I held myself and curled up in my bed, wishing I had someone who loved me holding me instead. I rocked and cried like a little girl.
Finally, sleep caught up with me, but I welcomed it. Thankfully, it was the weekend, and I didn’t have to get up early and go to school. My father had decided yesterday that he was going to take us all for a ride to the Fashion Plaza in Newport Beach, where Julie could enjoy some shopping. We were all to go to lunch in Laguna Beach, but I didn’t feel like getting up, much less going for a ride and spending a day with Julie and Allison now. I was anticipating her look of disgust and condemnation, even though she had probably promised my father she would not mention anything. When I didn’t go down for breakfast, my father came up.
“Are you sick?” he asked. “Are you in pain from that cut on your head or anything?”
“No.”
“Well, are you going with us today?”
“I’m tired,” I said.
“Suit yourself,” he replied, and left quickly. He had no patience for me and no forgiveness yet. I wondered if he ever would.
Later, I rose and had a little to eat. I wasn’t happy being alone in the house this time. Normally, I could distract myself with reading or research, but I couldn’t concentrate on anything. Impulsively, I dressed and called for a taxi to take me to Santa Monica. I had no idea why until I got out and walked on the beach. It took me only moments to realize I wanted to relive what had been the most exciting day and night of my life. It was the first time I could really say that I felt more like a young woman than a super-brilliant prodigy.
I took off my shoes, folded my arms under my breasts, and walked down the beach, sometimes stepping into the water and remembering how it had felt that afternoon when I was walking with Alan Taylor and how we had laughed about it. I recalled how I had begun to relax and become more and more fascinated with him, with how he opened up to talk about himself, which only encouraged me to do the same. I was telling him things I hadn’t told anyone else, some things, in fact, that I had never told my father.
I remembered thinking, I can do this. I can have a relationship with him secretly but intensely. He was complimenting me in ways I had never been complimented and touching me in places that longed to be touched. As we walked, it really seemed like we passed through an invisible wall into a new world of possibilities. What he was back at school, what I was back at school, drifted behind us, blown away by our smiles and laughter. We were simply a man and a woman enjoying each other’s conversation, each other’s company, and the beauty surrounding us.
I had no idea how long I had been walking now. I suddenly stopped and realized I was close to Alan Taylor’s apartment building. For a moment, I just stood there staring at it, the sea breeze threading through my hair. I turned off from the beach and stopped at a bench along the walkway to put on my shoes. I sat there thinking, remembering. The images and feelings were as vivid as ever, especially since I was so close.
Just as I was about to get up, walk back a little, and then call for a taxi home, I saw Alan coming up the sidewalk. He was holding hands with a very attractive strawberry-blond-haired woman who was only about an inch shorter than he was. She wore a pair of designer jeans, with glittering jeweled patterns on the sides of the legs, and a pink short-sleeved blouse. She had the svelte figure of a model and wore a pair of very fashionable sunglasses.
I froze and watched them. They were laughing at something and looked very happy. Perhaps he was telling the truth about becoming engaged, I thought. I didn’t wait for them to enter his building. I turned quickly and headed down the walkway. The sight of him looking so fresh and young, in his dark blue jeans and tailored white shirt, seemed to rattle my brain. I hated feeling the excitement rush through my body. I felt like some lovesick teenage girl, more like Allison, and I wanted to pound my legs with my closed fists. I was walking quickly but slowed down to catch my breath.
For a few moments, I stood looking down and then raised my head to look out at the ocean, just as I heard him call my name. Had I imagined it, wished for it so much that I convinced myself I really had heard it? Very slowly, I turned and saw him standing there alone.
“Why did you come down here?” he asked.
“Oh, is this private property? I hadn’t realized it,” I said.
“You know what I mean, Mayfair.”
“I had to get out of my house for a while, and I wanted the sea air. I haven’t been spying on you, if that’s what you think.”
“It did occur to me.”
“Yes, I imagine it would. Your ego has enough room for all favorable possibilities.”
He nodded, looked back at his apartment building, and stepped closer. “You’re right to hate me, and I deserve your wrath and all that happened as a result. I did feel sorry for your stepsister. But she’s not any more impressionable than any of them.”
“Them?”
“Girls her age. I did consider the possibility that you might have believed I abused her, but I never intended to abuse you.”
“What would you call it?”
“A man’s weakness, I suppose. And you’re right about my ego. I rationalized that I was giving you something special, too. What I told you is still true, Mayfair. You’re a beautiful young woman with an amazing mind. You fascinated me, and for a while, I did fool myself into believing it was possible for us to carry on, but as difficult as it might be for you to believe, the mature man in me finally got control. I should have handled it differently. I was a coward.”
I looked away. As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t hate him.
“Why didn’t you turn me in instead of using Allison?”
I didn’t answer.
“I’ll tell you why,” he said, and I turned to him.
“Oh, you will? Tell me.”
