The Flowers in the Attic Series: The Dollangangers: Flowers in the Attic, Petals on the Wind, If There Be Thorns, Seeds of Yesterday, and a New Excerpt!

by Andrews, V. C.

  “Excuse me a minute, Chris,” I whispered. “I’ve got to go up there and save Julian before he ruins both our careers. I’ll be all right. There’s not much he can do with an audience—is there?”

  Once I was seated beside Madame Zolta, she hissed, “Sooo, you not so sss-ick after all! Thank God for small favors. Your husband up there is ruining my reputation along with his and yours. I should have known better than to always let him partner you, so now he can dance with no one as well.”

  “Madame,” I asked, “who arranged for Yolanda to be my stand-in?”

  “Your husband, my luv,” she whispered cruelly. “You let him get control—you were a fool to do that. He is impossible! He is a tempest, a devil, so unreasonable! Soon he will go mad, if he doesn’t see your face—or we will go mad. Now run fast and put on dance clothes and save me from extinction!”

  It was only a matter of seconds before I had on a practice outfit and, as soon as I had my hair bound up and securely fastened in place, I strapped on my pointes. At the dressing room barre I warmed up quickly. Doing my pliés, and the rond de jambes to pump blood into each limb. Soon enough I was ready. Not a day passed I didn’t do my exercises for several hours.

  In the darkened wings I hesitated. I was prepared, I thought, for most anything when Julian saw me—what would he do? While I watched him on stage, suddenly from behind I was brutally shoved aside! “You’ve been replaced,” hissed Yolanda. “Sssooo, get out—and stay out! You had your chance and loused it up—now Julian is mine! You hear that—he’s mine! I have slept in your bed, and used your makeup and worn your jewelry—I have taken your place in everything.”

  I wanted to ignore her and not believe anything she said. When the cue came for Giselle to go on, Yolanda tried to hold me—that’s when I turned savagely upon her and pushed her so hard she fell. She blanched with pain, while I went on pointe and glided onto the stage, making my perfect little string of pearls. . . . Each tiny step could have been measured and proven to be of an exact distance. I was the shy, young village girl, sweetly, sincerely falling in love with Loys. Others on stage gasped to see me. Relief lit up Julian’s dark eyes—for an instant. “Hi,” he said coolly as I neared him, and fluttered my dark lashes to enchant him more. “Why’d you come back? Your doctors kick you out? Sick of you already?”

  “You are a nasty, inconsiderate brute, Julian, to replace me with Yolanda! You know I despise her!”

  His back was to the lookers as he sneered wickedly, all the while keeping time, “Yeah, I know you hate her; that’s why I wanted her.” He curled his beautiful red lips so they looked ugly. “Listen to this, dancing doll. Nobody runs out on me, especially my wife, and comes back and thinks she can still fit in my life. My love, my dearest heart, I don’t want you now, I don’t need you now, and you can go and play bitch to any man you want! Get the hell out of my life!”

  “You don’t mean that,” I said, as we both performed perfectly, and no one called cut. How could they when we did everything so exquisitely right?

  “You don’t love me,” he said bitterly. “You’ve never loved me. No matter what I did, or what I said, and now I don’t give a damn! I gave you the best I had to give, and it wasn’t enough. So, dear Cath-er-ine—I give you this!” And with those sudden words, he broke the routine, jumped high into the air, to come down forcefully and directly onto my feet. All his weight, brought down like a battering ram to crush my toes!

  I uttered some small cry of pain, then Julian was whirling back to chuck me under the chin. “Now, luv, see who will dance Giselle with me. Certainly it won’t be you, will it?”

  “Take ten!” bellowed the director, too late to save me.

  Julian gripped my shoulders and shook me like a rag doll. I stared at him rattle-eyed, expecting anything. Then suddenly he whirled away leaving me center stage, alone, on two damaged feet that hurt so badly I could have screamed. Instead, I sank to the floor and sat there staring at my rapidly swelling feet.

  From out of the darkened auditorium Chris came running to my assistance. “Damn him to hell for doing this!” he cried, falling on his knees to take off my pointe shoes and examine my feet. Tenderly he tried to move my toes, but I cried out from the awful pain. Then he picked me up easily and held me tight against him. “You’ll be all right, Cathy. I’ll see that your toes heal properly. I fear a few are broken on each foot. You’ll need an orthopedist.”

