So, even Malcolm made a few mistakes, but only with those people who were members of his family. Why was it he couldn't stand for his sons to be musicians?--for his daughter to marry? If I'd been Malcolm, I'd have been glad to get rid of her, just like I wished day after day that Cindy would disappear.
I hurled Malcolm's journal to the floor and kicked hay over it, then stomped toward the mansion, wanting Malcolm to write about power, and how to get it, and money, and how to earn it, and influence, and how to demand it. All he did was write about how miserable his two sons, his wife and his daughter made him, to say nothing of that young half brother who liked Corrine.
"Hello, darling!" cried my grandmother when I limped into her parlor. "Where've you been? How's your mother's knee?"
"Bad," I said. "Doctors say Momma will never dance again."
"Oh," she sighed. "How dreadful. I'm so sorry."
"I'm glad she won't dance again," I assured her. "She and Daddy can't even waltz anymore, and they used to do a lot of that in the living room which they don't want us to use."
She looked so sad. Why should see look so sad? "Grandmother, my momma don't like you."
"You should watch your grammar, Bart," she choked as she wiped away her tears. "You should say, she doesn't like you--and how can you say that, when she doesn't know I'm here?"
"Sometimes you sound like her."
"I'm so sorry I'll never see her again on stage. She was so wonderfully light and graceful she seemed a part of the music. Your mother was born for dancing, Bart. I know she must feel lost and empty without it."
"No, she doesn't," I answered quickly. "Momma's got that typewriter and her book to work on all day and most of the night, and that's all she needs. She and Daddy lie in bed for hours and hours, especially when it rains, and they talk about some big old house in the mountains, and some big old grandmother who wore gray dresses all the time, and I hide in the closet and think it's just like some dumb fairy tale."
She appeared shocked. "Do you spy on your parents? That's not very nice, Bart. Adults need privacy-- everyone needs privacy."
I smiled and felt good to tell her I spied on everyone--even her sometimes.
Her blue eyes grew wider and she stared at me for a long time before she smiled. "You're teasing me, aren't you? I'm sure your father has taught you better than that. Bart, if you want people to love you and respect you, you have to treat them as you would want to be treated. Would you like for me to spy on you?"
"NO!" I roared.
Another day, another trip to the office of that gray-haired old doctor who made me lie down and close my eyes so he could sit behind me and ask dumb questions.
"Are you Bart Sheffield today or Malcolm?" Wouldn't say nothing
"What is Malcolm's last name?"
Was none of his business.
"How do you feel about your mother now that she can't dance ballet anymore?"
"Glad."
Took him by surprise. He got busy scribbling down notes, getting real excited so his face was red when I opened my eyes and turned to take a peek. I thought I'd give him more to get excited about. "I wish Jory would fall and smash both his kneecaps. Then I could walk faster than him, and run faster than him, and do everything better too. Then when I come into the room everyone will look at me, not him."
He waited for more. When nothing else came he said gently, "I understand, Bart. You fear your mother and father don't love you as much as they do Jory."
Rage took me over. "Yes, she does! She loves me better! But I can't dance. It's the dancing that makes her laugh with Jory, and frown with me. I was gonna grow up and be a doctor--but now I don't want to. 'Cause my real daddy wasn't a doctor like they told me. He was an attorney."
"How do you know that?" he asked.
Wouldn't tell him. None of his business. John Amos told me. Heard grandma telling Dad, too. Lawyers were smart, real smart. That would make me smart too. Dancers didn't have good brains, just good legs.
"Is there anything else you would like to tell me, Bart?"
"Yeah!" I snapped, jumping up from the couch and grabbing his letter opener. "Last night the moon was full. I looked out of the window and heard it calling to me. I wanted to howl. Then I needed to taste blood. I ran like crazy into the woods, and on into the hills, when out of the night appeared a woman who was beautiful, with long, long golden hair."
"And what did you do?" asked the doctor when I paused.
"I killed her, then ate her."
