Secrets of Foxworth (23 page)

“I don't remember it, of course, but we could see Foxworth Hall from here before the last fire. The trees weren't as grown up. There were many fewer houses between it and here, and the mansion loomed above everything. I was just five and a half when the place burned down, so I don't have any memory of the fire, but my sister does. She told me she came into my room back then to watch it all from this window.”

“Darlena would have been about eleven.”

“I know. I understand it was practically an inferno. They thought that the woods might catch fire back then and maybe even spread over so many acres that
it would threaten other homes. She said the sky was lit up so brightly the stars disappeared.”

“That would be impressive,” I said.

“Probably as impressive as the first fire, maybe more because of the added trees and stuff.”

I knew it was a strange feeling to have, but suddenly, Kane was more important to me because of what he was saying, what his sister remembered, and what could once be seen from his bedroom window.

“Next time she's home, I'll ask her to tell you what she remembers,” he said. “She's got one of those photographic memories. She can recall the details of every doll she ever had and especially movie scenes, even the ones she saw at an early age. She's already been accepted into the NYU graduate school film-study program, you know.”

“Oh. How exciting. I would enjoy talking to her, I'm sure.”

“Didn't your father ever tell you about the last fire?”

“Not really. He just says it was big. Of course, we don't have this view.”

“Right.”

“However, I know that for our community, Foxworth Hall's second demise, with all its mystique, was something historic. It was like having witnessed a famous earthquake or a volcano erupt
again
, I guess.”

“Exactly.”

“What were you told about the first fire?” I asked him. “I mean, it must have come up from time to time. I'm sure your father knows a lot about it.”

“Nothing firsthand. That was more than forty years ago. He talks more about the second fire. He said it seemed to burn forever. My mother said it was like the burning of Atlanta in
Gone with the Wind.
She's prone to exaggeration, but the fire department could do little to save it, just like the first time. No one died in that fire because the house had been abandoned, and as you know, the bank got stuck with the property. Once in a while, I look out here and try to imagine what the fires were like. I do remember overhearing my parents and some friends talking about the first fire one night and someone saying, ‘Imagine if it had happened years before, when those poor children were locked in that attic.' It gave me nightmares when I was younger.”

“It seems it gave lots of people nightmares and still does, even after all these years,” I muttered.

“Right. But I used to worry about being up here. I couldn't exactly just jump out this window. Kinda high up. My father assured me we had the most sophisticated fire protection and warnings any home could have. You know . . .”

“Sprinkler system and smoke detectors,” I said. I looked up at his ceiling and pointed to two nozzles.

“Exactly.”

“How come you didn't mention all this when we went up to the Foxworth property, especially what it was like seeing the mansion burn a second time?”

“I didn't want you to think I had a weird interest in it like so many in this town do. I wasn't sure how you felt about it. I know you're sensitive about being
asked questions and talking about being related, even though you're a distant relative.”

“A very distant relative,” I said.

“Are you upset about me telling you all this?”

“No,” I said. “Actually, I appreciate it.”

“Good. I didn't want to do anything to spoil the evening, but . . .”

“You didn't. Stop worrying about it.”

He nodded and then widened his eyes. “Oh heck, I forgot to keep the gate open. We'll have them buzzing us like crazy.”

He went to his phone and punched in a code. “Now we can relax,” he said. “Come on. Let's organize the music for the night. We have a full media room that coordinates what is heard and seen throughout the house. The house has internal video security.”

We started out. I paused in the doorway and looked back at the window from which his sister had witnessed the second fire at Foxworth. He paused, too. “How old is this place?” I asked.

“It wasn't here when the children were supposedly up there, if that's what you want to know,” he replied. “If you believe the stories, they were there about 1957, '58. That's more than fifty years ago. That's probably why so much of it is confusing and distorted. Anyone around who was our age then is in his or her seventies now. Anyway, this house is only twenty years old, and it's been remodeled, expanded in some way, almost every year after it was first built. My father built it. There was no other house on the property. No one lived here and witnessed the first fire from here,
so there was no other property owner who told my father firsthand stuff. He and my mother know only the junk everyone else seems to know. And neither of them thinks about you inheriting Foxworth madness just because your mother was a distant cousin or something. Our children won't be weird,” he added.

“Our children? Aren't you getting a little ahead of yourself? There's a proposal and a honeymoon in my story,” I said.

He laughed, took my hand, and walked me back to the stairway. “My mother imagines she's Scarlett O'Hara going down those stairs some days. I've caught her fantasizing, and she was embarrassed and confessed that was exactly what she was doing as she descended the stairway. She's infatuated with that novel and movie. That's why our house was built to look a little like Tara. Everyone wants to step out of their life and be someone else, at least for a day. My mother would like to be someone else forever.”

“Why? She has so much now.”

“She never has enough,” he said dryly.

“What about you? Do you want to be someone else, too?'

“Not lately, not now,” he said. “I'm happy just being in my own shoes.” He leaned in to kiss me.

We descended holding hands, and I couldn't help it, I felt like a princess walking with her prince. It wasn't hard to be like his mother and fantasize that I was someone very special to help people enjoy a very special party.

Most of those invited to Kane's party did treat it
like a very special invitation. Many of his close buddies in school, boys on teams with him, and some of the girls in the senior class had been here for much smaller events, as he had said, but always with his parents at home, too. This was his first time without even the housekeeper. However, Kane was very good at protecting his home, declaring what was out of bounds. He wanted everyone to be confined to what I was freely calling the ballroom. The girls who were my friends wanted to assist in bringing out the food and drinks. Kane was firm about no alcohol or drugs, and not only because his father had laid down the law. Recently, Don Hudson, a senior, had a house party that his parents were unaware of, and one of the boys, Ryan Bynes, drank too much and got into an automobile accident five minutes after he left. An elderly woman was seriously injured, and the police were at Don's house less than a half hour later. His parents needed a lawyer.

