Echoes of Dollanganger (15 page)

“What is it, Kane?” I persisted.

He nodded, a sign of surrender, and then leaned forward, thinking. When he looked up, I could see he had decided on something very important to him. I held my breath. My mind raced from one end of the spectrum to the other, ranging from thinking he might tell me about some terrible illness he or someone in his family was suffering to imagining a confession about something terrible he had done. If it involved one of the girls in our classes, I was hoping he wouldn't reveal it.

“I'm still a virgin,” he confessed instead.

If there was anything I did not expect to hear, it was that. For a moment, I couldn't speak. Of course, I was sure I looked skeptical.

“I know, I know,” he continued, putting up his hand before I could say anything, not that I knew what to say. “I've got this reputation. Funny, the girls I have been with would never say we hadn't gone that far if they were asked. It would reflect more on them than me, I guess. It's not that they didn't want to; it's more that I didn't want to with them. Do you believe me?”

“No.”

He nodded. “Understandable.”

“Why tell me that, anyway?” I asked. “You think that is the reason I've held back, that you've been with so many other girls, and I'd just be another?”

“Well, it could be your reason.”

“If I thought you believed that, I would certainly be even more skeptical about what you're saying now,
wouldn't I? Naturally, I'd think you were manipulating me.”

“I guess, but you're about as easy to manipulate as a steel rod.” He leaned back.

“Remember that conversation we had once about why some girls are easy and some aren't? You've tried to get me to go further, Kane. You're not exactly Mr. Shy. You don't come off as a virgin.”

“I wanted to, yes. I wanted to upstairs just now. I don't think I ever wanted to more. I want to every moment I'm with you. You think that's dirty or something?”

“No. I didn't say that.”

“I think it will mean more with you. I hope you think or will think the same. I suppose all I'm trying to say is, when you're ready, I'm ready.”

I smiled.

“What?”

“I think you've been ready from the first day.”

He held up his hands. “Guilty,” he said, and stood up. “I'd better get out of here before I confess too much more.” He scooped up his books and turned toward the door.

“What brought on this confession, Kane?”

He stood looking at the floor.

“It was Christopher, wasn't it?” I asked him before he could leave. “The things he wrote about sex, his feelings? That's what got you to tell me this, isn't it?”

I didn't think he would answer. He looked like he just wanted to leave, but after a moment, with his head still down, he said, “Yes.”

“Why? What exactly was it that pushed your buttons? Don't try to make a joke of it,” I added quickly. “What will make anything between us significant is honesty.”

He looked at me and said, “My sister is only a few years older than I am. She's very pretty.”

“I know. I've seen her. So?” My mind began spinning with the possibilities. What else was he going to tell me? Did I want to hear it?

“Enough said for now, maybe,” he replied. “I'll see you in the morning.”

If I had ever felt I was hanging off a cliff, it was right then. He was already halfway to the stairs. I got up to follow him down and to the doorway. He paused and turned to me. Suddenly, he looked more like he did in the attic, more like Christopher than Kane. I even imagined that wig. The light in his eyes seemed to flicker. He had never looked as serious and less Kane Hill–like than he did at this moment. It made my heart flutter.

“I feel like we have something very special because of the diary, don't you? Like we're privileged by being granted entry to someone else's most private, painful, and yet at times strangely wonderful thoughts. Do you feel it, too, this . . . this possession? I mean, it's really as if Christopher Dollanganger is talking to you and me. Right?”

I could see he thought he might be going mad and wanted confirmation. But it was true. I did feel the same things. “Yes.”

“Let's not do anything that might make us lose it.”

“Okay.”

He smiled, gave me a quick kiss on the lips, and started for his car. I stood there watching him get in and then back the car out. He waved and drove off. Little butterflies of panic were fluttering in my head. I couldn't help but think that he was more than right, that we had crossed some forbidden line. The diary had led us into a world where emotions whirled, fears crawled about like electric spiders, and private secrets locked in our hearts began popping around us like bubbles.