  “Take Catherine to our orthopedist,” ordered Madame Zolta who teetered forward and stared at my darkening, enlarging feet. She peered more closely at Chris, having seen him only a few times before. “You’re Catherine’s brother who caused all this trouble?” she asked. “Take her quick to the doctor. We have insurance. But that fool husband, this is it. I fire him!”

  The Thirteenth Dancer

  Both of my feet were X-rayed, disclosing three broken toes on my left foot, and one broken small toe on my right. Thank God both my big toes were spared, or else I might never dance again! An hour later Chris was carrying me out of the doctor’s office with a plaster cast drying on one foot that reached to my knee, while the small toe was only taped and left to heal without such protection. Each of the toes in the cast was nestled securely in its own little padded compartment so I couldn’t move a one, and left exposed for everyone to admire the lovely shades of black, blue and purple. In my thoughts the sour lemon-drops of the doctor’s last words failed to melt and sweeten the future. “You may, or you may not dance again, it all depends.” On what it depended, he didn’t say.

  So I asked Chris. “Sure,” he said confidently, “of course you’ll dance again. Sometimes a doctor likes to be overly pessimistic so you can think how great he was when everything works out fine—due to his special skill.” Clumsily he tried to support me while he used my key to open the door of the apartment Julian and I shared. Then he carefully lifted me up again, carried me inside and kicked the door closed behind him. He tried to make me as comfortable as possible on one of the soft couches. I had my eyes squeezed tightly together, trying to suppress the pain I felt at every move.

  Chris tenderly supported both legs so he could stuff pillows under and keep them elevated to reduce the swelling. Another fat pillow was carefully eased under my back and head . . . and he never said one word . . . not one word.

  Because he was so silent, I opened my eyes and studied his face that loomed above me. He tried to look professional, detached, but he failed. He showed shock each time his eyes moved from one object to another. Fearful I looked around. My eyes bulged. My mouth opened. This room! The mess! Oh, God, it was awful!

  Our apartment was a wreck! Every painting Julian and I had so carefully selected was torn down from the walls, smashed on the floor. Even the two watercolors Chris had painted especially for me, portraits with me in costume. All the expensive bric-a-brac lay broken on the hearth. Lamps were on the floor, the shades slashed to ribbons and the wire frames bent. Needlepoint pillows I’d made during the long tedious flights from here to there while on tour were ripped, destroyed! Houseplants had been dumped from their pots and left with roots exposed to die. Two cloisonné vases that Paul had given as a wedding gift, gone too. Everything fine and costly, and very cherished, things he and I had planned to keep all our lives and leave to our children—all beyond restoration.

  “Vandals,” said Chris softly. “Just vandals.” He smiled and kissed my forehead and squeezed my hand as tears came to my eyes. “Stay calm,” he said, then he went to check the other three rooms, while I sank back on the pillows and sniffed back my sobs. Oh, how he must hate me to do this! Shortly Chris was back with his expression very composed, in that same eye-of-the-hurricane way I’d seen a few times on his face. “Cathy,” he began, settling cautiously down on the edge of the sofa and reaching for my hand, “I don’t know what to think. All your clothes and shoes have been ruined. Your jewelry is scattered all over the bedroom floor, the chains ripped apart, the rings stepped on, bracelets hammered out of shape. It looks as if som
ebody set out deliberately to ruin all of your things and left Julian’s in perfect condition.” He gave me a baffled, troubled look, and maybe the tears I tried to hold back jumped from my eyes to his. With glistening blue eyes he extended his palm to show me the setting of a once exquisite diamond engagement ring, given to me by Paul. The platinum band was now a crooked oval. The prongs had released their clasp on the clear and perfect two-carat diamond.

  Sedatives had been shot into my arm so I couldn’t feel the pain of my broken toes. I felt fuzzy and disoriented, and rather detached. Someone inside me was screaming, screaming—hatred was near again—the wind was blowing, and when I closed my eyes, I saw the blue-misted mountains all around me, shutting out the sun—like upstairs, like in the attic.

