes for both you and Cassie.”
“I don’t have to go,” I said.
“Of course you do,” Mother said. “If there’s any problem, your father can pick you up as well. I don’t want him thinking only of me,” she added, now giving him a look of chastisement.
He laughed. “Okay, Semantha, it’s settled. Now, why don’t you do whatever you have to do before helping with dinner,” Daddy said.
“Wipe that look of worry off your face, honey,” Mother told me. “Everything’s all right. Go on.”
I leaned over to kiss her and then left them. I could feel the tugging emotions inside me, the battle between happiness and fear. It actually made me shiver a bit. I hurried to my room and tried to concentrate on my homework, but my eyes kept leaving the pages of my textbooks and looking with anticipation toward my bedroom doorway. Cassie never came, so I finally closed my books and went downstairs to help with dinner.
She had already done quite a bit. She had prepared a pot roast and potatoes, begun to steam some vegetables, and had the ingredients for our salads neatly arranged on the center worktable in the kitchen. Before I could say anything or ask anything, she turned to me and snapped, “Set the table for the three of us. Put my setting in Mother’s place tonight.”
“Mother’s place?”
“Yes. I don’t want Daddy looking at her empty chair all through dinner and feeling terrible. It will hurt his appetite, and I’ve prepared this pot roast exactly as he likes it. Don’t just stand there gaping at me, Semantha. Get moving. It’s almost dinnertime, and we’ll eat on time, despite Mother.”
I nodded and hurried to do what she asked. When I returned to the kitchen, I saw she had Mother’s tray all ready to go up to her room.
“Should I take that up to Mother?”
“No,” she said. “I will. Go dress for dinner.”
“Dress?”
“Put something much nicer on, Semantha. I am. Let’s do all we can to make Daddy happy tonight. He’s had a terrible day because of her.”
She lifted the tray and started out.
He’s had a terrible day because of her? I thought. What about Mother’s day? She was the one who had almost lost the baby, not Daddy.
I kept it all bottled up and walked behind her to get dressed for dinner. Daddy met her in the hallway outside his and Mother’s bedroom.
“Cassie, how wonderful!” he cried. She handed him the tray.
“Your dinner will be ready on time, Daddy,” she said. “Semantha and I will get dressed and be down in fifteen minutes.”
“Thank you, Cassie. You are a terrific guardian angel,” he said, and kissed her on the cheek.
She stood there looking after him until he went into the bedroom. I saw her bring her hand to her cheek and pause as if some king or even the president of the United States had just kissed her.
When she turned and saw that I had watched and heard everything, she pulled her shoulders back and lost her look of joy instantly.
“What are you doing dilly-dallying there, Semantha? I told you to get ready for dinner. Do I have to tell you everything twice?”
You’re not my mother, I wanted to say, so stop acting like it.
But the words collapsed before they reached the tip of my tongue. I swallowed them back and hurried to my room. I looked through my closet. Almost any choice I started to make didn’t look good enough. It was as if Cassie’s eyes had somehow snuck into my head, and I was seeing everything the way she would see it. Finally, I decided on a dress I had worn to Daddy’s birthday dinner last year. It still fit perfectly, which probably would have made any other girl in my class happy, but to me, it meant I had not grown very much or gained much weight. I was back to thinking about my fragility again. Was it all because I had been born prematurely? Was Cassie right as always?
I fixed my hair and put on a little lipstick. Daddy liked me to wear a little lipstick, but he didn’t like much more makeup on our faces. Cassie wore lipstick, too, but she put it on so lightly it was often hard to see. I couldn’t help being nervous about my appearance. I stepped out of my bedroom and walked downstairs gingerly. The moment I entered the kitchen, Cassie turn
ed to inspect me. Incredibly, she was wearing the dress she had worn at Daddy’s birthday, too, but she didn’t think it wonderful that we had both thought to do the same thing. On the contrary, she looked upset.
“Why did you choose to wear that dress tonight?” she asked in an angry tone of voice.
