“I hope it’s still good.”
“Oh, it is, and so am I,” he said, returning to me.
Was I too easy? Was I too eager? Was this simply part of an experiment to see if I could have a normal relationship, fall in love, marry, have children, and never think of what had happened to me years ago?
Perhaps.
But I did feel something deeper for him. He was vulnerable, too. He was looking for the same answers about himself, really. We were two explorers, discovering ourselves again. How could this be wrong?
Both of us feared that lovemaking would never work for us. We’d be afraid of the feelings and terrified of failing. I could hear that fear in every moan and cry, feel it in every long kiss. I was clinging to him as if he were a parachute and I was falling and falling, until the moment came, the moment of pleasure I feared I would never have. I cried out in both delight and relief, and afterward, we lay there holding on to each other as if we were afraid that if we let go, all of this, including ourselves, would disappear.
He turned onto his back and lay there beside me, smiling.
“You have a smug smile on your face,” I said.
“Yes, yes, I do. I’m an arrogant, confident, and happy bastard.” He turned to me. “And it’s all your fault for being so beautiful and intelligent and loving.”
I laughed, and I didn’t want to come down from the high I had reached. “You used a multimillion-dollar estate to seduce me,” I said.
“Guilty.”
“And wine and pizza and beautiful music.”
“Guilty.”
“But I’m not satisfied.”
“What?”
“I want something more.”
“You do?” He sat up and looked down at me. “What else?”
“Laugh if you like, but I want the best sundae in the world.”
He was silent for a moment and then broke into real laughter. “I don’t know if we can make it before they close. Let’s give it a shot. Everything you need is in the bathroom—hair dryer, body lotion, whatever. Wait.”
He rose and brought back a pink silk bathrobe for me. Then he went for his clothes. I got mine, went into the bathroom, and got myself ready in record time, I’m sure.
“I called. They promised they’d stay open for us,” he said when I came out.
We hurried through the house, put our shoes on in the foyer, and got into his car, laughing most of the way. I felt like I was on one of those rafts navigating river rapids, incapable now of changing direction but screaming with glee at the dangers. Troy’s face was glowing, as I had seen mine was. Nothing now seemed too difficult to do, even having Thanksgiving dinner with my sister.
Later, when he finally brought me back to my dorm, we were still laughing and talking a mile a minute, as if everything that had bound and restricted our thoughts and dreams had been broken. For a moment after he had parked, we sat looking at each other. Neither of us wanted the night to end. We were clinging to every final second.
“Happy?”
“Very,” I said.
“As a rule, I don’t believe in luck. Coincidence, yes, but good and bad luck, no. But tonight, I have to thank some lucky stars that you were brought here. I suppose that’s selfish. I should think of why you were brought here.”
“Why stop now?” I asked.
“Stop what?”
“Being selfish.”
He laughed. “I can see my tombstone now: ‘Here lies Troy Matzner, teased to death.’ ”
We laughed and kissed, and then he nodded and grew serious.
“I’ll be thinking about you tomorrow,” he said, “but I’m confident you’ll be fine. Just say and do what you think is right.”
“I feel like my good and bad angels are wrestling. A part of me wants to lead Dr. Alexander to believe that permitting Haylee to go home for Thanksgiving will be a disaster because I’m not ready for it.”
“And a part of you wants to give her a chance?”
“Yes. Most of our lives, I’ve been the one who gives in. Especially during our early years, Mother wouldn’t let us do something if one of us didn’t want to do it. We had to like the same things. Haylee would always promise to like something I liked, even if she didn’t, as long as I gave in to her sometimes, but she had a way of showing her displeasure subtly, and Mother usually wouldn’t let us do what I wanted or get what I wanted. I used to believe, and now probably more than ever, believe that Haylee would get Mother to reject something I wanted just to prove she had more power than I did. There were lots of little things Haylee did to me when we were growing up, things I couldn’t think of doing to her.”
“Maybe you didn’t share the DNA the way you were told you did. Maybe you got most of the conscience DNA.”
I laughed, but this wasn’t the first time I had heard that. I had heard myself think it often.
“How do I look?” I asked him, thinking now of meeting someone in the dorm, especially Marcy and Claudia.
“As close to perfect as anyone I know.”
“No different?”
“Oh. Maybe a little more blossomed. And me?”
“Maybe a little more arrogant.”
He laughed and leaned over to kiss me, then opened my door and walked me to the dorm entrance.
“Call me when you get back,” he said.
“I will.”
We kissed again, and I went inside, pausing to glance at my reflection in one of the windows.
Here I go, I thought, feeling like someone who had been ordered to run barefoot over hot coals. Maybe I was always this way; maybe I was always afraid of revealing anything intimate. I didn’t have Haylee’s indifference and self-confidence. Humility was weakness to her.
My test was postponed for a while. Again, neither Claudia nor Marcy had returned yet. They’d push the curfew to the final seconds. I went about preparing for bed, and when they came into our room, they both stood there gaping at me. I was just pulling back the blanket.
“What?” I asked, my heart starting to pound. Was it true? Did I have a different look now? Was I like a blossomed flower? Was it simply impossible to hide what I had done, where I had gone, who I had become?