  “Julian,” I said weakly, “he must have done this. He must have come back and vented his rage on all my belongings. See the things left whole—they are things he chose for himself.”

  “Damn him to hell!” cried Chris. “How many times has he vented his rage on you? How many black eyes—I’ve seen one—but how many others?”

  “Please don’t,” I said sleepily, hazily. “He never hit me that he didn’t cry afterward, and he’d say he was sorry.” Yes, so sorry, my sweetheart, my only love . . . I don’t know what makes me act as I do when I love you so much!

  “Cathy,” began Chris tentatively, tucking the platinum band in his pocket, “are you all right? You look close to fainting. I’ll go in and straighten up the bed, so you can rest in that. Soon you’ll fall asleep and forget all of this, and when you wake up, I’m taking you away. Don’t cry for the clothes and things he gave you, for I’ll give you better and more. As for this ring Paul gave you, I’ll search around the bedroom until I find the diamond.”

  He looked, but he didn’t find the diamond, and when I drifted into sleep, he must have carried me to the bed he’d made up with clean sheets. I was under a sheet and a thin blanket when I opened my eyes, and he was sitting on the edge of the bed, watching my face. I glanced toward the windows and saw it was getting dark. Any moment Julian would come home, and find Chris with me—and there’d be hell to pay!

  “Chris . . . did you undress me and put on this gown?” I asked dully, seeing the sleeve of a blue gown that was one of my favorites.

  “Yes. I thought you’d be more comfortable than wearing that pantsuit with the leg split up the seam. And I’m a doctor, remember? I’m used to seeing all there is—and I took care not to look.”

  The darkness of late twilight was in the room, turning all the shadows soft and purplish. Fuzzily I saw him as he used to be, when the attic atmosphere was like this, purplish, dim, scary, and we were alone and facing some unknown horror ahead. Always he gave me comfort when nothing else could. Always he was there when I needed him to do and say the right thing.

  “Remember the day Momma received the letter from the grandmother saying we could stay in her home? We thought wonderful things were ahead of us then; we later thought all joy lay in the past. Never, never in the present.”

  “Yes,” he said softly, “I remember. We believed we’d be rich as King Midas, and everything we touched would turn to gold. Only we’d have more self-control, enough to keep those we loved still made of flesh and blood. We were young and silly then, and so trusting.”

  “Silly? I don’t think we were silly, only normal. You’ve achieved your goal of being a doctor. But I’m still not a prima ballerina.” I said this last bitterly.

  “Cathy, don’t belittle yourself. You will be a prima ballerina yet!” he said fervently. “You would have been a long time ago, if Julian could control his fits of temper that makes every company manager afraid to sign the pair of you on. You get stuck in a minor company just because you won’t leave him.”

  I sighed, wishing he hadn’t said that. It was true enough Julian’s fiery temper tantrums had scared off more than one offer that would have placed us in a more prestigious company. “You’ve got to leave, Chris. I don’t want him to come home and find you here. He doesn’t want you near me. And I can’t leave him. In his own way he loves me and needs me. Without me to keep him steady he would be ten times more violent, and I do love him after all. If he struck out sometimes, he was just trying to make me see that. Now I do see.”

  “See?” he cried. “You’re not seeing! You’re letting pity for him rob you of good common sense! Look around you, Cathy! Only a crazy man could have done this. I’m not leaving you alone to face a madman! I’m staying to protect you. Tell me what you could do if he decides to make you pay again for leaving him alone in Spain? Could you get up and run? No! I’m not leaving you here, unprotected, when he might come home drunk, or on drugs—”

  “He doesn’t use drugs!” I defended, protective of the good that was in Julian, and for some reason, wanting to forget all that wasn’t.

  “He jumped on your toes, when you need those toes to dance on—so don’t tell me you will have a sane man to deal with. When you were putting on your clothes, I overheard someone say that since Julian started running around with Yolanda he’s been an entirely different man. Everyone else suspects he’s on drugs—that’s why I said it,” and here he paused, “and besides, I know for a fact that Yolanda takes anything she can get.”

