Secrets of Foxworth (24 page)

He nodded. “I thought you'd have an intelligent answer. No,” he said, holding his hands up and standing, “don't ask me to try again or ask you to stay over.” We looked at each other, and then we both laughed at the obvious reverse psychology attempt. At least he wasn't as crude and immature as most of the boys I knew at school.

“I guess I'd better get going,” I said. I straightened myself out, checked myself in the closest powder room, and joined him in the kitchen.

“Can I take you somewhere tomorrow night? To dinner, a movie?”

“I'll check my schedule.”

He looked stunned.

“Just kidding, Kane. Yes, I'd like that.”

He nodded. “I was right about you. You're different.” He took my hand and led me out to the garage. He opened the car door for me and got in. We backed out and started down the long driveway.

Maybe I
was
different, I thought. Maybe that was why I was so fascinated with Christopher's diary. I thought too much. I analyzed everything and was always afraid my fantasizing would make me too vulnerable. I was not willing to forgive people, especially boys, their little faults, their small dishonesties. Was that good, or would I end up alone in some room as despondent as Christopher in the attic?

Dad was happy I didn't stay out too late. Despite how subtle he wanted to be about it, he stayed up waiting for me, most likely watching the clock and pretending to be so interested in what he was watching on television that he couldn't go to bed.

“Have a good time?” he asked as soon as I stepped into the living room. I was sure if I asked him what he was watching and what had just happened, he wouldn't know.

“Yes, very.”

“Quite a house, eh?”

“That and then some,” I said, which was another of his responses to questions like that.

He laughed. “Everyone behave?”

“Wouldn't be a party if everyone did, but actually, yes. Kane saw to that,” I said.

“Good.”

“Unfortunately, some thought not being raucous was boring,” I added, “and they left early.”

“Oh. But not you?”

“I had more reason to stay,” I said, and he laughed.

“Oh? Care to elaborate a bit?”

“No,” I said, and he laughed again. “I'm going up,” I told him.

“Just want to see the end of this,” he said, nodding at the television.

I gave him a kiss and left him pretending to know what he was watching.

I had told myself I would avoid reading the diary before I went to sleep tonight. I should have been too tired. I was tired, but I was also restless. Kane's telling me about his sister witnessing the second fire and some of the comments his parents had made about it and the first fire had stirred up so many different feelings that I felt my nerves were like sparklers.

I slipped my hand under my pillow and brought out the diary. Before I turned the page, I listened to my father's footsteps. He lumbered along to his bedroom, and the lights in the hallway dimmed.

Now it was just the Dollanganger children and me again.

It was clear now that we'd be locked up here until our grandfather died. Cathy was more despondent than ever. I had my work cut out for me: how to keep her spirits and the twins' spirits up, how to keep them all occupied. Cathy wasn't stupid. She would spot insincerity very quickly. But I had another ability that came in very handy now. I could will myself to believe in something. I wasn't
like other people who fool themselves or lie to themselves. I knew how to dress up something I doubted so that I looked convinced about it, but I had something people who lie to themselves don't have. I knew what I was doing. I knew the truth, and I could retreat to it whenever I wanted to or had to. Maybe that sounds arrogant, but to me, it's just a statement of fact.

“He could live forever,” Cathy moaned almost immediately. “We're doomed, Christopher. No one else knows we're up here. All of my friends are probably calling each other for news, and maybe some of them are asking their parents to call the police! I hope they do. I hope there's a nationwide search for us, and our pictures are put on post office walls. People locked up like this go mad and even shrink. I read it in a magazine.”

“Stop the dramatics,” I told her in our father's most assertive voice. Her eyes widened. “It's not going to be anywhere near that bad. Our grandfather is suffering from heart disease. That means his arteries are blocked with something called plaque. If—not if, I should say when—a piece of that breaks free, he'll have a heart attack and die on the spot. We're so far away from the city that by the time the ambulance arrives, he'll be long gone.”

