Family Storms (39 page)

“I'll call her first and let her know we're on the way home once we're started,” she said. That seemed to be the only thing that mattered to her now.

As I stepped off the boat, I saw the way the others were looking at me. None of the girls said good-bye or “See you later.” They all simply stared at me. When I looked back at them, they were huddled and whispering.

“Is everyone angry at me?” I asked Kiera after we got into a taxi she had waiting.

“Don't ask, don't tell,” she replied, and laughed.

“What does that mean?”

“It means what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas, Sasha.
Don't go blabbing about our trip. I'll describe some of the things on Catalina that you missed,” she added. “Just in case my mother gives you the third degree or something.”

She then narrated her version of our story, even elaborating on what we all had for lunch.

“Did you really do all that?” I asked.

“Of course,” she said. “Why would I lie to you?”

“It's not that. I can't believe I slept through it all.”

“Don't mention being seasick. You can say you were a little woozy but you got over it,” she instructed. Then she put her earphones in and turned on her iPod and sang along. I couldn't remember when she had looked and acted so happy.

After the taxi dropped us off, I turned to her and said, “So now I'm a full-fledged member of the VA club, huh?”

She paused at the front door and looked at me with the most curious expression on her face. “Pardon me?”

“The club,” I said.

“I don't know what you're talking about, Sasha,” she said, and opened the door.

I hurried in after her to pursue and understand, but before I could say anything else, both Mr. and Mrs. March came strolling out of the entertainment center, laughing. They paused when they saw us.

“Hey,” Mr. March called. “How was your day, girls?”

“Miserable,” Kiera said, and charged up the stairway.

I stood looking after her with just as shocked a face as they had. She didn't look back. She pounded her way up as if she were trying to stamp out bugs on the steps.

“What happened?” Mrs. March asked me as she
approached. “When I called, she said you were all at a restaurant and were having a great time.”

I shook my head. What was I supposed to be saying? Had Kiera forgotten to prepare me?

“Did something bad happen on the boat?” Mr. March asked, stepping up beside Mrs. March. “No accidents, I hope.”

“No,” I said.

“Well, then, what is it?” he asked.

“I don't know,” I said. “I'll go talk to her.”

“What the hell …” He looked at Mrs. March, who just shook her head.

I moved quickly to get away from them, fearful that I would say the wrong thing. Kiera had her door closed, so I knocked. She didn't open it or respond.

“Kiera? What's going on? Your parents are confused, and so am I.” I looked back to be sure they hadn't followed me up. “What am I supposed to say?”

She opened the door partway and looked out at me with a face so full of anger it took my breath away. I stepped back.

“Tell them whatever lies you want,” she said. “I'm tired of covering up for you.”

“What?”

She slammed the door. I stood there dumbfounded. When I looked toward the stairway, I saw that Mrs. March had come up and was standing there gaping at me. I hurried to my suite and went in quickly. My head was spinning. I was still woozy and a little confused from what had happened on the boat, but this added so much weight to it I felt as if my head had turned to stone. I sat on my bed, dazed,
my heart thumping. I hadn't closed my door, so I heard Mrs. March knock on Kiera's door. Instead of the usual unfriendly “What do you want?” I heard the door being opened, muffled voices, what sounded like Kiera crying, and then the door being closed.

I sat absolutely still, trying to hear something more, but I heard nothing for the longest time. Then I thought I heard heavy footsteps in the hallway and got up to listen at my doorway. I heard Mr. March ask, “What's this all about?” Then he, too, went into Kiera's room, and the door closed again. I closed my door softly and retreated to my bathroom. From the moment I had stepped off the boat, I could think of nothing else but a hot shower. I felt so dirty inside and out. I decided to wash my hair as well. Afterward, I wrapped a bath towel around myself and went to my vanity table to blow-dry my hair and brush it out.

The shower had refreshed me, but I could feel the deep fatigue in every muscle in my body, even in my bones. My eyes wanted to close and did for a moment. When I opened them, I saw both Mr. and Mrs. March captured in the mirror. They were standing behind me, looking very upset. I spun around.