Suddenly, I felt lonelier than I had felt in a very long time. I remembered myself as a little girl for no apparent reason turning away from my toy world and rushing to my mother, who seemed to instinctively know she had to embrace me and kiss me and smile softly, lovingly.

It was only natural for very young children to be overtaken by inexplicable fears, perhaps the leading one being the fear of being deserted, to suddenly turn around and be afraid that you were all alone. I thought of the Dollanganger twins literally shoved into that strange, cold world and left to cling to each other, to a sister barely old enough to comfort herself and to an older brother who was struggling to be a man with a man's responsibilities long before that should happen.

My mother couldn't stop herself from comforting me. It was essential to being a mother. What inside
Corrine was stronger than that need? When she went to sleep at night, did she toss and turn, thinking of her children locked away yet so close? Did she imagine their moans? Hear them calling for her? Did she struggle with the urge to go to them and rip them out of that dark world, where nightmares danced around them?

Among other things, like me, Kane felt some of this, understood their pain. I was sure, but I was also sure there was some other feeling, some other memory that had just been exposed in today's reading. Whatever had kept it from resurfacing had been ripped away. Did I want to know, to pursue it until I found out? Maybe it was better if we remained somewhat strangers to each other.

I had started to return to my room when the phone rang.

“Hey,” my father said.

He had heard something in my voice when I said hello. I wasn't surprised. Because we were so dependent on each other since my mother's death, we were both sensitive to the smallest changes, the slightest signals in our voices or in our faces. We both knew when something troubled or annoyed one of us. Loving someone meant being able to understand him or her better than anyone else.

He paused and then asked, “Everything all right?”

“Yes, fine,” I said. In the small pause, I knew that he knew that wasn't so, but he chose not to pursue it.

“Free for dinner?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I'm home in an hour. I feel like Charley's. Is that all right?”

“Sure,” I said. I wasn't in the mood for anything more formal. My father liked Charley's Diner because it was his chance to meet some of his old friends and toss around stories and their form of gossip. Charley's was a sort of hangout for men involved with the construction industry.

It was designed like an old 1950s diner, with faux-leather red booths with pleated white centers and chrome edges and base tables. There was a long counter with swivel barstools, lots of Formica and chrome, but there were also a dozen retro dinette sets, again with lots of chrome and Formica. The floor was a black and white checker, and although some of them didn't work, there were miniature jukeboxes at the booths and on the counter. Consequently, there was always music but nothing anyone my age would appreciate. Actually, I never saw any of my school friends there.

Charley Martin was the original owner. He was well into his seventies, although he looked ten years younger, with his full head of salt-and-pepper hair swept back and on the sides as if he had just run a wet washcloth over it, maybe with a little style lotion. He was stout, with the forearms of a carpenter, both arms stained with tattoos he had gotten in the Philippines when he was in the navy. Dad called him Popeye. He pretended to be annoyed, but I could see he liked it.

“Is it just the two of us?” my father asked cautiously, obviously assuming that the note of sadness he
had heard in my voice had something to do with Kane. Perhaps my little romance had crashed on the rocks like a little sailboat.

“Yes. Kane went home. His sister is arriving for her Thanksgiving break tonight,” I quickly added to wash away his suspicions.

“That's nice,” he said. “I'm going to cook up a storm for us.” I knew what he was thinking now. Kane's family's preparations for a family get-together on Thanksgiving would remind me of the hole in my heart, too. “See you soon.”

After I hung up, I went to get into some of my homework so there wouldn't be much when we returned. I had left Christopher's diary on the bed. When I picked it up to put it under my pillow, I was so tempted to open to the page where we had left off. Maybe it was a good idea to read ahead now, I thought. I would know what to expect and how to react to the way Kane would react, especially after seeing the way he was today. That was a good rationalization for it, but then I feared he would know I had read ahead and that would break our trust. Besides, I really had to get into my homework. My father could linger at Charley's.