“He has a nurse around the clock. He's rich. Maybe he has an ambulance parked out front all the time.”

“Nurses aren't doctors, and they can't possibly
have all the life-saving machinery hospitals have, Cathy, no matter how rich he is. The man is in critical condition. It's classic intensive care. He should be in a hospital. He obviously wants to die at home. He knows himself that he hasn't got long to go.”

She looked at me askance.

“Think about it,” I added even more strongly. “If Grandmother Olivia didn't believe it herself, she wouldn't have permitted us to come here in the first place. You see the way she treats Momma. She doesn't have much faith in Momma's ability to win back her father's love. His death is the only thing that makes sense. It's impending.”

She squinted.

“Impending, imminent, can happen any time.”

“In the meanwhile?”

“In the meanwhile . . .” I looked around. “Let's do some fun things. Why don't we stage a play? You love dramatics. You write it, and I'll act in it, and the twins will be our audience. We certainly have enough material for costumes.” I held my breath. Would she buy into it?

“You always made fun of my interest in acting.”

“I was teasing you. Brothers tease their sisters all the time. That's what it means to be a brother, but if anyone could succeed as an actress, it's you. You have a flair for it.”

“Are you just saying that to shut me up?”

“No. I believe it. I'm always telling you to stop being dramatic. I just did.”

She thought a moment. “All right. I want to do ‘Gone with the Wind,' ” she said without any hesitation.

“ ‘Gone with the Wind'? The whole thing?”

It didn't surprise me. She had sat watching that with Momma more than once, and afterward, both she and Momma pretended they lived in the South and were Southern belles. Momma loved playing Scarlett O'Hara, and Cathy loved imitating her. Momma gave her a book about “Gone with the Wind,” and she would often sit and thumb through it, sometimes reciting lines she had memorized. At the time, I thought it was all foolish, but I kept my opinion to myself. I was very glad now that I had.

“No, just some scenes, but you have to do exactly as I say. Of course, I'll be Scarlett O'Hara, and you'll have to play Rhett Butler.”

“You're the writer and the director,” I told her, looking as serious about it as I could, and she suddenly looked even less irritated. Her eyes widened with her thoughts. She took off immediately to sift through the old clothes and hats.

The twins didn't understand what we were doing at first, but just seeing Cathy so animated and interested captured their attention, and for a while, they weren't moaning and groaning. Even Carrie, who hated going up to the attic, followed Cathy around, trying to do something to help whatever it was she was planning.

Seeing how my idea had captured their
interest, I went ahead and built a mock stage, creating curtains with ropes and blankets. Cathy surprised me with her inventiveness. She used some of the dress mannequins as characters, finding costumes for them, giving them names, and having Cory and Carrie help her set up her scene. They thought it was fun to talk to the mannequins and call them by the names Cathy had remembered from the movie. Then she sat and scribbled lines on a pad.

I had obviously unleashed some of her stifled fantasies. Although I thought it was all quite childish to continue, I had to get into it with the same sort of energy, or they would all lose interest. She found my Rhett Butler costume, which I had to admit was creative: cream-colored trousers (I had to roll up the legs), a brown velvet jacket with pearl buttons, and a satin vest with red roses all over it. The moment I put it all on, I turned to her and, in my best Rhett Butler imitation, pleaded, “Come quickly, Scarlett. We've got to escape from Atlanta before Sherman reaches here and sets the city ablaze!”

The twins' eyes were suddenly full of greater excitement. This was make-believe like they had never seen it, especially with me participating.

“There's going to be a fire?” Cory cried.

“It's only make-believe,” Cathy reminded him, but that didn't change their expressions of awe.

Cathy had found her costume, too. She wore a cage under a skirt at least three sizes too large,
pantaloons with lace, large shoes, and a ruffled silk blouse. She found a great Scarlett O'Hara hat, too, and we were soon at it.