  I was sleepy, in pain and worried about Julian who should be home by now, and there was an incipient baby in me whose fate I had to decide. “Chris, stay then. But when he comes home, let me do the talking—just fade into the background—promise?”

  He nodded, while I began to drift off again, feeling as if nothing was real but the bed underneath me and the sleep I needed. Lazily, without thought, I tried to turn on my side, and my legs slipped from the heaped pillows, making me cry out. “Cathy . . . don’t move,” said Chris, quickly adjusting my legs back on the pillows. “Let me lie beside you, and hold you until he comes. I promise not to sleep, and the minute he comes through that door, I’ll jump up and fade away.” He smiled to charm me into cheer again, so I too nodded and welcomed the warm, strong arms he put around me as again I sought the sweet relief of sleep.

  As in a dream I felt soft lips move on my cheek, in my hair, then lightly over my eyelids, and finally my lips. “I love you so much, oh, God, how much I love you,” I heard him say, and I thought for a disoriented moment it was Julian who’d come home to say he was sorry for hurting and humiliating me . . . for this was his way, to give me pain, and then apologize, and make love with passionate abandon. So I turned a bit on my side and responded to his kisses, and put my arms around him, and twined my fingers into his strong dark hair. That’s when I knew. The hair I felt wasn’t strong and crisp, but silky and fine, like my own. “Chris!” I cried out, “stop!” But he was out of control as he lavished my face, my neck, and the bosom he bared with his ardent kisses.

  “Don’t cry stop,” he murmured, caressing and stroking me, “all my life I’ve had nothing but frustrations. I try to love others, but it’s always you . . . you, whom I can never have! Cathy . . . leave Julian! Come away with me! We’ll go to some distant place, where no one knows us, and together we can live as man and wife. We won’t have any children . . . I’ll see to that. We can adopt babies. You know we make good parents . . . you know we love each other and always will! Nothing can change that! You can run from me and marry twelve other men, but your heart is in your eyes when you look at me—it’s me you want—as I want you!”

  He was carried away with his own persuasions and wouldn’t listen to my weak words. “Cathy, just to hold you, to have you again! This time I’ll know how to give you the pleasure I couldn’t before—please, if you ever loved me—leave Julian before he destroys us both!”

  I shook my head, trying to focus on what he was saying and what he was doing. His blond hair was beneath my chin, nuzzling at my breasts, and he didn’t see my denial, but he did hear my voice. “Christopher—I’m going to have Julian’s baby. I went to a gynecologist while I was in Clairmont—it’s the reason I stayed longer than I originally inten
ded. Julian and I are having a baby.”

  I could have slapped him from the way he moved backward, abandoning the sweet ecstasy of kissing forbidden places that had aroused me. He sat up on the side of the bed and bowed his head into his hands. Then he sobbed, “Always you manage to defeat me, Cathy! First Paul, then Julian . . . and now a baby.” Then suddenly he faced me. “Come away and let me be the father to that child! Julian isn’t fit! If you never let me touch you, let me live near enough so I can see you every day and hear your voice. Sometimes I want it back like it used to be . . . just you and I, and our twins.”

  Silence that we both knew well came and took us, and shut us away in our own secret world where sin lived and unholy thoughts dwelled, and we’d pay, pay, pay, if ever . . . but no, there wouldn’t be any “if ever”. . . .

  “Chris, I’m going to have the baby with Julian.” I said with a firm resolution that surprised me. “I want Julian’s child—for I do love him, Chris—and I’ve failed him in so many ways. Failed him because you and Paul got in my eyes, and I didn’t appreciate what I could have had in him. I should have been a better wife, and then he wouldn’t have needed those girls. I’ll always love you—but it’s a love that can’t go anywhere, so I give it up. You give it up! Say good-bye to yesterdays and a Catherine Doll who doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “You forgive him for breaking your toes?” he asked, astonished.

  “He kept begging me to say I loved him, and I never would. I kept a deceptive parasol over my head, to keep dark doubts in my mind, and I refused to see anything that was noble and fine about him but his dancing. I didn’t realize that to love me, even when I denied him, was noble and fine in itself. So, let me go, Chris—even if I never dance again, I’ll have his child . . . and he will go on to fame without me.”