They looked at each other and nodded.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Marcy said. “We see it in your face.”
They didn’t look that sure.
“You’re just saying that to get me to admit it.”
They both laughed.
“And what’s so funny about that?”
“You just did,” Claudia declared.
I threw my pillow at them. Funnily enough, I felt relieved. I didn’t want to add any more deception to our relationships, and I didn’t want to constantly deny, deny, and deny. Besides, I was far from ashamed.
We stayed up well into the early hours, talking about ourselves, our feelings, and our fears. Sharing confidential innermost thoughts and actions with close girlfriends was another thing I had believed I would never do. I would always be the outsider, different, cold, and doomed only to observe, never to share.
But that had changed.
Maybe, I thought, just maybe, I’ve really defeated Haylee this time.
16
I was surprised my father was alone when he came for me. I’d thought he was bringing Dana with him. He had called before he set out and then called when he was close, so I went out to the lobby to wait for him. I had told Marcy and Claudia that my father was taking me to lunch and spending most of the day with me. Both went on about their own fathers and how the visits they would get were clearly “guilt” visits. I avoided giving them as much detail about my parents’ breakup as I could, leaving it cloaked in the typical generality: “They couldn’t get along. They had developed different tastes and just lost that magical thing that had first brought them together.” I could truthfully add that compromise was not in my mother’s vocabulary.
That set them off talking more about their own parents. Even though Claudia’s had not divor
ced, she still had stories that rivaled Marcy’s, describing what it had been like living in a war zone. They both made it sound as if they had to navigate thunder and lightning from the moment they woke up in the morning to the moment they fell asleep at night. The most I would say was “Yes, it was something like that before my parents divorced.” It seemed to be enough, at least for now, but it made me wonder just how shocked they would be if they knew the truth about me. The world I had woven around me here was as thin as the membrane of a chicken egg.
I rushed out to my father when he pulled in and got into the car before he could get out to hug me. He looked surprised but leaned over to kiss me hello.
“Everything all right?” he asked. “You look like you want to make a getaway or something.”
“Yes, I’m fine. I just didn’t want you to have to deal with some of the busybodies. I thought Dana was coming, too,” I said.
“I’m picking her up while you’re in with Dr. Alexander. As it turns out, she’s not far away. We’ll be taking you to lunch after that. I didn’t think you’d want to talk about it with her yet, and I didn’t want you to be any more uncomfortable. But she knows everything,” he quickly added. “She’s been a great person to bounce things off. You’ll like her for sure.”
“Does Mother know I’m doing this?”
“Oh, no,” he said, starting out of the parking lot. “The less detail she knows about the entire situation, the better for her right now.”
“But does she know that Haylee might come home for Thanksgiving?”
“Dr. Alexander advised me not to say anything until after you and she meet,” he replied, and looked at me. “It’s seriously in your hands, Kaylee. Without your okay, I won’t permit it.”
“What about Haylee? Does she know it might happen?”
“I’m not sure, actually. Probably not,” he added. “I would understand if Dr. Alexander believed that promising something that might not happen would result in a setback.”
“Setback? Then you really believe she has made progress, changed, and accepted responsibility?”
“She’s different,” he said.
“How?” I pursued, forcing him to convince me.
“I would never have used this word for her, even before the terrible thing she did to you, but I’d say she’s meek. I won’t say meeker, because she’s never been even slightly humble. I saw it in you, this milder, modest side, but never in her, and when I mentioned that to your mother once, she nearly bit my head off. To her, it was impossible that there would be such a dramatic personality difference between the two of you. All she would agree to was that you might be a little better at hiding what she called ‘super confidence’ than Haylee was, but it was a difference only she could see. Even I couldn’t see it. I was simply not around the two of you enough. That was always her argument.”
I was silent. Mother wasn’t far from the truth when it came to that, but I thought his not being around enough was her fault. My father wanted to avoid the confrontations that would inevitably be there. In her eyes, he was bound always to make a mistake in the way he treated Haylee and me. No matter how slight an error, it was still a serious issue for Mother. Forget to kiss one of us hello, forget to ask one of us the same question about school, or forget to give one of us a similar compliment, and she would pounce like a wildcat. Who could blame him for trying to slip in and out of our lives as unnoticed as possible, especially when we were very young?
“What does Dr. Alexander want to hear from me?”
“I honestly don’t know, Kaylee. You know how this psychiatrist, therapist, or whatever she calls herself can be. She wouldn’t confide even in me for fear I’d have you prepared or something,” he said. “If I hadn’t seen changes in Haylee myself, I’d continue to call it all voodoo.” He smiled. “Let’s not dwell on it. You’ll know soon enough. Tell me about this boy you’re seeing.”
“His name is Troy Matzner. His father is the CEO of a major telecom company, Broadscan.”
“I know it. Powerful company, international. That’s a big job.”
“They live in a mansion once owned by a coal baron here. It’s like the estate of a king or something.”
“So you’ve been there? What is the family like? Brothers, sisters?”