She threw herself into the scene she had created. It wasn't long, but I thought the way she used the mannequins was quite clever. Naturally, the twins didn't have the attention span for a long, overly dramatic scene that included Cathy's desperate pleas for love in front of a mannequin dressed to be Ashley Wilkes. Carrie was soon crying for lunch. She hated being in the attic, even for a show.

“These clothes stink, anyway,” Cathy declared, the air going out of her balloon of excitement quickly.

She looked at me with disappointment, but I promised her we'd return. We stripped off the costumes and went to eat our lunch. All through it, Cory complained about not being in the garden outside. The dreariness of our surroundings was wearing on us all. It suddenly occurred to me that another way to divert their attention from our dire situation was for us to dress up the attic.

“Let's turn this ugly caterpillar into a butterfly,” I declared. The twins looked astonished again. “We'll decorate it. We'll create our own garden the way God creates a real one.”

They looked to Cathy.

“It's too filthy,” she said.

“We'll clean it up. We can do it,” I insisted.

That night when Momma finally appeared,
I told her about my plan. She was looking despondent when she came in, but suddenly, she looked at the four of us and considered the idea.

“Why not?” she declared. “I'll help. We'll do it. We'll show my mother how creative and clean we can be. She's always saying cleanliness is next to Godliness. Well, we'll show her we know exactly what that means.”

Cathy looked as skeptical as ever, but Momma delighted us all by bringing up mops, pails, brooms, scrub brushes, and boxes and boxes of soap powder. She said her mother knew nothing about it. She had sneaked it all to us. That seemed to be the one thing that pleased Cathy about the idea the most. Deceiving our grandmother or doing something behind her back made it more precious and fun. That seemed to be even more true for Momma. And I have to admit, it was what made it fun for me, too.

However, to be honest, I was very surprised at Momma's enthusiasm. Suddenly, she was with us daily, scrubbing floors and washing everything in sight. She even brought insect repellent, and we cleared out gobs of dead spiders and ants. I had Cory believing that he and I were great hunters. Both twins now saw it all as a new game and argued about who was doing more and better. For a good week, we were suddenly a family again, people with a common cause and helping and loving one another constantly.

“You see,” I told Cathy one night that week,
“Momma hasn't lost her love and concern for us. We've got to continue to help her fulfill her plan.”

With reluctance, she nodded and agreed. The only discordant note came when Momma brought real flowers to the cleaned attic, including spiky amaryllis that she said would bloom by Christmas.

“Christmas! You're saying we'll still be here for sure?” Cathy cried.

Momma looked at me.

“She's not saying that,” I said, even though it was obvious to me that she was.

“What are you saying?” Cathy demanded.

“When we leave, we'll take the plants with us for our Christmas celebration somewhere else. That's all,” she replied.

Cathy was silent, but I could see it in her eyes. She didn't believe a word. Maybe she could pretend and do dramatic things like become Scarlett O'Hara for a while, but Cathy was hard on fantasies when she had some skepticism.

None of this was going to easy for me. I'd have to work even harder to get her and the twins to give Momma the chance and the time she needed. I needed Momma to help me with this as much as possible.

“Can you come back to see the twins before bedtime tonight?” I asked her.

“Oh, I've already made arrangements to go to a movie with an old girlfriend of mine. I want my father to believe I'm back to my life the way it was.”

“What friend?” Cathy demanded.

“Her name is Elena. She has two unmarried brothers, one studying to be a lawyer. The other is a tennis pro,” she said with surprising excitement.

“You're going on a date with one of them?” she asked.

I looked at Momma quickly. Was she?

She laughed, but I didn't feel confident about it. It was a forced laugh. She was going to lie to us again. It felt like another needle in my chest. Whenever I knew she was lying to us, I felt that way, but I had to do my best to hide it, or Cathy would go bonkers.

“Of course not,” Momma said. “I'd rather go to sleep. I'm so tired from the work we've done. But it's better not to have people, especially someone like Elena, ask questions. She was always a busybody.”

“Then why go out with her?” Cathy asked.