by Anthology
According to the house calls of the nice doctors, I needed medication. I did not take the medication. I functioned just fine by dancing away the anxiety and not looking directly at myself.
Just fine.
I’d met Melanie, my father’s fiancée, only once. Dad planned a quiet dinner in the dining room and I smiled accordingly, accepting the pretty woman’s gentle embrace.
It was more of a careful hug that she’d given me, I’d come to decide after hours of reflection. The kind you’d give an elderly woman with very fragile bones.
“So lovely,” Melanie said to my father, gesturing with a smile to the array of photographs from my youth that cluttered the walls. “And you’re even lovelier in person, Lark. You remind me of another young woman that... I used to know.”
I was too involved with my own thoughts to ask her who she was talking about. Melanie looked too much like my dead mother, and I couldn’t wait to go back to my room and ponder about how disgusted that made me feel. Granted, my mother had been dead for fifteen years, but for my father to find her blonde-haired-blue-eyed doppelgänger was just crazy. Maybe all of my crazy was hereditary, and had just been silently dormant until I turned six.
Melanie talked about her son and daughter, both older than I was. Her daughter, Selene, was almost thirty, and her son, Shaw, was twenty-six. Both had significant others, so two more places were set at the antique dining table.
Perfect. The more the merrier.
I gazed out the attic window and watched as their expensive SUV pulled into our snowy driveway.
Sighing, I reached for my shoes and bit my lip.
My father would dote on me until the end of time. He never pushed me to go outside my boundaries, something I both thanked and blamed him for. When my mother died, she had been thirty-five and my dad, forty. As he neared sixty and retirement from the corporate world that I knew nothing about, he seemed to push me a little more than he ever had.
I knew that we both realized that it was too late.
I moved back to the barre, contemplating the consequences of never descending the long, winding staircase.
Dad and Melanie would reluctantly sit down to dinner anyway, and a few awkward comments would be shuffled around the table like a deck of cards.
She’s not coming down?
No, she’s feeling a bit under the weather.
Is she not hungry?
She’ll probably join us after dinner.
Easy enough.
I gripped the barre, resting my forehead against the mirror as the needle of the record player fell into the groove of the next piece by Tchaikovsky. I preferred the turntable over the digital sound, and Tchaikovsky belonged in my ears when the snow was falling.
I closed my eyes, imagining Melanie’s children with their boyfriend and girlfriend as they talked about work, and society, and life outside of the house. I had nothing to add to the conversation, but I’d try for my father’s sake, which would only embarrass him.
It was best if I stayed in the attic.
The stairs that led to the attic had four definitive creeks, and I could hear the first as his footsteps ascended over the old, wooden flooring.
Pinching my eyes closed, I pressed my forehead even harder to the mirror.
“I think I should stay up here,” I called over the music. “The clouds are dark today.”
When he said nothing, I opened my eyes, grasping the barre with all of my strength as my gaze caught his in the reflection.
“There’s not a cloud in the sky,” he said, his deep voice masking a comforting chuckle. “Your dad sent me up to let you know that dinner was ready. I hope I’m not interrupting.”
I narrowed my eyes. The man staring at me was tall, so tall that I had to lift my chin to meet his smile through the mirror. His skin was smooth and dark, African-American, with the longest eyelashes I’d ever seen.
His face was something else entirely.
Rugged, with distinct facial hair that began at his sideburns and traced a frame around his lips. He was handsome by every definition of the word, but handsome wasn’t a good enough word.
Not for him.
“Are you Selene’s boyfriend?” I asked finally when my throat decided to function.
He laughed, a cordial sound that forced a smile to my own lips. “Brother,” he replied, cringing playfully. “You must be the infamous Lark.”
I turned around to face him, tucking my cardigan tighter around my waist. He was really tall, at least a foot over my five-five. He was built with broad shoulders and a lean, athletic body, and even as I realized how incredibly rude it was to be staring at him, I couldn’t help it.