Once the novelty of being at the biggest estate in the city wore off, many of the kids became bored and were wandering about aimlessly. Tina Kennedy kept annoying me with “So when's the real party going to start?”

I heard some complaining that without booze freely pouring or someone passing around “something,” it was “like a chaperoned school party.” Neither the music nor the food was holding their attention. An hour into it, some broke off to find excitement somewhere else. Before eleven, the crowd was dwindling. Those who were already paired off left
to be by themselves. I heard Steve Cooper suggest a group of them go up to Foxworth for kicks. I stepped in quickly.

“My father has been working on demolishing and removing what's left of the debris up there. It's fenced off now. There's lots of dangerous material lying around.”

They all looked at me strangely.

“Whatever,” Steve said.

“She oughtta know that it's dangerous up there,” Tina said. Lana had already told me she was quite jealous of my being with Kane.

“What's that supposed to mean?” Kane asked, coming out of nowhere and practically pouncing on her. She backed off quickly.

“Nothing. Jeez,” she said. “Let's go somewhere fun while the night's still young.”

She and those with her were the only ones who left without thanking Kane.

“Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned,” Kane muttered after them. “Don't even ask,” he told me immediately. “I never even had interest in getting to first base with her.”

Lana and Suzette remained behind to help with the cleanup. After they left and we were alone, Kane said Curtis would clear the room tomorrow before his parents returned.

“I guess we did all right,” he added. “Nothing broken.”

I saw that he was a little down. “It was a great party, Kane.”

“Right. I don't know what some of my so-called friends expected. Dancing girls? I wasn't going to open my father's bar. I made that clear to everyone for days. You didn't see it, but asshole Barsto brought something he was passing around. I invited him to leave.”

“Oh. I missed that.”

“Probably the earliest end to a party this year.”

“Not for us,” I said, and he looked at me oddly for a moment and then smiled.

“What's your curfew?”

“My father never set one. He depends on me to be responsible. I know he'll be waiting up no matter what, so I don't want to push it, but another hour won't do any harm.”

“In that case . . .”

He began shutting down lights and took my hand to lead me into the den, where there was the pool table, books, and another of what must be at least a dozen televisions. There was a very comfortable, soft leather settee. He poured us both some ginger ale, which was what we had been drinking all night, and sat beside me.

“I shouldn't have bothered with the party,” he said. “All I wanted here was you.”

“Not everyone was a dumbass, Kane. Most had a good time.”

“I spent too much of my time being a host. I don't think we danced three times.”

“You're right, it was two.”

He sipped his soda and looked at me. “I think I figured out what's different about you, Kristin.”

“And that is?”

“You're more mature. Not in a stuffy sort of way. You're more stable, secure. You're not arrogant about it, but you're a few hundred miles above your girlfriends, above just about every other girl in school, as a matter of fact. That used to intimidate me, but now I find it fascinating. I feel more mature being with you.” He put down his drink. “Duh! I sound stupid, I know.”

The first thing that came to my mind was that those were words I could imagine some girl saying to Christopher.

“Things happen that force you to be older than you'd like, Kane.”

“Yes, I know. I know the reason. I'm sorry for that, but I'm not sorry that you are who you are. I think I can trust you, depend on you, be confident being with you, and I can't say that about any other girl in our school.”

He took my glass from me and put it down, then kissed me with such passion that I could feel the tingle travel down my spine and wake the sexual energy in me, nudge it, opening me like a flower longing to blossom, a flower feasting on the sunshine.

His hands moved over my body gently. I lay back and then slowly began to slip under him. He was kissing my cheeks, my neck, before going back time after time to my lips, as if that kiss gave him the fuel, the energy, the permission to return to my neck and then my shoulders, as his hands smoothly lifted my blouse
and his lips traced along my stomach and up and over my breasts.

“Kristin,” he whispered. “I can't stop dreaming about you.”

He fingered the clasp on my bra and lifted it slowly away from my breasts, touching my nipples with the tip of his tongue. I could feel myself sliding deeper and deeper down into the place where your resistance weakens. Was this it? Was this going to be my first time? His finger went to the buttons on my jeans. I didn't stop him, but I couldn't help the small sob, the tension that came into my body, and the way I simply froze.

He paused. “How far do you want to go?” he asked softly. I had the feeling that it was a question he didn't bother asking other girls he had been with. “I'm prepared,” he added.

“Not that far. Not yet,” I said.

He nodded, kissed me quickly on the lips, and then sat back and looked thoughtful.

“What?” I asked.

“What makes some girls so easy about that decision?”

“It's never a problem for boys?”

“It is if they don't think ahead and get both of them in trouble.”

“Girls don't always get into trouble doing it, Kane.”

“I know that, too, but the risk is much bigger, don't you think?”

“So you've answered your own question.”

“Not really. That's why some girls might not want to do it if their boyfriends are unprepared, but that's all it answers.”

“Maybe you should attend the girls' session of health class,” I said.

“I'm not sure Mrs. Kirkwood would let me in.”

“There are many answers, I guess. How you're brought up is one. Some girls think of it as some accomplishment, a step into maturity or something.”

“You don't?”

“I think of it as more of a commitment. No, I don't want you to give me an engagement ring, but I don't want to just hook up or something. I know some girls who think being as casual about it as boys makes them equal or something.”