“Sasha,” Mrs. March began. “Do you have a tattoo very low down on your back?”

For a moment, I couldn't speak. My throat tightened so hard I couldn't breathe. Why would Kiera have told them about that? There was no other way, no other reason, they would be asking about it.

“Yes,” I finally said.

“I'd like to see it,” Mr. March said, more to Mrs. March than to me. “Now,” he emphasized so sternly that I winced.

“Please turn around again, Sasha, and undo the bath towel so we can see the tattoo,” Mrs. March asked. She looked as if she was going to burst into tears any second. “Please,” she added.

I fumbled with the towel so I could open it and cover the front of my body while lifting the towel enough to expose the tattoo.

Mr. March stepped closer and looked at it. “Where's Alena's digital camera?” he asked Mrs. March.

“Donald, please.”

“Where is it?” he practically shouted at her.

She looked flustered for a moment but then went to a drawer in the desk and took out a camera. She brought it to him. He turned it on and took a picture of my tattoo.

“You ask about the rest,” he said. “I'm going to my office to send this to have it checked.”

He left the suite, and I wrapped the towel around myself again. I had no idea what I was supposed to do or say. Had someone informed Kiera's parents about the VA club? Were we all in trouble? Mrs. March, her body looking as if it was slipping off her bones, slinked over to a chair and sat.

“Kiera is upset,” she began. “She says you stole her boyfriend today, Ricky Burns. She says you were intimate with him on the boat and didn't care that everyone knew it. She says you seduced Ricky.”

It felt as if a sheet of ice was sliding from the back of my head down my back, over my stomach, and down my legs to my feet.

“That's not true,” I said.

“She was so upset that she broke down and confessed
about other things. She told us she took you to buy those clothes because you wanted them, and she thought we'd want her to make you happy.”

“What?”

“I knew they weren't her clothes. They looked new, and they fit you.”

“That's not true, either. She's lying. I don't know why, but she is.”

“She said it was your idea to lie about the play audition.”

“No.”

“Otherwise, why would you go along with it? She says you have a reputation as a big flirt in school, and all the boys were after you, and she was frankly embarrassed about it since we had described you as her cousin. She claims she tried to get you to calm down, but today was the end. You could have had any boy on the boat, but you chose Ricky just because he was her boyfriend. She says that you were plotting and conniving to get your revenge in subtle ways, this being one.”

How could she say these things?
I thought. I wasn't going to let her get away with it.

“No, no, Mrs. March, I didn't choose Ricky. They did.”

“Who's ‘they,' Sasha?”

“The other girls … the VA club,” I said.

She stared for a moment, looked away, and then turned back to me. “Now, what is this supposed to be, the VA club?”

“Virgins Anonymous. That's what this tattoo is about. It's calligraphy of the
V
and the
A.
All of the girls have a tattoo there.”

“What's Virgins Anonymous? I don't understand.”

“All of the girls in the club have given up their virginity to be members, and everyone has sex regularly with any boy. Kiera brought me to be a member, and they approved of me. I swore a vow on a notebook that contains the description of each girl's first time. We meet regularly at Deidre's house, because her mother works with her father and she has the house free after school. No one was supposed to talk about it, but Kiera's lying to you about me. I didn't ask for new clothes, I didn't ask for the tattoo, and I didn't steal her boyfriend. What happened was that I got seasick very quickly on the boat, and Ricky put me in the master stateroom. I wasn't supposed to get seasick. Kiera said those pills she had given me would prevent it.”

“What pills?”

“The pills to make my periods less severe. Here,” I said, rising quickly and going to the drawer beside my bed. “I'll show you.”

I opened the drawer and stared down in disbelief. The pills were gone. I looked carefully through the drawer.

“She must have taken them back,” I said under my breath.

“Sasha, Mr. March is very, very upset.”

“It's not true. None of what she's saying is true!”