I swallowed down all that I normally would want to tell him, but I was afraid that he wouldn’t want me to associate with someone who was also suffering from deep psychological wounds. The whole reason he had arranged for me to be at Littlefield was to be around healthier teenagers who led what we could call a “normal life.” That way, I’d have less time to remember and relive my own miserable events.
“His father was away on a business trip, and his mother had a previous engagement, so I didn’t meet his parents. He has a younger sister, but she’s in a private school, too.”
“Oh. Nice house?”
“Over-the-top nice.” I was comfortable talking about the house, the paintings, the dual stairway, and Troy’s father’s office, but I skipped mentioning the indoor pool. Just thinking about it made me blush.
It was at times like this when I missed having a mother or even Haylee when we were close and could honestly share things. I wasn’t what anyone would call a feminist, probably, but for me, it was true that women had things they were comfortable sharing only with other women. Even a daughter, no matter how close to her father, couldn’t bring him into that territory.
I wondered how fathers, even in this day and age, centuries in time and thought from the Victorian era, reacted to realizing that their daughters were no longer virgins. Was the first reaction always disappointment, sadness? For fathers especially, it was a double standard, I thought. If I was a son instead, I could imagine him smiling, recalling his own first time, and then quickly warning me to be careful.
But how would he view the girl his son had been with? Would she drop seriously in his estimation and respect? Would he believe, even hope, that she was temporary? And if they did go on together and eventually get engaged and married, would he always harbor that little disrespect he had felt for her? Would he rather have had his son come to him for advice, asking him if he should remain with a girl who wouldn’t do it? What advice would he have given? If she doesn’t think of you as special enough to do it, drop her now? Or would he say, She sounds very special, son. Cherish her?
We were always worrying about what our girlfriends would think of us. We knew our mothers would be concerned and stress protection, but we avoided thinking about our fathers’ reactions. Was it simply out of embarrassment, or were we truly ashamed? For so many girls I knew, having their fathers’ respect was of primary importance, even more important than having their mothers respect them.
“Sounds like quite a house,” my father said. “But you’re not really telling me much about him. Troy?”
“Yes. His sister’s real name is Jocasta. His mother was into Greek mythology or something.”
“No kidding? That’s . . . different.”
“He’s very bright, a four-point-oh student. He’s very interested in international politics.”
“Better-looking than me?”
“Oh, it’s neck-and-neck,” I said, and he laughed.
Then he turned serious, and I knew what was coming. “Have you said anything, confide—”
Here we go, I thought. There was no skimming the truth here.
“He overheard me talking to you one night and checked me out on his own.”
“Oh?”
“But he wasn’t discouraged, and he’s not the type to spread stories. Actually, he’s a bit of a loner, a very serious person.”
My father nodded. He didn’t have to say it. I could hear him thinking it: If he knows your story and is still interested in you, he’s either quite the young man or quite strange.
“Hopefully, I’ll meet him next time I come up here. Maybe I’ll take you two to lunch or something.”
“Maybe. Tell me about Mother,” I said, hoping to change the topic. “
I’ve called often. When she gets on the phone, she gives me monosyllabic answers to everything, and she still doesn’t ask me much about Littlefield.”
“I stop by periodically. Irene tells me she’s doing better. She looks better. She is caring for herself more and has more energy.”
“Good.”
He looked at me with that expression that said, There is a little more to it.
“What’s wrong, Daddy?”
“To tell you the truth, Kaylee, it’s a little eerie.”
“Why?”
“She seems to be preparing for Haylee’s imminent return. You’ll find she’s done some work on her room.”
“Haylee’s?”
“Yes. She’s changed the decor, the bedding. There are new curtains, and yesterday she had a new rug installed.”
“Different from mine?”
He nodded.
We were both silent.
“That’s good, Daddy,” I said, after considering what it meant.
He smiled. “I think so, too, and so does Dr. Jaffe. For whatever reasons, she’s letting go of her obsession with the two of you. Actually,” he said, turning to me, “I think she’s accepted some of the responsibility. It only took nearly eighteen years.”
“It took more than just time,” I said.
He dropped his smile. “Yes, of course.”
“Now, you tell me more about Dana,” I ordered. “And tell me how serious it’s become.”
He saluted. “Yes, boss,” he said, and began.
I listened, but my mind clung to thoughts about my mother. Was she really ready to accept the differences between Haylee and me? If only she had done so years ago, none of the terrible things might have happened. How easy it would be for me to hate her, but how warm and hopeful it made me feel to learn of the changes coming over her.
I did pick up enough from my father’s descriptions of Dana to realize he had been developing a wonderful relationship with her. She sounded unselfish and sensitive but, as he wanted to be sure to point out, fun to be with. Sometimes, I thought, if you were willing to share your vulnerabilities with someone, you could find someone you could be happy with. You wouldn’t be alone anymore. No matter how many friends you had or how popular you were, if you locked up that troubled part of yourself, you would always be alone. I knew that few girls my age would be this wise. The journey I was forced to make to come to this point was not one I’d wish on my worst enemy, but nevertheless, it was there: something good from something so horribly bad.
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