My own grandmother was a thousand times better. Sometimes lately she left her face unveiled. She’d wear a little makeup to please me—and it did. Sometimes she even put on a pretty dress—but never-never did she let John Amos see her in anything but that black robe and the veil over her face. Only for me was she pretty.
“Bart, please don’t spend too much time with John.”
He’d warned me many times she wouldn’t approve. “No, ma’am. John Amos and me don’t get along.”
“I’m glad. He’s an evil man, Bart—cold, cruel, and heartless.”
“Yes, ma’am. He don’t like women much.”
“He told you that?”
“Yep. Tells me he gets lonely. Tells me you treat him like dirt and refuse to speak to him for days on end.”
“Leave John alone. Avoid him all you can—but keep on coming to see me. You’re all I have now.” She patted the soft sofa cushion, inviting me to sit beside her. I knew by now that she sat in comfortable chairs whenever John Amos had gone into the city.
“What does he do in San Francisco?” I asked. He went there often.
Frowning, she pulled me into her arms and held me close against the soft silk of her rose-colored dress. “John is an old man, but still he has many appetites that must be satisfied.”
“What does he like to eat?” I asked, curious about an old man who had false teeth and great difficulty chewing even chicken, much less steak. Mush, jello, bread sopped in milk—that’s what John Amos usually ate.
She chuckled and kissed the top of my hair.
“How’s your mother? Is she walking well now?”
Changing the subject. Didn’t want to tell me what he ate. I shifted away. “Bit by bit she’s getting well, so she tells my daddy, but she’s not so hot. When he’s not home sometimes she gets a cane and uses that, but she doesn’t want Daddy to know.”
“Why not?”
“I don’t know. All she wants to do now is play with Cindy, or write. That’s all she does, honest Injun! Writing books is just as exciting to her as dancing . . . sometimes she gets all hot and bothered lookin.”
“Oh,” she murmured weakly, “I was hoping she’d give it up.”
So was I. But it didn’t seem likely. “Jory’s grandmother is comin’ soon, real soon. Think I might run away if she decides to stay in our house.”
Again she said “oh” as if surprises were stealing her tongue. “It’s all right, Granny,” I said, “don’t like her like I like you.”
Went home around lunchtime, chock full of ice cream and cake. (Really was beginning to hate sweets.) Momma was at the barre, doing exercises before the long mirror, and I had to be careful she didn’t spot me when I ducked behind a chair. I guess we had the only family room in the world with a barre at one end and a ten-foot-long mirror in back of it.
“Bart, is that you hiding behind the chair?”
“No, ma’am, it’s Henry Lee Jones . . .”
“Really? I’ve been looking for Henry Lee for some time. I’m glad you’ve finally been found around the corner, around the bush . . . always looking for Henry Lee.”
Made me giggle. It was the game we used to play when I was little, real little. “Momma, can you take me fishin today?”
“I’m sorry. I’ve got a full day planned. Perhaps tomorrow.”
Tomorrow. It was always tomorrow.
In a dark corner I hid myself, crouched down so small I felt nobody could see me. Sometimes when I was following Momma in her chair, I tiptoed with my back hunched, making myself into the way John Amos said Malcolm looked when he was old and at his peak of power. I stared and stared at her, morning, afternoons, nights, trying always to decide if she was as bad as John Amos said she was.
“Bart.” Jory could always find me no matter how I hid. “Whatyah doing now?” he asked. “We used to have fun together. You used to talk to me. Now you don’t talk to anyone.”
Did so. Talked to my grandmother, to John Amos. I smiled crookedly, sneering my lips in the way John Amos curled his lips as I turned to watch Momma, who was walking just as clumsy as me now.
Jory went away and left me to amuse myself, when I didn’t know how to anymore except by playing Malcolm. Was Momma really so sinful? How could I talk to Jory like I used to, when he wouldn’t believe Momma told lies about who was my real father? Jory still thought it was Dr. Paul, and it wasn’t, wasn’t.
