Authors: Carlene Thompson
And in the midst of Christine’s turmoil had come Sloane with his patience, kindness, stability, and complete acceptance of Jeremy, and she’d seen a healthy and happy way out for her and her brother. Christine told herself that Sloane was exactly the kind of man her father would have wanted for her and for Jeremy. She’d told herself that affection was a good enough basis for marriage, that in the years to come she would learn to love him deeply, and she’d accepted his proposal in September.
By February she was almost certain she couldn’t go through with the wedding. She didn’t love Sloane. She’d also realized that although her delicate mother had always told her a woman needed a strong man to lean on, she could not pledge herself for life to someone she didn’t love. She had to believe she was strong and capable enough to look after herself and Jeremy without anyone’s help. Still, she couldn’t see a painless way out of the spring wedding. Sloane seemed to want her so much, and he’d been so wonderful to her and Jeremy. For Christine, every day had been an agony of conflict, frantic need to
break free warring with her equally strong desire not to hurt Sloane. No, she had not been thinking too much about Dara back then. She’d been consumed with her own problems.
“Chris, are you still with me?”
She closed her eyes for a moment, then looked at Streak. “Yes. I was just trying to remember as much as I could of that time. You’re right—I didn’t know most of Dara’s friends. But the initials
S.C
. coupled with the way she acted around Sloane make me wonder.”
“I think Dara probably came on to all men.”
He’d made a statement sound like a question. Christine realized he was curious about Dara’s behavior around men. “She was forward, but how she acted with Sloane was different. She seemed even more blatant. And Sloane never discouraged her.”
“Did he
encourage
her?”
“No,” Christine said slowly. “But Sloane isn’t a passive man. It’s not his style to let something he doesn’t like slide past him. And he didn’t seem heartbroken when I ended our engagement.”
“I’ve only been around him a couple of times, but he seemed to be a proud guy. I don’t think he’d beg no matter how much he wanted to marry you. And he’s never married anyone else.”
“I hope someday he finds the woman who’s right for him,” Christine said. She didn’t want to think about Sloane anymore. “Back to the diary.”
“I’ll take over.” Streak reached for the diary. He skimmed a couple of pages, then said, “Here’s something interesting for February fourteenth: ‘Ladies and Gentlemen, presenting Dara Prince, Juggler Extraordinaire! How does she do it? How does one small, beautiful girl handle three lovers on Valentine’s Day? Very carefully!
And I’m pretty sure I pulled it off. I’d better have pulled it off.’ ”
“
Three
lovers?” Christine echoed. “Rey was one. I guess the other two were the Brain and S.C.”
Streak looked shocked. “Ames would have had a stroke if he’d known what his little girl was doing.”
“I get the feeling each lover would have had a stroke if he’d known there was someone else. She said she had to juggle them. But she also sounds worried that she didn’t do a good job of it.”
Streak shook his head. “You know, I feel like a fool. I used to think I knew Dara. But she was too clever for that. She was pacifying me and I never caught on.”
“Pacifying you? Why would she have had to pacify you about having three boyfriends?”
“I guess I said that wrong. I mean she never told me anything she thought I’d feel compelled to tell Ames.” He quickly looked back at the diary and read: “ ‘Hell of a nightmare last night. In it someone was following me, watching me, hating me more and more each day. I knew I should get help and I’d try to run, but I couldn’t find anywhere bright and safe. The person was always in the shadows. And he or she wanted to kill me and I knew it and I couldn’t do anything about it. I woke up in a sweat and couldn’t get back to sleep. All day I’ve had the creeps and been looking over my shoulder. Am I crazy? Or psychic? I’d rather be crazy, because then I’d know I was just imagining it all, not foreseeing the future.’ ”
“So Dara was having anxiety dreams,” Christine said. “She must have been really worried, and she wasn’t the type to worry over nothing. Just the opposite. She usually didn’t take things seriously enough.”
“I’d say she was more than worried. She was scared.”