He scribbled away, and I picked up several of the lollipops he kept for his younger patients. Then I took about six more, thinking my grandmother might want one, at least.
When I was home I hurried over to Apple's stall and flipped backwards through the pages of Malcolm's journal. I needed to find out something-- and I'd skipped some mushy pages before. I wanted to know what drew him toward women whom he despised.
It was fall again, and all the trees wore brilliant autumn colors. I followed Alicia into the woods as she rode her horse with admirable skill. I had to spur my horse to make him gallop and give chase. She was so enchanted with the beauty of the season she didn't seem to hear the beat of my horse's hoofs. For a brief second I lost sight of her when she disappeared into a thicket. That's when I suspected she might be headed for the lake where I swam when I was a child. One last swim before summer was gone and winter turned the water icy.
Cherry-flavored lollipops were my favorites. I licked and licked until I could stick out my tongue and see it red as blood. Good to read and eat sweet stuff as I skimmed through the sickening glop that followed for pages on end. Gee, Malcolm must have started making money and gaining power when he was much older.
Just as I suspected, she was in the pool, her glorious body as flawless as I'd guessed it would be. And to think my father was enjoying all of that while I had to endure the frigid body of a woman who could only submit, never enjoy.
Dripping and shimmering she stepped from the lake to the grassy bank where her clothes lay waiting. My breath caught as I beheld her in sunlight. The spill of her glorious hair caught red, gold, with dark amber shadows, and the floss between her thighs curled wet and dark.
She saw me then and gasped. I hadn't realized I'd stepped out of the shadows.
Thank God she slapped him, and told him off. Now, now, he was getting to be like the Malcolm I knew him to be: mean, hard, ruthless and rich.
"You'll pay for this, Alicia. Both you and your son will pay, and dearly pay. Nobody rejects me after leading me on, and letting me believe--"
Closed the book and yawned.
Madame M
. Another letter had come from my grandmother Marisha to announce that she was on her way to take over my mother's ballet class. "And I'll have the chance to see my grandson more often, and give him the benefit of my experience."
Mom was none too happy, since she and Madame M. did not have a close or warm
relationship, and this had always bothered me. I loved them both, and wanted them to love each other.
We were all waiting for Madame to show up, all starving because already she was an hour late. She'd telephoned to say she didn't want anyone to meet her, as she was independent and not accustomed to being waited on. Nevertheless, Mom had helped Emma prepare a gourmet meal, and now it was growing cold.
"Lord, but that woman can be inconsiderate," complained Dad after looking at his watch for the tenth time. "If she had allowed me to meet her at the airport, she'd be here by now."
"Isn't it strange," asked Mom with a mocking smile, "when she always insisted that her students be punctual."
Finally, an hour after Dad ate alone and hurried off to do his hospital rounds, Mom retired to her bedroom to work on her book until my grandmother arrived.
"Bart," I called, "come on and play some game with me. Checkers?"
"No!" he bellowed, keeping to his dark corner, his eyes black and mean as he crouched there, almost unblinking. "I'm wishing for that ole lady to fall from the s
ky."
"That's mean, Bart. Why do you always say such hateful things?"
He refused to answer, just sat on staring at me. The doorbell rang. I jumped up and ran to open the door.
My grandmother stood there smiling and rather disheveled looking.
She was at least seventy-four, I knew that, crinkled, old and gray. Sometimes her hair was jet black, and sometimes it had two inches of white near the roots. Bart said it made her look like a skunk or an old black seal. He thought her hair was so slick she kept it oiled. But I thought she looked wonderful when she threw her arms about me and hugged me close, tears streaking her rouged cheeks. She didn't even give Bart a glance.
"Jory, Jory, how handsome you are," she said. Her bun of hair was so huge I guessed it might be false.
"Can I call you Grandmother when we're not in class?"
"Sure, yah," she agreed, nodding like a bird. "But only when nobody else is around, you hear?"
"There's Bart," I said to remind her to be polite-- which she seldom was. She didn't like Bart, and he didn't like her. She gave Bart a brief nod, then casually dismissed him as if he didn't exist.