Later on at dinner, while Momma and Daddy were exchanging glances, and saying silly things that made them laugh, and Jory too, I sat and glared at the yellow tablecloth. Why did Daddy want Momma to use a yellow tablecloth at least once a week? Why did he keep saying she had to learn to forgive and forget?
Then Jory spoke up.
“Mom,” Jory said, “Melodie and I have a date tonight. I’m taking her to a movie and then to a supperclub that doesn’t serve hard liquor. Will it be all right if I kiss her good night?”
“Such a momentous question,” she said with a laugh, while I sat in my corner. “Yes, kiss her good night, and tell her how much you enjoyed the evening . . . and that’s all.”
“Yes, Mother,” he said mockingly, grinning. “I know your lesson by heart. Melodie is a sweet, nice, innocent girl who would be insulted if I took advantage of her, so I’ll insult her by not taking advantage.”
She made a face at him—he just smiled back. “How’s the writing going?” Jory sang out before he returned to his room to moon over the picture of Melodie that he kept on his nightstand.
Stupid question. Already she’d told him writing absorbed her every wakeful moment, and new ideas woke her up at night, and Daddy was complaining she kept him awake with her light on. As for me, I couldn’t wait to read what was going to happen next. Sometimes I thought she was making it all up, and it hadn’t happened to her, it hadn’t. She was pretending, the way I did.
“Jory,” she asked, “have you been bothering my script? I can’t find some of my chapters.”
“Gosh, Mom, you know I wouldn’t read what you write without your permission—do I have your permission?”
She laughed. “Some day when you are a man, I’m going to insist you read my book, or books. It keeps growing and growing, so it may end up two books.”
“Where are you getting your ideas?”
Stooping, she picked up an old spiral-bound book. “From this book, and from my memory.” She quickly flipped through the pages. “See how large I wrote when I was twelve? As I grew older my writing became more precise and much smaller.”
Suddenly Jory snatched the spiral-bound book from her hands, then ran to a window where he could read a few lines before she had it back in her hands. “You misspelled a few words, Mom,” he teased.
I hated their relationship; they were more like friends than mother and son. Hated the way she kept scribbling on lined paper before she typed those words up. Hated all her junk, her pencils, pens, erasers, and the new books she’d bought for her new project. Didn’t have a mother anymore; didn’t have a father. Never had a real father. Had nobody, not even a pet.
* * *
Summer was getting old now, like me. My bones felt old and brittle, my brain wise and cynical. And I thought, as Malcolm wrote in his journal, that nothing was as good as it used to be, and no toy gave me the pleasure I thought it would before I had it. Even my grandmother’s mansion didn’t look as huge as it had.
In Apple’s stall, which was my special place for reading Malcolm’s journal, I fell on the hay and tried to read the ten pages a day John Amos had assigned me. Sometimes I hid the book under the hay, sometimes I wore it next to my skin. As I began to read I chewed on a piece of the hay, finding my place marked with one of Momma’s little leather bookmarks:
* * *
I remember so well the day when I was twenty-eight and came home to find my widowed father had finally remarried. I stared at his bride, whom I later found out was only sixteen. I knew immediately a girl so young and beautiful had married him only for his money.
My own wife, Olivia, had never been what anyone would call a beauty, but she’d had some appealing aspects when I married her, and her father was very wealthy. Suddenly I found out after she’d borne me two sons, she had no appeal for me whatsoever. She seemed so grim compared to Alicia, my stepmother of sixteen . . .
* * *
I’d read this mushy love-junk before. I’d lost my place, gosh darn it. But I had a way of flipping through the book and reading here and there, especially when boring stuff like kissing came into Malcolm’s story. It seemed so odd, as much as he hated women, that he’d want to kiss them.
Now, here it was, where I’d left off.
* * *
Alicia was giving birth to her first child, whom I hoped desperately would be a girl. But no, it had to be another son to compete with me for my father’s fortune. I remember standing and looking at her, and the baby she snuggled at her side in the big swan bed, and I hated them both.