The next few pages were filled with innocuous passages until the March 5 entry:
I was in the library today and someone followed me into the stacks. There I was up on the sixth floor with all those musty bound periodicals and no one in sight and I felt eyes on me. I could feel
hatred
in the look. I was so creeped out I headed for the elevator. I heard rustling behind me and someone drawing a deep breath and sort of mumbling a lot of gibberish. I looked around and caught a flash of blue. Like a periwinkle blue. I thought I would faint. That awful mumbling came closer. I almost fell into the elevator. Back on the main floor I ran into a friend who wouldn’t stop talking. Then I saw Christine get off an elevator and head for the front doors. She had on a
periwinkle
blue sweater!!
Christine gaped at Streak. “Dara thought I was stalking her?”
“Sounds like she did on this day. Do you remember being in the library wearing a blue sweater?”
“Blue is my favorite color. One Christmas when I was in college I got three blue sweaters as presents. And I went to the library a lot. I could concentrate better there than at home.”
“Did you go to the sixth floor?”
“At least a dozen times.” Christine felt herself bristling. “Streak, you’re interrogating me!”
“I didn’t mean to. I was trying to figure out if Dara could have seen you and put a false spin on the situation, or if she was just imagining things.”
“If she did see me on the sixth floor, I certainly wasn’t lurking behind her mumbling gibberish. That’s absurd.”
“So you think she made up the whole incident?”
Christine paused, thinking. “No. Not completely. Her fear sounds too real. Maybe someone
was
following her in the library. Or more likely, she’d just gotten herself so spooked by this time that she thought someone was after her.”
“Mumbling gibberish.”
“Like a lunatic. Now that
does
sound like imagination.”
“Well, we can’t know exactly what really happened and how much is exaggeration.” Streak glanced through a couple more pages. “March tenth is the date on this entry: ‘I feel like things are getting out of control. Maybe I bit off more then I can chew. Maybe I’ve pushed everybody too hard. I’m having a really hard time sleeping.’ ”
“I do remember her looking tired and being jumpy around that time,” Christine said. “Patricia called attention to it at dinner one night. Dara got mad. But then, they were always sniping at each other. I mentioned Dara’s condition to Ames after she disappeared, but he said he hadn’t noticed anything wrong.”
“And if he had, he would have ignored it.” Streak sounded impatient. “He’s a master at hiding his head in the sand. Listen to this: ‘Today Rey proposed. I couldn’t believe it and I burst out laughing. The look he gave me! I don’t know how to describe it except it scared the daylights out of me. I told him I was too young. That we should wait. He knew I was just putting him off. I’ve felt weird about him all day.’ ”
Streak said, “In this March eighth entry even her handwriting looks shaky: ‘I think I’m losing it. I keep getting the feeling someone’s watching me. I smuggled some vodka up to my room. After a couple of shots, I don’t feel so frightened.’ ”
“Dara wouldn’t keep up an exaggerated scenario for
days,” Christine said. “I don’t think she was being melodramatic. I think she really believed someone was watching her.”
“I do, too. But who? One of the lovers?”
“That’s my guess. Except she seemed to think I was tracking her in the library.” Christine rubbed her eyes, which were stinging from lack of sleep. “Anything important in the next entry?”
“Something about shopping for a dress for a party.”
“That would have been Tess’s birthday party.”
“Tess?”
“Reynaldo’s wife. She was in love with him back then, but he belonged strictly to Dara.”
“Too bad Dara didn’t belong strictly to him. Maybe she’d be here today if she hadn’t been so greedy.”
Christine smiled. “Dara was greedy about everything, especially people’s emotions. I’m not sure she was capable of real love, but she certainly couldn’t get enough of it to fill herself up. I’ve always thought that’s why she was so tolerant of Jeremy. He adored her, and she reveled in it.”
“I’ll never know what made her so insecure.” Streak lit another cigarette. “Eve and Ames loved her beyond reason.”
“But Ames is so undemonstrative. Was Eve?”