"I'm so glad to have a few moments alone with you,"
Madame gushed, hugging me again. She pulled me to the family room sofa, and together we sat while Bart stayed in his dim corner. "I tell you, Jory, when you wrote and said you weren't coming again this summer, I felt ill, really ill. I made up my mind then and there that I'd had enough of this once-a-year grandson, and I was selling my own dance studio and coming out here to help your mother. Of course I knew she wouldn't want me, but so what? I cannot endure two long years of longing to see my only grandchild.
"The flight here was ghastly," she went on. "Turbulence all the way. They searched me too before I boarded, like some criminal. Then we had to circle round and round the airport, waiting our turn to land. It made me sick enough to vomit. Finally, just before our plane ran out of fuel, we landed--bumpiest landing, I thought my neck would break. Great God in heaven, you should have heard what that man wanted for his rented car. He must have thought I was made of money. Since I've come to stay, I decided then and there I'd buy a car of my own. Not a new one, but a nice old one that Julian would have loved. Have I told you before your father loved to tinker around with old cars and fix them up so they'd run?"
Boy had she told me that before.
"So, I paid those crooks the exhorbitant price of eight hundred dollars, and stepped into my new red car and took off for your place, reading a map as my car choked and chugged along. I felt so happy to be on my way to you, my beloved grandson, George's only heir. Why, it was just like it used to be when your father was an adolescent, and he'd rush home so proud to take me for a spin in his new car made out of old junk he salvaged from the city dump."
Her sparkling jet eyes seemed young, and she won me again with her affection, her praise. ". . . and like old ladies everywhere, you have to understand once I get started thinking backward all sorts of memories are triggered. Your grandfather felt so happy the day Julian was born. I held your father in my arms and stared up at my husband who was so handsome, like Julian, like you, and I could have burst with the pride I felt to give birth at my age for the first time with so little difficulty. And such a perfect baby your father was, so wonderful from his very beginning."
I wanted to dare and ask how old she was when my father was born--but I didn't have the nerve. Somehow the question must have shown in my eyes. "None of your damn business how old I am," she snapped, then leaned to kiss me again. "My, but you are even better looking than your father was at your age, and I didn't think that possible. I always told Julian he would have looked better with a healthy suntan, but he'd do anything to defy me, anything-- even keep himself unnaturally pale." Sadness clouded her eyes. To my surprise she glanced then at Bart, who was listening too--and another surprise, he seemed interested.
She still wore the same black dress that seemed stiff with age, and over that she wore a ratty old leopard- skin bolero that had seen better days. "No one really knew your father, Jory, just as no one really possessed him That is, no one but your mother."
She sighed, then went on as if she had to say it all before my mother appeared. "So, I've determined I have to know my Julian's son better than I knew him. I've decided too you have to love me, because I was never sure Julian ever did. I keep telling myself that the son born of the union between my son and your mother would have to make the most wonderful dancer, with none of Julian's hang-ups. Your mother is very dear to me, Jory, very dear, though she refuses to believe that. I admit I used to be nasty to her sometimes. She took that as my true feeling, but I was only angry because she never seemed to appreciate my son."
Uncomfortable with this sort of talk, I shifted away from her; my first loyalty was to my mother, not to her. She noticed my attitude but went on regardless:
"I'm lonely, Jory, I need to be near you, near her too." Remorse like evening shadows came to darken her eyes, putting additional years on her face. "The worst thing about growing old is being lonely, feeling so alone, so purposeless, so used up."
"Oh, Grandmother!" I cried, throwing my arms about her. "You don't need to ever feel lonely or purposeless again. You have us." I hugged her tighter, kissed her again. "Isn't this the most beautiful house? You can live here with us. Have I told you before my mother designed it herself?"
Madame looked with great curiosity around the family room. "Yes, this is a lovely home, so like Catherine. Where is she?"
"She's in her room writing."
"Writing letters?" She looked hurt, as if Mom should be a better hostess and not attending to trivialities. "Grandmother, Mom is writing a book."
