Secrets of Foxworth (20 page)

“Ghosts?” I said with a slight smile.

He shook his head and then pointed his right forefinger at me like a pistol. “I don't want to hear you say something like that outside of this house.”

“Don't worry. I won't. I'll get the dishes, Dad. I've got time this morning.”

“Thanks to your alarm clock,” he said. He looked at me and added, “Be careful.”

“You, too,” I shot back, and he finally smiled.

“Oh,” he said turning back. “I nearly forgot. Your uncle Tommy is going to spend a day and a night with us next week. He's stopping by after some business meeting. Worked it into his schedule. Seems he wants to see how much you've grown or something.”

“That's great!”

“Thought you'd be happy about it. Okay. If I'm not back before you leave, have a good time,” he said.

Dad knew how much I liked Uncle Tommy. He had remained a bachelor, but he was not unattractive, and he did have a couple of very serious romantic relationships as far as I could remember. Dad claimed that was because he was in the mad Hollywood world. One of his relationships lasted about five years, and then his girlfriend broke off with him, probably frustrated with his lack of interest in a permanent relationship. Dad told me he once told him that he was afraid of commitment because he was afraid of being a disappointment. When I asked him what that meant exactly, Dad hesitated and then said, “He doesn't sing that song.”

“What song?”

“ ‘I Only Have Eyes for You,' ” Dad replied. “He's certainly not the first who couldn't be faithful to one woman, but he's rare because he admits it. Maybe he just likes emotional good-byes.”

I didn't want to think of Uncle Tommy as weak or selfish. I certainly didn't like thinking he was deceitful, but I couldn't help comparing him with my father. There wasn't all that much age difference. Uncle Tommy was three years younger, but he always seemed much younger to me. It went back to Dad's point about wanting to be responsible for someone other than yourself, I thought. Uncle Tommy just wasn't cut out to be that way. Oh, he took care of my grandmother, but taking care of your mother was not the same thing. That, whether you liked it or not, was built into your DNA. At least, that was what I thought.

Was I cut out to be responsible for someone else? Many women were the primary wage earners in families these days. Or at least, they were on practically an equal basis. Did I want to have children sooner or later in my life? It was still harder for women to decide, even women who could afford nannies from day one. I didn't see myself as a mother who would gladly relegate her motherhood role to an employee.

It made me wonder again why Corrine wanted to have so many children. Was it more her husband's desire? Did she go along expecting something more for herself? Maybe she had made a deal first: she'd have the children, but he had to get her help and not
stop buying her things. Then he died, and she was left with empty promises. Just from the little I had read about her, I could see she would regret having had four children, especially when it came to looking for a new husband. The man would have to be committed not only to her but to four children who weren't his own. She was smart enough to know that wouldn't be an easy task. On the other hand, if she inherited great wealth, none of it would matter. Was that always one of her goals? Had she discussed it with Christopher Sr.?

Could that rumor Daddy mentioned be true, that she did have some money, enough to take care of the family until she found employment? How conniving and dishonest was Corrine Foxworth? I wondered. With Christopher Jr. so observant and intelligent, she would have had to put on quite a show of desperation. There was no question that he believed her, believed it was happening to them. Did he want to believe her? Although he said he knew his mother had weaknesses, did he deliberately avoid seeing them?

Perhaps Dad was right. Perhaps she could have managed and not submitted to her parents' insanity and punished her children so, but not only their futures were at stake. Hers was, too, and she was a woman who liked to be pampered. Only lots of money would make her happy.

There were so many questions to answer. Could Christopher Jr. do that in his diary, or would he avoid not only the answers but the questions themselves? He said he was writing facts, but even he would admit that
the facts were seen through his eyes and those eyes had their own prejudices and feelings. He could do nothing about it, no matter how hard he tried. I'd have to get better at reading between the lines, I thought.

And what was up with my father, suddenly telling me something about the Foxworths
willingly
? Was he subtly trying to warn me that what I read in the diary might not be the truth? Did he want to prepare me for something more terrible and fill me with skepticism before I had read it? I was back to the question that haunted me. How much had he and my mother really known?

I finished cleaning up our breakfast dishes and the frying pan he'd used and then headed upstairs to get my things and go. Because of his military experience, my father always made his bed before he left for work. When I was only five, I studied how carefully he did it and tried to do it for my own bed. Eventually, I became as good at it as he was. Keeping things clean and organized was also important to my mother. Dad was meticulous when it came to his tools at home. Anyone who saw our garage always commented on how neat it was. My father believed that how you treated your possessions said a great deal about how you treated yourself and others.

When I made my bed, I tucked the diary in under the pillow as I had been doing, and I thought about the messy world in which Corrine had permitted her children to be placed. Rats and mice, insects and dust, stale air and poor ventilation were not ideal, especially for the twins. Most mothers would be very concerned about
their children's health, but from the way Christopher described her acceptance of it, she didn't seem to worry the way a normal, caring mother should. Was this the first clue concerning what eventually happened?

I was eating and sleeping this diary, I thought. Maybe if I thought of it the way I thought of any novel I had read, it would lose its grip on me. I hurried out, making sure I didn't look back at my bed and that diary burning under my pillow, the covers closed but the voices not silent.

When I arrived at school, my girlfriends practically attacked me with their questions about Kane's party. It was happening tonight. Suddenly, I felt like I was moving in a spotlight. Everyone was more interested in my opinion. What was I going to wear? What should they wear? What did I think of this blouse, this skirt, these shoes? What about lipstick? Eye shadow? How should they wear their hair? What would I suggest?

Girls who really couldn't care less about my opinions about their hair and clothes before were suddenly intent on hearing what I had to say.