I said to her when she smiled up at me innocently, and so proud of her son, as if I’d welcome him as much as my father did, “My dear stepmother, your son will never live long enough to inherit your husband’s fortune, for I am alive to prevent that.”
She annoyed me then so much I could have slapped her beautiful, cunning face. “I don’t want your father’s money, Malcolm. My son won’t want it either. M y SON will earn his way, not inherit what money other men have made. I’ll teach my son the true values in life—the values you know nothing about.”
* * *
Wonder what she’d been talking about? What were values anyway?—sale prices? I turned my attention to Malcolm’s journal again. He had skipped fifteen years before he wrote again.
* * *
My daughter, Corrine, grew more and more like the mother who had abandoned me when I was only five.
I saw her changing, beginning to develop into a woman, and I’d find myself staring at her young budding breasts that would soon entice some man. Once she saw me staring there and blushed. I liked that—at least she was modest. “Corrine, promise that you will never marry and leave your father when he’s old and sick. Swear to me you won’t leave me EVER.”
Her face grew very pale, as if she feared I might send her back into the attic if she refused my simple request. “ALL my fortune, Corrine, if you promise—every cent I will leave to you if you never leave me.”
“But, Father,” she said, inclining her head and looking miserable, “I want to get married and have babies.”
She swore she loved me, but in her eyes I could see she’d leave me at the first opportunity.
I’d see to it she had no boys or men in her life. She’d attend a school for girls only, a strict religious school that would allow no dating.
* * *
I closed the book and headed home. To my way of thinking Malcolm should never have married Olivia and had any children—but then, as I thought about it more, I would never have known my grandmother.
And even though she was a liar and had betrayed me, still I wanted to love and trust her again.
Another day I was in the barn reading about Malcolm when he was fifty. He wasn’t so regular now about writing in his journal.
* * *
There’s something sinful going on between that younger half brother of mine and my daughter. I’ve done what I can to catch them touching, or looking at each other in a suggestive way, but they are both very clever. Olivia tells me my fears are groundless, that Corrine could never feel anything for her half uncle, but then, Olivia is just another woman, true to her devious sex. Damn the day she talked me into taking that boy into our home. It was a mistake, perhaps the most grave mistake of my life.
* * *
So, even Malcolm made a few mistakes, but only with those people who were members of his family. Why was it he couldn’t stand for his sons to be musicians?—for his daughter to marry? If I’d been Malcolm, I’d have been glad to get rid of her, just like I wished day after day that Cindy would disappear.
I hurled Malcolm’s journal to the floor and kicked hay over it, then stomped toward the mansion, wanting Malcolm to write about power, and how to get it, and money, and how to earn it, and influence, and how to demand it. All he did was write about how miserable his two sons, his wife, and his daughter made him, to say nothing of that young half brother who liked Corrine.
“Hello, darling!” cried my grandmother when I limped into her parlor. “Where’ve you been? How’s your mother’s knee?”
“Bad,” I said. “Doctors say Momma will never dance again.”
“Oh,” she sighed. “How dreadful. I’m so sorry.”
“I’m glad she won’t dance again,” I assured her. “She and Daddy can’t even waltz anymore, and they used to do a lot of that in the living room which they don’t want us to use.”
She looked so sad. Why should she look so sad? “Grandmother, my momma don’t like you.”
“You should watch your grammar, Bart,” she choked as she wiped away her tears. “You should say, she doesn’t like you—and how can you say that, when she doesn’t know I’m here?”
“Sometimes you sound like her.”
“I’m so sorry I’ll never see her again on stage. She was so wonderfully light and graceful she seemed a part of the music. Your mother was born for dancing, Bart. I know she must feel lost and empty without it.”
“No, she doesn’t,” I answered quickly. “Momma’s got that typewriter and her book to work on all day and most of the night, and that’s all she needs. She and Daddy lie in bed for hours and hours, especially when it rains, and they talk about some big old house in the mountains, and some big ole grandmother who wore gray dresses all the time, and I hide in the closet and think it’s just like some dumb fairy tale.”