“You’re Shaw?”
He lifted his eyes, reaching to pat his coat pockets. “I have... identification if you want to see it.”
I shook my head with an embarrassed smile, blushing as he grinned back at me. “No, I’m sorry, I didn’t realize-”
“That my mother adopted me and Selene?” he finished, nodding encouragingly. “Then I’d better warn you in advance that Selene is Asian. Also, she never stops talking. So if you were worried about making conversation, Selene is prepared to handle that for all of us.”
I laughed softly, lowering my eyes to focus on my favorite white ballet slippers. “I’m sorry my father sent you up here to get me. How embarrassing.”
“For me?” he clarified. “Or you?”
I shrugged, moving to the record player and pulling the arm away from the vinyl. “For us both, I guess.”
“I wanted to explore the house, anyway,” he said, returning my shrug. “I figured I’d start with Sleeping Beauty in the tower.”
I stiffened, stopping midway to the stairs.
He sighed, brushing his hands together, as though they were sweating. “In my head, that sounded like a compliment.”
I stared at him for a long moment, noting his expensive looking watch and suit. I was glad that I dressed up after all; Dad had been wrong about a ‘casual’ dinner. “Thank you,” I said finally.
He nodded, extending his hand my way. I lost myself for a moment in his deep, earthy gaze, letting his strong hand engulf my smaller one. “Let me start over. I’m Shaw Henry, and I was trying to impress you with my knowledge of Tchaikovsky. Nice to meet you.”
I tightened my hold on his hand, shaking once. “I’m Lark Harper. And I’m impressed,” I assured him with the brightest smile I could force.
I realized that I didn’t have to force one at all. My cheeks were beginning to ache from the foreign expression that had taken over my face.
He shook our clasped hands once more for good measure before flashing another grin. His teeth were impossibly straight and white, and he licked his lips, making my eyes widen.
“Alright then, little sister,” he teased, gesturing to the stairs. “After you.”
I nearly winced at his words.
Little sister.
For a few blissful moments, I’d completely forgotten about dinner, the wedding, and the fact that my tiny family was about to triple in size.
“What is your girlfriend’s name?” I asked, sliding my fingers along the wooden railing. The staircase was very narrow, the attic once used as servant’s quarters long before my parents had moved into the home.
“Kelly. And Selene’s engaged to Carter.”
“Kelly is your fiancée?”
“No! God no,” he said, grinning nervously as I turned to look up at him. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it like that. We’ve only been seeing each other for a couple of months.”
“Oh,” I managed, listening as the sounds of the strangers’ voices grew louder the closer we got to the kitchen.
I froze on the bottom step, and he his hand slid down the rail, gripping mine to keep from bowling me over.
When he realized that I had no intention of moving, his fingers closed over mine. “Hey, I promise, they won’t bite. Well, maybe Selene will. But I’ll protect you.”
<
br /> I tucked a long strand of my hair behind my ear, turning my face to whisper to him.
“You’re the first person I’ve talked to in a really long time. I’m not an agoraphobic or anything, and I’m not crazy. I just don’t like people. I can’t tolerate them. They lie, and they hurt each other.”
My rushed explanation poured from my throat, emotional and unwarranted.
I didn’t know him and didn’t want to know him, but something about his presence made me trust him enough to confess the irrational interworking of my frenzied mind. If he didn’t already think I was mostly insane, I was sure that he did now.
I expected an awkward, piteous pat on the back as he attempted to escape as quickly as possible.
Instead, I held my breath as he reached for me, every muscle in my body tightening as he wrapped his strong arms around me.
“I can tell that you’ve been through something,” he said. “I promise you, whatever it is, my mother hasn’t told any of us. She’s a good woman and believes that every person’s history is his- or hers- to tell.”
“They’re judging me,” I protested. “They think I’m a lazy princess who does nothing because my daddy is rich.”