“We don't know what kind of a party it is,” Lana exclaimed when I didn't give them any specific answers. “Is he having it catered?”

“Catered?”

“Well, they're so rich. His parents would let him do that,” Missy Meyer said. “He might even have people serving.”

I just shrugged. My mind was still on the Dollanganger children and their being locked away in
that mansion. Neither Cathy nor Christopher was going to go to any parties for years. For years, how Cathy wore her hair wasn't going to be important. For years, Christopher would not experience a girl flirting with him, nor would he be able to meet a girl and have a conversation with someone his own age. For years, they would never know what music was popular with their friends, what movie was exciting everyone in their class, what television show was being talked about at school, or even what was happening in the news that kids their age would be interested in. If they would complain that they were half alive, they wouldn't be wrong, I thought.

“I don't know any more about his party than you do,” I told them.

“Well, you were with him yesterday after school,” Lana said.

“You've been spending most of your time with him, haven't you?” Suzette asked. “So?”

I thought about it for a moment and laughed.

“What?”

“We never really talked about his party,” I said, and went to my desk as class began.

Whenever Kane was close enough after his classes, he was waiting for me to walk me to my next class.

“The girls are driving me crazy asking me for details about your party,” I told him.

“Let's have it be a surprise. I'll come for you around six thirty, okay?” he said the first time.

“Six thirty? So early?”

“We have a lot to do to prepare for the party. I'm
ordering in pizzas and salads,” he told me. “You can help me warm things up. Our housekeeper has been given the night off.”

“Sure,” I said.

I had never been to Kane's house, but everyone talked about it. It was a refurbished antebellum built of whitewashed brick and timber that people half-jokingly called Hill's Tara, referring to the great house in
Gone with the Wind
. It was one of the largest estates in the area, about nine miles outside of Charlottesville.

“And I thought it would be nice to have some private time before it all starts. Not that we won't later,” he added. “Tell your father I'll bring you home, too. It will be a good way to throw everyone else out.”

“Is that your only reason?” I asked when we stopped at my next classroom.

He just gave me that grin, tossed his head to the side, and sauntered off to join the boys who were waiting for him down the hall. I watched them close around him as if they could draw his energy into them and glow like he did. When I turned to go into the classroom, I found I had the same sort of thing awaiting me, my girlfriends gathering around me, still asking questions about the party and obviously trying to be my best friends.

I knew all of this was coming at me because now it was even more obvious that Kane was very fond of me, and as far as most of the girls in high school were concerned, he was the most desirable boy. Who wouldn't want to be his girlfriend, at least for a little while?

Today there was something else going on, however. I think they could all sense that there was something different between us, and there was. This wasn't just another little romance. Even I had to admit that I was feeling that was true. Perhaps it was because of the time we had spent at the Foxworth lake yesterday. Maybe he had felt something special there, too. Throughout the day, every moment he could be, he was with me. We were behaving as if we were oblivious to everyone and everything around us. I imagined that the contrast between how nonchalant I was about him before and how I was acting this day raised eyebrows and started a chorus of whispers.

There was no reason for me to be surprised about that. Anyone, even our teachers, who usually didn't pay attention to such things, could see that we were looking at each other more intently. Those feelings, those moments gazing at each other so long that they could be called staring, were not easy to hide or prevent. Neither of us seemed to care if anyone knew about our deeper feelings for each other, anyway. Kane always seemed to me to be someone like that, but it was new for me. Suddenly, I wasn't as bashful or concerned about what other people were thinking of me.

When I thought about it, I wondered how Corrine and Christopher Sr. had hidden their passion for each other from her parents, at least in the beginning. Probably, they reached a point when they knew they couldn't any longer, and that was when they had decided to run off together. I couldn't help but imagine
them sneaking around that mansion at night, clinging to each other in shadows, terrified they would be discovered, and hating that it had to be that way. It made them feel as dirty and as sinful as her parents would think they were, and who could live with that?

Kane and I had known each other for a long time. Were he and I always going to be this passionate about each other? Were my feelings for Kane and his feelings for me always this obvious to everyone else but me? My girlfriends were always telling me that he liked me more than he liked other girls he had dated, but I didn't dwell on it, especially during these last few days when I was reading Christopher's diary. Besides, I was always skeptical about Kane. To me, it still looked like he was shopping around, and I was reluctant to be easy, anyway. I thought my girlfriends knew that. Maybe those others he had disappointed just wanted me to be another victim caught in Kane Hill's web.

Or maybe it was always my fault. Maybe I was simply too afraid of being disappointed. Was I more like Uncle Tommy than I was like my father? Being deceived and betrayed after you had exposed yourself in a commitment could be devastating. You'd never trust any boy after that. Kane, despite what he had said and how he had behaved, especially at the lake, was so casual about everything he did that it was easy to have this feeling, this fear. Even now, it sneaked in under my growing affection for him. What if he began to date someone else the following week? If just like that, he turned away from me? How was I supposed to take it?

Too many of the girls I knew, especially in the junior and senior classes, were satisfied with what they called “hooking up.” Committing themselves to one boy for a long period of time was for the insecure. It was more fun to circulate. “What's your goal, to be the king and queen at the prom or something? Please, give me a break.” I overheard these conversations, and they weren't only coming from envious girlfriends. Many, if not most, believed it.

Maybe they were right to think that way. How did you know the right decisions to make when you were our age? How many of my girlfriends really had close enough relationships with their mothers to get some guidance, and how many even wanted it? Everyone seemed suspicious of her parents. Whose mother would ever suggest intimate relationships, much less condone them? But everyone was titillated with the prospect, including me, although that was my most secret thought.