She appeared shocked. “Do you spy on your parents? That’s not very nice, Bart. Adults need privacy—everyone needs privacy.”
I smiled and felt good to tell her I spied on everyone—ever her sometimes.
Her blue eyes grew wider and she stared at me for a long time before she smiled. “You’re teasing me, aren’t you? I’m sure your father has taught you better than that. Bart, if you want people to love you and respect you, you have to treat them as you would want to be treated. Would you like for me to spy on you?”
“NO!” I roared.
Another day, another trip to the office of that gray-haired old doctor who made me lie down and close my eyes so he could sit behind me and ask dumb questions.
“Are you Bart Sheffield today or Malcolm?”
Wouldn’t say nothing.
“What is Malcolm’s last name?”
Was none of his business.
“How do you feel about your mother now that she can’t dance ballet anymore?”
“Glad.”
Took him by surprise. He got busy scribbling down notes, getting real excited so his face was red when I opened my eyes and turned to take a peek. I thought I’d give him more to get excited about. “I wish Jory would fall and smash both his kneecaps. Then I could walk faster than him, and run faster than him, and do everything better too. Then when I come into the room everyone will look at me, not him.”
He waited for more. When nothing else came he said gently, “I understand, Bart. You fear your mother and father don’t love you as much as they do Jory.”
Rage took me over. “Yes, she does! She loves me better! But I can’t dance. It’s the dancing that makes her laugh with Jory, and frown with me. I was gonna grow up and be a doctor—but now I don’t want to. Cause my real daddy wasn’t a doctor like they told me. He was an attorney.”
“How do you know that?” he asked
Wouldn’t tell him. None of his business. John Amos told me. Heard Grandma telling Dad, too. Lawyers were smart, real smart. That would make me smart too. Dancers didn’t have good brains, just good legs.
“Is there anything else you would like to tell me, Bart?”
“Yeah!” I snapped, jumping up from the couch and grabbing his le
tter opener. “Last night the moon was full. I looked out of the window and heard it calling to me. I wanted to howl. Then I needed to taste blood. I ran like crazy into the woods, and on into the hills, when out of the night appeared a woman who was beautiful, with long, long golden hair.”
“And what did you do?” asked the doctor when I paused.
“I killed her, then ate her.”
He scribbled away, and I picked up several of the lollipops he kept for his younger patients. Then I took about six more, thinking my grandmother might want one, at least.
When I was home I hurried over to Apple’s stall and flipped backward through the pages of Malcolm’s journal. I needed to find out something—and I’d skipped some mushy pages before. I wanted to know what drew him toward women whom he despised.
It was fall again, and all the trees wore brilliant autumn colors. I followed Alicia into the woods as she rode her horse with admirable skill. I had to spur my horse to make him gallop and give chase. She was so enchanted with the beauty of the season she didn’t seem to hear the beat of my horse’s hoofs. For a brief second I lost sight of her when she disappeared into a thicket. That’s when I suspected she might be headed for the lake where I swam when I was a child. One last swim before summer was gone and winter turned the water icy.
* * *
Cherry-flavored lollipops were my favorites. I licked and licked until I could stick out my tongue and see it red as blood. Good to read and eat sweet stuff as I skimmed through the sickening glop that followed for pages on end. Gee, Malcolm must have started making money and gaining power when he was much older.
* * *
Just as I suspected, she was in the pool, her glorious body as flawless as I’d guessed it would be. And to think my father was enjoying all of that while I had to endure the frigid body of a woman who could only submit, never enjoy.
Dripping and shimmering she stepped from the lake to the grassy bank where her clothes lay waiting. My breath caught as I beheld her in sunlight. The spill of her glorious hair caught red, gold, with dark amber shadows, and the floss between her thighs curled wet and dark.
She saw me then and gasped. I hadn’t realized I’d stepped out of the shadows.
The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt! Page 107