“Nah.” He smoothed his hand over my long hair, squeezing me in a familial hug. “And as your new step-brother, my first responsibility will be to teach you not to give a fuck about what people say or think, Lark.”
He smelled so good. I hadn’t been hugged by anyone but my dad in so many years, and I was on the verge of some kind of panic attack as his hand slid down my arm.
“Help me if I say something awkward?” I pleaded.
Shaw pulled away, grinning down at me. “You got it. You left your ballet slippers on.”
I looked down quickly, rolling my eyes and pulling at the laces.
“Thank you,” I breathed just as my dad swept into the hallway.
“There she is! Shaw, did you have to bribe her with her favorite coconut cream pie like I suggested?” he asked, burying me into a bear hug.
Two hugs, one day. I felt like taking two stairs at a time back to the attic.
“No, I was coming,” I assured him, returning my dad’s hug and catching Shaw’s conspiratorial wink. He disappeared into the kitchen, and my dad glanced around, making sure that we were alone.
“Are you upset? That I sent Shaw up to find you? Melanie suggested it, and I was worried you’d be angry with me-”
“No, Dad, it’s okay,” I promised, tossing my ballet slippers to the bottom stair. “Let’s go celebrate. I know this is important to you.”
He beamed, his graying hair and bushy moustache groomed to a tee for our first meal together as a new family.
Melanie met me with hugs, and before I knew it, I was being passed from new step-someone to new step-someone in a serial hugging-attack.
I realized immediately why Shaw had come upstairs for me instead of Selene; it was obvious that Selene was very, very pregnant. “There’s Auntie Lark!” she gushed, taking my hand and placing it over her protruding middle. “We’re so happy to finally meet you!”
She grabbed her fiancé’s hand, smothering the three- or four- of us into a group hug.
Too much.
Okay, either they were overcompensating for knowing that I was a reclusive antisocial, or they were just a really huggy family. I guessed that it was a bit of both.
“I’m Kelly,” the girl to Selene’s right announced. She seemed to be the exact opposite of Selene, with perfect hair, a tailored skirt, and very pricey pumps. “Nice to meet you.”
Her skin was a shade lighter than Shaw’s, and my diverse new family was making me feel like a vampire who hadn’t seen the sunlight in years.
“And, back to me,” Shaw announced, tucking his arm around me. “See? I told you. Nothing to worry about.”
I smiled gratefully up at him, lowering to my chair at the table.
Gina, our cook, had prepared a fabulous meal, and the dishes were set up across the buffet in an elaborate spread. I was trying to wait until everyone else had gone to fill their plates, but Shaw followed behind me. “Ladies first,” he urged me.
I took miniscule helpings of each dish, deciding that I liked Shaw. He was considerate, and warm, and nothing like what I imagined having a brother would be like.
As adults, it was unnecessary to define the lines of our parent’s relationship and label each other ‘brother’ and ‘sister,’ but I knew that he was doing it just to make things easier between us.
He smiled down at me, accepting the spoon for the mashed potatoes and proceeding to drop another scoop to my plate. “That’s better,” he teased.
I laughed, trying not to blush at his constant attention. While I wasn’t used to being indulged by anyone but my father, I was beginning to enjoy Shaw’s kindness.
Within the first twenty minutes of our meal, I learned that Selene was an interior designer and her fiancé, Carter, was an architect. I got the short version of the story of how they met in-between bites, and Melanie smiled proudly at her daughter.
“Shaw, tell them how we met,” Kelly said, leaning in to brush her slender shoulder against his arm. She was almost as tall as him, especially in her heels, and I felt like a child sitting between him and my father.
Shaw reached for his wine glass, taking a sip before turning to me. “Kelly was a nurse in the hospital where I did my residency.”
My fingers slid over the moisture on my glass of water, and I focused on my hands. “You’re a... doctor?”
“Yes,” Kelly replied, her shrewd smile forcing me to swallow hard. “A psychiatrist.”