“Pride. That’s going to be your one weakness, Mayfair, your hubris. See, I know my classic tragedy, even though I only teach junior-high English. You’re constantly told how high up you are. You can’t let yourself admit to being human, because that’s what having a weakness means, being human.”
My eyes felt as if the tears that had been building up were frozen.
“Don’t judge every man you’ll meet by what happened between us, by what I did and didn’t do. Be kind. Be forgiving. You don’t want to be with a man who is your equal. You want someone who will need you and whom you’ll need, Mayfair. It’s not a sin to need someone. I wish you luck,” he said. “I really do.” He smiled and walked away.
My chest ached. I couldn’t swallow. I watched him disappear, and then I turned and walked for another hour before I called a taxi.
I wasn’t prepared for the depth of depression I fell into that night. My father called from the freeway to tell me they were staying longer than anticipated and would stop for dinner before returning to Los Angeles. When I didn’t even utter a grunt to acknowledge him, he asked if I had heard him.
“I heard you.”
“What have you been doing all day, Mayfair?” he asked suspiciously. For a moment, I wondered if he had decided to have me watched or something.
“Nothing out of the ordinary for me,” I said, which was cryptic enough.
“All right. Tell Martha what you would like for dinner,” he said.
“Okay,” I replied to end the call.
I didn’t tell our maid anything. I took an apple upstairs with me and, after sitting and thinking for a while, went to sleep early. I didn’t even hear them come home. If my father checked on me, I never noticed that, either. I was up before everyone the next morning, however. I had some coffee and buttered toast and went for a walk before sitting at the pool. It was nearly an hour and a half later when my father walked out to see what I was up to.
“How’s your head?” he asked.
I laughed.
“What’s so funny, Mayfair?”
“That’s probably always been the most important part of me in your eyes and everyone else’s,” I said, which clearly upset him.
“You’re acting like a girl half your age, and I don’t mean chronological,” he replied. “I’m taking Julie and Allison to the movies this afternoon to see the new Nick Razor blockbuster. Would you like to join us?”
Nick Razor was a detective in the future who was nostalgic for the past. The films were filled with special effects and nonstop action, what my father called popcorn movies. When I was a little girl, I did go to those sorts of movies with him and my mother, but I hadn’t for some time.
“No, thanks,” I said.
“Everyone’s trying, Mayfair, but if you don’t, this will go nowhere.”
“I’m already there,” I said.
He nodded, bit down on his lower lip, and turned and walked back to the house, his shoulders slumped. I closed my eyes and nearly fell asleep again. I knew my depression was continuing even more intensely after confronting Alan Taylor the day before, but I felt helpless, really helpless, for the first time in a long time. When I returned to the house, everyone already had left for lunch and the movies. I went up to my room and tried to do some reading, but my mind wouldn’t absorb anything. I couldn’t even watch television. Nothing held my attention. I went out again, walked again, and remembered that I hadn’t eaten anything since my coffee and toast. It was only the realization that drove me to eat anything. I wasn’t really hungry.
Afterward, I went up to my room and dozed until I heard my father, Julie, and Allison return. No one bothered me until just before dinner, when my father sent Allison to my room to tell me to come down to eat.
Reluctantly, I did. Everyone else seemed nervous. I was too numb to be nervous. They talked incessantly, it seemed to me, about the movie. I ate mechanically and then announced that I had a headache and was going up to rest.
“Maybe we should take you to a doctor for that,” my father said.
“It’s not from the injury,” I replied.
“She would know,” Julie quipped.
I didn’t bother to respond.
When I went up this time, I was drawn to my closet to look in the carton that contained some photo albums, birthday cards, and old report cards. I sat on the floor and looked at everything slowly. The pictures of my mother and me, all three of us, brought back some of my warmest memories. I didn’t cry, but I pretended I was back there and wished that I could magically turn back time. I wasn’t one to fantasize or dwell in my imagination long, unless I was trying to project what something might be like after more technological advances.
When I was the little girl in those pictures, I wondered why I didn’t react to toys in a similar way to how other girls my age did. I knew I wasn’t much fun for them, and after a while, none really asked for me. I went to their birthday parties, but I guess I never looked like I was having fun. I was smart enough already to know that other girls’ mothers considered me quite strange. Some were even worried about their daughters playing with me. I probably said things to them that confused and maybe shocked them, things they told their mothers. I recalled how hard my mother had tried to get me to enjoy myself. She would even say, “Remember, Mayfair, they are just little girls,” as if she thought I might be more understanding and gentler with them, something only someone much older would do.
It never occurred to me back then that my mother might be sad or unhappy about me, maybe even disappointed. She probably feared that I wasn’t going to be the young daughter she’d dreamed of having, the one she could dress up and slowly guide into a wonderful adolescence filled with new discoveries about myself almost daily, discoveries she remembered having and was so determined that I would enjoy. Mothers relived their own youth through their daughters, and even the short time we had together could have been something more wonderful for her.
How my heart ached now, for so many reasons.