"A book? Dancers can't write books!"
Grinning, I jumped up and did a few practice steps out of habit. "Madame Grandmother, dancers can do anything they set their minds to. After all, if we can endure the kind of pain we do, what else is there to fear?"
"Rejections," snapped Madame. "Dancers have sky-high egos. One rejection slip too many and Mommy will come crashing down."
I smiled, thinking that was a good one. She'd never come crashing down even if the mailman brought her a thousand rejection slips.
"Where's your father?" she asked next.
"Making his evening rounds at his hospitals. He said to give you his apologies. He wanted to be here and welcome you to our home, but you didn't show up on schedule."
She snorted, as if that were his fault somehow. "Well," she said, getting up and looking around the room somewhat more critically, "I guess it's time I went in and said hello to Catherine--though certainly she must have heard my voice."
Certainly she should have, it was shrill enough. "Mom gets very engrossed, Grandmother. Sometimes she doesn't even hear her name spoken from a foot away."
"Har-rumph!" she snorted again. Then she followed me down the hall. I rapped softly on Mom's closed door, and cautiously opened it when she mumbled something like . . . "Yes? . . ."
"You've got company, Mom."
For a second it seemed I saw dismay in my mother's eyes before Madame stalked arrogantly into her bedroom. Grandmother flung herself down, without an invitation to sit, on the velvet chaise longue.
"Madame M.!" cried Mom. "How wonderful to see you again. At last you've decided to come and see us instead of the other way around."
Why was she so nervous? Why did she keep glancing at the portraits on her nightstand? Same old portraits of Dad and Daddy Paul. Even my father was there, but in a small oval frame, not wide silver ones.
Madame glanced at the nightstand too--and frowned.
"I have many wonderfully framed portraits of Julian," Mom hastily explained, "but Jory likes to keep them in his room."
Again Madame snorted. "You're looking well, Catherine."
"I'm feeling well, thank you. You look well too." In her lap her hands worked nervously, just as her feet kept the swivel deskchair in constant motion.
"Your husband, how
is he?"
"Fine, fine. He's making hospital rounds. He waited for you, but when you didn't show up . . ."
"I understand. I'm sorry I'm late, but people in this state are robbers. I had to pay eight hundred for a piece of junk, and it dripped oil all the way here."
Mom ducked her head. I knew she was hiding a laugh. "What else can you expect for eight hundred?" Mom finally managed.
"Really, Catherine. Julian never paid much for any car he owned, you know that." Her strident voice grew reflective. "But then he knew what to do with the junk and I don't. I guess I let sentiment run away with my common sense. I should have bought the better one for a thousand, but I'm also thrifty." Next came her question about my mother's knee. Was it healed? How soon would she be dancing again?
"It's fine," said Mom testily. (She hated for people to question her about her knee.) "I only notice a little pain when it rains."
"And how is Paul? It's been so long since I saw him last. I remember after you married him I felt so angry I never wanted to see you again, and I gave up teaching for a few years." Again she glanced at the portrait of Dad. "And does your brother still live with you?"
Silence came and burdened the air as Mom studied the smiling portrait of my stepfather Chris. What brother was she talking about? Mom didn't have a brother anymore. Why did Madame look at Dad when she asked about Cory?
"Yes, yes, of course," said Mom, making me puzzled as to what she meant. "Now tell me all about Greenglenna and Clairmont. I want to hear about everybody. How is Lorraine DuVal? Whom did she marry? Or did she go on to New York?"
"He never married, did he?" pursued
Grandmother with her eyes narrowed.
"Who?"
"Your brother."
"No, he hasn't married yet," answered Mom, again testy. Then she was smiling. "Now, Madame, I have a big surprise for you. We have a daughter now and her name is Cindy."
"Hah!" snorted Madame, "I already know about Cindy." There was a strange gleam in her eyes. "But still I would like to see and hear more about this paragon of all little girls. Jory writes she may have some dancing abilities."
If There Be Thorns Page 23