“I thought it was my nicest, and you said—”
“You know Mother bought that for you and bought this for me just for Daddy’s birthday dinner.”
“Yes,” I said, still confused about to why it would upset her. “And you’re wearing yours.”
She stared a moment. “Go back upstairs, and change into another dress,” she said sharply.
“What?”
“Do you want Daddy to think we’re both so happy Mother’s too ill to be with us that we conspired and wore our nicest dresses? Have some sensitivity. Go on. I’ll do your dinner chores. Go!”
I turned and hurried out. What was she talking about? How could this make us look insensitive? I was confused, but Cassie was so much smarter than I was and knew so much more. I had to listen to her and go by what she said. I changed into a more ordinary dress and returned to the kitchen. She already had done everything.
“That’s better,” she said, looking me over. “Now, just go in and sit,” she ordered.
“But shouldn’t I help you serve?”
“I have it all well organized, Semantha. Sit,” she commanded, as if I were her pet dog.
I joined Daddy at the table. He smiled as soon as I sat.
“Look at how you both have taken charge when it’s needed. It’s a great lifting of the heavy burden from my shoulders to have two daughters like you and Cassie, Semantha. You both have the Heavenstone resourcefulness and sense of responsibility. We’re going to be fine.”
He turned as Cassie entered with the pot roast.
“Well, well, now, look at this. I smelled how wonderful it was when you brought it up to your mother.”
She set it down and brightened with one of her best smiles for Daddy.
“And look at how beautifully dressed your sister is, Semantha. Isn’t that the dress you wore to my birthday dinner?”
“Yes, it is, Daddy,” she said, nodding at me.
“I don’t deserve such a daughter. Thank you, Cassie. Your mother will be quite happy to know you’re filling in so well for her.”
Cassie looked as if she was simply too happy to speak. Finally, she managed, “It’s not anything, Daddy.”
“It is to me,” he said. “Well, let’s begin.”
Cassie served him his pot roast and the vegetables. She poured him his glass of red wine, standing at his side and looking like a professional waitress. She even waited while he smelled it and sipped it, pretending he was in a restaurant.
“Perfect,” he told her.
“Very good, Mr. Heavenstone,” she said, and Daddy laughed the way I remembered him laughing when he and Mother were much younger and still behaved like newlyweds.
Cassie sat in Mother’s place. Daddy didn’t seem to notice or care. He said a prayer that included wishes for Mother’s and the new baby’s health. Finally, we began to eat.
“So,” Daddy said, nodding at me. “Your sister has been invited to her first party.”
“What?” Cassie looked at me. “When?”
“After the big ball game. I know the people well. Very respectable,” Daddy said, as if he thought she had to be the one to grant me permission.
“You’re going to a party after the game?”
I nodded, almost too slightly to notice.
“How come you never told me?”
“It just happened.”
She looked annoyed but then turned to Daddy and smiled. “Well, if you and Mother approve, I’ll be happy to take her and pick her up.”
“Apparently, all the transportation has been arranged to and from the party. You need only take her to the game, Cassie,” Daddy said.
“It has?” She looked at me again. This time, the smile on her face was one of her masks. It was a smile that gave me the feeling there was no one under it. “Who’s taking you?”
“Kent Pearson’s father,” I said.
She held the smile, but her eyes darkened.
“My two grown-up daughters,” Daddy said. He lifted his wine glass. “Here’s to you both.”
Cassie continued to smile and look pleased, but that didn’t stop me from trembling inside. Afterward, I expected she would say something to me in the kitchen when we cleaned up, but she worked silently.
“You can go up,” she told me. “Spend some time with Mother, but not too much. We aren’t supposed to make her tired. Then go to your room and finish whatever you have to do for school.” She looked down at the sink and not at me.
“Okay.” I started to turn away.
“And then,” she said, “I’ll come talk to you.”
“About what?” I asked.
“Sex,” she said.
“Sex?”
“Apparently, I have to do it. It is something a mother is supposed to have done by the time a girl reaches your age.”