I shifted my gaze to my father’s.
He focused on cutting a slice of his ham, pretending to be engaged in a quiet exchange with Melanie.
“And you know how Melanie and I met,” John Harper announced, and I could hear his desperation to change the subject.
Shaw was a psychiatrist.
How convenient.
I dropped my napkin to the table next to my plate, politely excusing myself to go into the kitchen with Gina.
I could feel Shaw’s gaze follow me as I left.
“Poor girl.”
I shifted my BMW into reverse, waving one last time to Selene and Carter as they drove ahead.
“Who? Lark?”
“Yeah, the grown woman that everyone was treating like a little kid. That girl.” Kelly shook her head, flipping the visor down long enough to adjust her hair in the mirror. “John has obviously babied her for her entire life. She should be working. On medication and living her life, not holed up in an attic like some kind of mental patient.”
“Damn, Kel. Tell me how you really feel,” I said, pulling out onto the main road. “You know she watched her mama die.”
She nodded, inspecting her long, manicured fingernail. “Fifteen years ago. She needs so much counseling. You know that.”
Kelly loved to take every opportunity to remind herself that she was dating a doctor.
“Yeah, I know that,” I echoed, and she managed to register the sarcasm in my tone.
“Shaw. Talk to your mother. Tell her that girl needs rehabilitation. A facility that can care for her.”
“She doesn’t need to be institutionalized. And her name is Lark,” I bit, easing onto the highway.
“Doesn’t need- what? Didn’t you hear her? She couldn’t form more than two sentences at a time without having to get up and leave the table. So much social anxiety.”
I didn’t feel like attempting to point out to Kelly all the ways that Lark’s behavior completely contradicted any specific type of social disorder. When she excused herself from the table, she went into the kitchen every time, offering to help Gina, the Harper’s cook. Each time, Gina insisted that she was just fine and that Lark should go out and enjoy dinner with her new family.
“She’s a dancer,” I said, for no reason other than the fact that I’d been completely fascinated by
her fairytale attic.
I hadn’t exaggerated when I’d called her Sleeping Beauty. Her ankles were wrapped in ribbon, the first part of her that I noticed as I made my way up the narrow staircase. She’d gripped the long, wooden ballet barre, pressing her forehead to the mirror.
Blond waves. Thick, and so long that they fell down her back in layers.
Like hers, I thought, and then quickly pushed the memory from my mind.
Her willowy figure was masked by the frilly dress that she wore, and as she turned, the twinkling white lights that she’d strung along the ceiling of the attic studio seemed to illuminate her porcelain skin.
Those eyes.
“... rehearsal dinner. Shaw? Are you listening to me?”
I nodded automatically, shifting onto our exit as light snowflakes began to fall.
“I’m listening.”
“Her father is loaded. She has never worked a day in her life. I guess she doesn’t have to, right?”
I pulled onto my street, making my way to my apartment.
How in the fuck was I supposed to answer that?
“Kel, I’m tired. You staying?”
She sighed, glancing at her car in my driveway. The snow had left a dusting across the windows, and she shivered in response.
“Yeah, I’m staying, baby.”
I nodded, continuing into the garage and closing the door behind us.
Somewhere between the entryway and the bedroom, she’d managed to peel my jacket away, drawing her long, manicured fingernails over my arms.
I closed my mind to the beautiful ballerina in the attic.
“Tie me up,” she begged as I lifted her up against me and tucked her legs around my waist.
Her mouth tasted like wine, and her teeth nipped at my lower lip.
Growling, I dropped her to the bed, yanking at my belt.
She backed over the bed and let her legs fall open shamelessly. She bucked her hips, forcing herself at me as she squeezed the breasts that I’d paid for two months ago.
“Not tonight,” I mouthed, yanking at my tie.
She whined. I rolled my eyes in her direction.
“Shaw! What was that for?” she shouted, her attitude punctuating her every word.