I closed the albums and put everything back into the cartons and then the closet. I prepared for sleep and went to bed wishing I needed to suck my thumb or something. I curled up in the fetal position and hugged my oversize pillow, but nothing helped me sleep. I dozed and woke, dozed and woke, until the morning light slipped around my curtains like fingers of gold searching for a way to touch me.
Everything on me ached. I guessed I had been too flippant about the head injury. My neck was sore. I moaned and just fell asleep again. I never heard Allison come into my room, but I did sense her presence and opened my eyes.
“What?”
“Mom wants to know if you’re going to school today. You’ll have to hurry.”
“Mom? Tell her no. You just go on without me.”
“Are you sick?”
“Sick of.”
“What’s that mean?”
“Forget it, Allison. Tell her I’m taking the day off.”
“Daddy had to leave early.”
“Lucky him,” I said, and turned over.
I thought that was it for the day, but a little more than an hour later, my phone rang. It was my father.
“What?” I said. “Don’t worry. I don’t need to go to a doctor.”
“I’m not taking you to a doctor. I’d like you to get dressed and be ready to go to the school with me in about an hour. We have a meeting with Mr. Martin.”
“Mr. Martin? What about?”
I imagined I was to make some sort of confession, but he surprised me.
“Your educational future,” he said.
“What, is he a fortune-teller now, too?”
“Mayfair.”
“Okay, Daddy,” I said. “I’ll be ready.”
“Good.”
I got dressed. Julie was nowhere to be found, which didn’t make me unhappy. I wondered if she would be with my father when he came for me, but her car was gone, and she didn’t return before he arrived.
I stepped out just as he opened his door, and I ran around to get in.
“What is this really all about, Daddy?” I asked as he backed out of the driveway.
“A solution,” he said. “For all of us.”
19
Mr. Martin handed my father and me copies of the Spindrift School brochure.
“It looks more like an old mansion than a school,” I said. “An eclectic Queen Anne. How can it be a school?”
“Everything about it is unorthodox. You’ll see as you read,” he said.
I glanced at my father to show him my skepticism. Not that I was afraid of going to a school away from home, but a part of me was hoping he would say, “It won’t be that long before she’s completely away from us. Why rush it?”
“As you can see, the grounds are beautiful,” Mr. Martin continued in a seller’s tone, as if he were getting a commission.
It occurred to me that maybe he was. Maybe I was being exploited and victimized once again.
“It’s fenced and walled in, a very private place with the most sophisticated technological security. As you will see, it has most anything any really good school or college would. Turn the page. See that modern laboratory, that computer room, and look at that library. There are a thousand volumes, covering law, science, literature, anything you can possibly think of researching, plus the most up-to-date internet access, of course.”
“Impressive,” my father said.
“This is actually a specially designed school for students like you, Mayfair. It’s a school at which you live and work in a totally unorthodox learning environment. The principal is a renowned child psychologist, Dr. Jessie Marlowe. You might have already read some of her studies.”
“Yes, I think I have. I have some questions about some of her conclusions.”
“I’m sure you have,” he said, smiling. “Anyway, they take in only fifteen students.”
“Only fifteen?” Daddy asked. “All this for only fifteen?” Now he sounded like the one getting a commission.
“Exactly. Frankly, there are not many students who would meet the criteria, Mr. Cummings, and Spindrift is very selective about choosing from the list of those who do. However,” he added, “I already know that Mayf
air would be very welcome. I took the liberty of getting them some preliminary information. No sense in wasting your time or theirs, right?”
“Where is Piñon Pine Grove?” I asked.
“It’s in the Coachella Valley, not more than two hours from Los Angeles. Not that far from home.”
“Maybe it’s not far enough away,” I muttered, and glanced at my father.
“How long has this school been in existence?” he asked Mr. Martin, ignoring my comment.
“It was started ten years ago as the brainchild of someone who would have benefited greatly from it, Dr. Norman Lazarus, now one of the world’s most renowned biochemists.”
“Lazarus? Did he rise from the dead?” I asked.
Mr. Martin smiled. “Maybe his ancestor did.”
“I think we should be a little more serious about this, Mayfair,” my father said. He looked at the brochure and read some more. “You’re right, Mr. Martin. These students are very protected, apparently. There is a great deal of security. No one can just walk in on them. I like that.”
“Exactly. The philosophy is that their students are very valuable national assets. The graduates of Spindrift have gone on to do wonderful things in all fields. A number of them work for NASA. Many are doing things that are kept top secret.”
He turned to me. “The big point here is that you’d be studying and researching with students at your level of learning, students equipped the way you’re equipped, Mayfair. I don’t think it’s much of a secret that your skills and intellect are not being challenged here.
“This recent incident you had with some of the other girls is characteristic of what happens with gifted students everywhere,” he continued, talking more to my father. “Other students either resent them or see them as . . .”
“Weird, freaky,” I finished for him.
He smiled. “I was just going to say unusual.”
“It’s not cheap,” I said, noting the tuition. “Are all the other unusual students from wealthy families, too?”
Bittersweet Dreams Page 26