How did she know our mother hadn’t, even though that was true? What I knew came from other girls and from what I had learned in school and had read myself.
I was going to say something, to tell her it really wasn’t necessary, I knew enough, but she looked away, and I thought retreat was much easier.
I always did.
Maybe that was why all that happened to me happened. Maybe I had no one to blame but myself.
The Talk
I LOOKED UP from my homework the moment I heard my door being opened. I was so full of nervous anticipation I had trouble concentrating on my assignments, anyway. I wasn’t comfortable with the idea of Cassie teaching me about sex, but I couldn’t help wondering if she knew something very important about it that I didn’t know. After all, she seemed to know about anything and everything adults were supposed to know. What good was it for me to have a sister like her if I didn’t appreciate her and take advantage of what she could offer me?
She slipped in as if she were sneaking into my room and closed the door very softly behind her.
“Did you go to see Mother?” she asked softly but not quite in a whisper.
“Yes. She kept closing her eyes, so I didn’t stay long. She didn’t eat all her dinner.”
“I’m not surprised,” she said, and sat on my bed. She gave me one of her small-eye studied looks as if I had already done something terrible. “Now I want you to be absolutely, completely truthful with me, Semantha. If you’re not, it will only come back to haunt you, and by then, I might not be able to help you at all.”
“Truthful about what?”
“What you’ve already done with boys, Kent Pearson in particular,” she replied.
“I haven’t done anything with boys. When could I have done anything?” I followed, because now she wore a skeptical expression.
“Don’t try that sort of an excuse, Semantha. I know how girls your age behave nowadays, and believe me, boys can find the time and the place when they’ve a mind to. I know most girls go along, either because they don’t want to be considered immature or because they let their own curiosity get the best of them. Do you know what willpower is?”
Girls my age? I thought. She’s only two years older than I am, but, just like always, she makes it sound like two decades.
“Willpower? I think so.”
“In this case, it means having the strength to resist not only the boy but yourself, Semantha.”
“Myself?” I shook my head. “How—”
“Don’t sit there and tell me you haven’t had sexual thoughts and haven’t touched yourself and discovered … pleasure.”
I felt the blood rush up my neck. Had she been spying on me?
She smiled. “It’s okay,” she said. “It’s natural to a point. If Mother had done her mother job, you’d know all this by now, but I can see you don’t. I’m not surprised. She never did her job with
me, either.”
“Then how did you learn all this, Cassie?” I asked.
“Never mind how I learned. It’s how you learn that matters now, so pay attention.” She stood up.
She paced for a moment silently, as if she had to be sure she used the right words. When she spoke, she didn’t look at me at first. It made me feel as if I were in a classroom.
“Our bodies are built to make and carry babies and then deliver them whole and healthy into this world. It’s natural to our female selves. Our bodies don’t care how young we are. When all of our hormones and development are aligned, it’s as if some switch were turned on. In fact, there are some girls who get so mature so early that they have big psychological problems.”
She paused and looked at me.
“Remember that girl I pointed out to you, Donna Wellington, the girl in the fourth grade with breasts as developed as a girl in eleventh or twelfth grade? Remember? We saw her on the playground, and she looked so out of place.”
“Yes.”
“Can you imagine what’s been happening to her? She’s probably terrified of herself. In a sense, we should all be a little terrified of ourselves, because, as I said, our bodies don’t think about consequences. We’re little baby-making machines, that’s all.”
“You make it sound as if we’re all two different people fighting with each other.”
“We are,” she said, spinning on me. “That’s the point, Semantha. There’s you in your developing body, and there’s you in your mind, which doesn’t always keep up. You already know where to touch yourself to feel the excitement, right? Right?” she asked again sharply, stepping toward me.
“Yes,” I said. She looked as if she would pounce on me if I hesitated one second.
She nodded and sat on the bed again. “Now, I’m sure you’ve been lying here,” she said, her voice growing softer as she ran her hand over my bed, “dreaming of what it would be like to have Kent Pearson touch you in those places.”
The Heavenstone Secrets Page 5