“Get dressed,” she said, rising. “We're all going to have a talk downstairs in Mr. March's office. I'm sick to my stomach.”

I started to cry. She looked at me but not with the same compassion and sympathy I used to see in her face.

“Just get dressed. I'm calling Deidre's mother right now,” she said, and left.

I couldn't stop sobbing, but I put on some clothes, making sure not to wear anything Kiera had given me. I wanted to confront her first, but she was already downstairs sitting in her father's office. She had her hands clasped on her lap and looked straight ahead, as though she was the one being accused of everything, as though she was the one so damaged and hurt.

Mr. March sat at his desk. Mrs. March was sitting across from Kiera.

“Just sit anywhere, Sasha,” Mr. March said.

I looked at Kiera, but she wouldn't look at me. Nevertheless, I sat on the settee, too.

“Do you belong to or did you join a club?” Mr. March asked immediately.

Good,
I thought.
They found out the truth. It serves her right.

“Yes.”

He held up a printout of the digital picture he had taken of my tattoo. “Is this the club's logo?”

“Yes, it is,” I said.

“Hell Girl?” he asked.

“What?”

“That's what this calligraphy represents. I had it confirmed.”

“No,” I said, shaking my head. “It spells ‘VA.' That's the club Kiera had me join, the VA club.”

Kiera blew air through her lips. She smiled at her father. “Did you ever? VA club?”

“The girls took me to get the tattoo,” I said quickly. “All of them.”

“Do you know where this supposedly occurred?” Mr. March asked.

“Somewhere in L.A. I don't remember the address. If I saw it, I'd remember.”

“First,” Kiera began, “you know, Daddy, that someone under eighteen can't get a tattoo in California legally. Why would anyone risk his business to give her that ridiculous tattoo?”

“She's right. Sasha?”

“I don't know why he did it. Maybe they gave him more money,” I said now, feeling real panic. “She has one. They all have one.”

Kiera turned slowly. “Did you see it? Is that what you're telling my parents now?”

“Yes,” I said, nodding at Mr. and Mrs. March. “I saw it on all of them in the same place.”

Kiera stood up, undid her jeans, and lowered them. She turned to her father and mother and lowered her panties. Then she turned to me, and I gasped. It was gone.

“This is beginning to sound like
Psycho,
” Kiera said as she pulled her jeans up. “I don't really care what my parents decide to do about you,” she told me. “What you did with Ricky was mean. I'm not going to lie for you anymore, though. I can tell you that.”

She turned to her parents.

“Haven't I tried to be a good older sister to her? I've lost friends because of her and some of the crude things she says. Now she goes and seduces Ricky after I talk him into taking us to Catalina on his father's boat. Don't just take my word for it. Ask my girlfriends. Go on and ask her if she's
still a virgin or ever was when she first came here. Go on. You can have her examined if you don't believe me.”

I couldn't keep the tears from streaming down my face. The looks on Mr. and Mrs. March's faces felt like knives in my heart. They both looked drained of any warmth and hope. I felt as if I were looking at them when they had first heard their younger daughter was terminally ill. I felt terminally ill. Kiera, always alert to an opportunity, had her finish perfected and perfectly timed.

“I told you, Mother. I warned you,” Kiera said with a voice soft and sorrowful. “She's not Alena. She took advantage of you. She probably did know how to play the clarinet but pretended she didn't.”

Mrs. March started to cry.

Kiera turned to me. “You're not my sister. You never could be,” she said, and walked out of the office.

I took deep breaths to stop myself from crying. My chest ached. Mr. March rose and paced a bit behind his desk. Mrs. March stopped crying, wiped her face with her handkerchief, and, after a deep breath herself, turned to me.

“I spoke with Deidre. She confirmed Kiera's story about what happened on the boat,” she began. “She doesn't know anything about any VA club, and her mother confirmed that she has no tattoo on her lower back.”

“Deidre's lying for her,” I muttered weakly.

“I called some of the other mothers, and they checked their daughters, too. No tattoos, Sasha.”