“No. You always knew exactly how Eve felt. But before she got sick, she was a real overachiever. She belonged to a dozen clubs. She was always working on some project, always learning something—gardening, dance classes, art classes, music lessons, toward the end, witchcraft. Whatever she tried, she went at with a vengeance. I think she might not have paid enough attention to Dara during those times.” His gaze went back to the diary and he read the next entry: “ ‘God, what a close call this evening! I was making love with S.C. when the Brain came to the door! Knocking and knocking! I
thought my heart would stop. S.C. not too upset, but I had to get out of there as soon as I could. I have a feeling the Brain
knows
. That would be a disaster.’ ”
“No wonder she was getting jittery,” Christine said dryly. “I wonder where she was making love with S.C. when the Brain came to the door. S.C.’s house?” She pictured Sloane’s house on the other side of town. Had Dara spent evenings there while Christine was at the library? Could that explain her flagrant flirting with Sloane and his lack of rejection? Christine pulled herself back to the present as Streak began to read again: “ ‘I know I went too far this time. Tess’s party. I drank before I went, because I was so nervous; then I drank too much there. Tess was drooling over Rey. Christine was like a giant Goody Two-shoes with her fiancé. I made a real spectacle of myself. I danced all by myself; I sang raunchy songs; I sat on Sloane’s lap and kissed and fondled him. Amazon and Rey went ballistic. Amazon broke her engagement. Tess told everyone about the party. I think the whole town knows. Rey is furious. S.C. is furious. The Brain is furious, which is worse. And I’m scared.’ ”
“Oh, that party,” Christine groaned. “It was awful.”
Streak tapped ashes off his cigarette. “Was she really so bad?”
“She was horrible. And she didn’t appear drunk. Just . . . manic. I hadn’t thought of that until this minute, but her behavior wasn’t just outrageous. It had a frantic quality. Maybe Sloane realized something was wrong and that’s why he didn’t get rude with her.”
“He never explained himself?”
“Oh, he offered a couple of excuses, but I was too angry to listen.” I was too desperate to grab onto any excuse to get out of marrying him, Christine thought again with a prickle of shame. “But Dara says S.C. was furious. If Sloane was furious with her, he sure didn’t act
it. And she sounds more worried about the reaction of the Brain.” She sighed. “I’m getting a headache.”
“No wonder. We’ve only got one more entry. Let’s get it over with. It’s dated March twenty-fourth.”
“The night
before
she disappeared,” Christine breathed with a rush of foreboding.
“ ‘I am
so
tired. Nightmares about whoever is following me, what they want to do to me. Or maybe I’m so strung out from not sleeping that I’m hallucinating. The looks Amazon gives me! They’d be funny if I wasn’t so spooked. I can’t stand everybody being so mad at me, even Daddy. He said something about me being like Mama after all. What did that mean? Then, to top it all off, I find out
this!
How could I let this happen? I didn’t take the pills right, I guess. Too buzzed on vodka to keep track. I told him. Don’t know what I expected. But there are no proud fathers in this family. He said I have to get rid of it, but I’m afraid I’ll die. And I don’t know how to arrange things like that. Practical things. Messy things life makes you do to keep going. But he’s so mad. And if anyone else finds out—
“ ‘I wish my mother were here because without her, I’m lost. It’s all gone wrong and I just know now that no matter what I do, I won’t be around this time next year.’ ”
Streak slowly closed the diary, his dark eyes sad. “And she wasn’t around at that time the next year. Or even the next week,” he said with a gravelly edge to his voice. “Damned exasperating high-spirited girl.”
Christine swallowed hard, her own pity rising. Dara was not only frightened by the idea that someone was following her and wanted her dead; she’d also found out she was pregnant. The pills she hadn’t taken properly were birth control pills. She’d told the father, who clearly had been less than thrilled. And when she’d written that passage, she’d been reduced to a frightened little girl who thought only her mother could protect her.
Dara had been selfish, greedy, and appallingly careless with her life and the other lives she touched. Christine had seen for herself, though, that Dara had been reared to believe she could have whatever she wanted. Her father rarely said no to her. Probably her mother hadn’t, either. She’d been beautiful, adored, and indulged to the point where her personality never matured beyond that of a spoiled child. She didn’t seem to understand the concept of accountability. Still, no matter what her human failings or how she’d come by them, the state she’d reached when she wrote her last diary entry was tragic. The hot tears Christine now felt blurring her vision, though, were caused only partly by pity. She also felt at fault, as if she’d been indirectly involved in what happened to Dara, although she couldn’t figure out quite how.
“I never guessed she was pregnant,” Christine finally said. “And obviously afraid to have an abortion.” Streak stared off, his cigarette smoke circling in front of his eyes. “Did you know she was pregnant?”