And linger we did. Everyone there wanted to hear about the new construction on the old Foxworth property. I listened politely as they debated some of the new materials and techniques versus the old tried-and-true. I didn't want to interrupt or complain that we were staying too long. I could see how happy my
father was talking shop with some of the men he'd known since he had first begun in Charlottesville. With any reference to my mother, even a passing one, he would shift his gaze to me and then find a way to change the topic. Finally, he was tired himself, and we left.

“Some of those guys are so set in their ways they're like petrified trees,” he joked on our way home in Black Beauty. It rode rough, but he kept the engine purring.

He hadn't mentioned this at Charley's, but as we drew closer to home, he decided to tell me.

“The darndest thing,” he said, “but I was given quite a challenge today. 'Course, there's enough time to adjust things, and I suppose it works with the architecture. No structural problems with the roof.”

“What is it?” I asked, wondering if he would ever say.

“Oh. There'll be no attic. I mean, there'll be a crawl space but no actual attic. 'Course, lots of houses don't have attics today. Wasted space for most. Things go to these storage places you rent or just get given away. No one wants memories.”

“So why is it so weird?”

“Oh, it's not so weird. It's just that the original plan had a sizable attic, and then this new order came down the pike,” he said. “But how does that saying go? Ours is not to reason why . . .”

He didn't finish the line, and I didn't want to finish it for him: “Ours is but to do and die.” Either he
didn't want to mention it or he really didn't care to make the connection, but eliminating an attic in the new structure suggested to me that the new real owner didn't want even the idea of an attic on that property, and yet other things were shared with the old structure in this new one, like views from windows; it was a puzzle.

When we got home, I went right to finishing my homework and studying a bit for a history quiz. Unlike on most nights, my father didn't fall asleep in front of the television. He did some paperwork, then decided to turn in early and stopped by to say good night.

“Tomorrow's Friday. You have any plans yet?” he asked.

“Nothing for Friday yet, but expect to,” I replied. “Tina Kennedy is having a party Saturday night, which we might attend, but tomorrow night there's a new movie we both want to see. I guess we'll go for something to eat first. Are you working till the same time?”

“With daylight savings time, it gets dark now, not much choice,” he replied. “Don't worry about me. Have a good time.”

“I can do both,” I said, and he laughed.

I had a message from Kane on my voice mail. He just said to call him when I could.

“Problems for Darlena?” I asked as soon as he answered. I was thinking of their first dinner with Darlena's boyfriend.

“No, not really. My mother was cordial, as cordial as a queen might be to a servant, but we got through
it. My father grilled him as if he had come to ask for a job. Darlena should get herself and him through the maze and return to college after the holiday with only minor scars.”

“Is your mother really that bad?”

“Let's just say when she's seventy, she'll be a leading candidate for the Olivia Foxworth award.”

“Oh, stop,” I said, and he laughed.

“What I really wanted to tell you was I'm all right. I could see you were a little concerned when we said good-bye today, but don't worry about me reading the diary. I'm not usually that emotional about anything.”

“Tell me something I don't know.”

“You're good, angel, you're real good.”

“I know. Are we going to the movies tomorrow night? I told my father we might.”

“Sure. After we—”

“Do our session in the attic. I know. I can't believe I was once more enthusiastic about this than you were.”

“Were you?”

“I've got to go to sleep. I have a test tomorrow.”

“You can practice your answers on me in the morning,” he said. “I'll go to sleep counting the minutes until I see you.”

In the morning, my father told me that he had forgotten to mention that my aunt Barbara wouldn't be coming to our Thanksgiving after all. It wasn't because she felt she had to go to her boss's dinner. She had come down with a bad chest cold. I saw that he was quite disappointed, enough to suggest that we
might visit her in the spring. He wasn't fond of going to New York. He claimed he was too much a small-town boy.