Casteel 1 - Heaven (33 page)

hundreds of plants, to do endless chores, and all the time I thought about why I'd blushed. There was something exciting going on in my body, waking it up, sending unexpected thrills to my groin at the most unexpected moments. Once I glimpsed myself in the bathroom mirrtor, wearing nothing but a bikini bra and panties, and that alone sent a sexual thrill through me. It scared me and made me feel unwholesome that I could be thrilled just to see myself scantily clad. I'd never have the enormous bosom Kitty was so proud of, but what I had seemed more than adequate. My waist had slimmed down to a mere twenty-​two inches, though it seemed I'd never grow any taller than five feet six and a half. Tall enough, I told myself. Plenty tall enough. I didn't want to be a giant like Kitty.

Months ahead of her dreaded thirty-​seventh birthday, Kitty started staring at calendars, seeming so cursed by the onset of middle age that she sank into a state of deep depression. When Kitty was depressed, Cal and I had to mirror her feelings, or be accused of being insensitive and uncaring. He was wild with frustration from wanting her all the time, as she provoked and teased him and then yelled NO, NO, NO! “Nother time. . . tomorra night. . .”

"Why don't you tell me never, for that's what

you mean!" he shouted. He stalked off, down to the basement to whir his electrical saw, to do damage to something instead of to her.

I followed Kitty into the bathroom, hoping I could talk as one woman to another, but she was preoccupied with staring into the mirror. “Hate gettin old,” she moaned, peering closer into a hand mirror, while the theatrical lights all around showed every tiny line she considered very noticeable.

“I don't see any crow's-​feet, Mother,” I said quite honestly, liking her much better now that she was acting more or less like a normal human being. If sometimes I slipped up and called her Kitty, she didn't demand that I correct myself. Still, I was warily suspi- cious, wondering why she didn't demand my respect as she had before.

“Got ego home soon,” she murmured, staring more intensely into the mirror. “Ain't right t'Cal what I'm doin.” She grinned broadly to see all her teeth, checking for yellow, for bad gums, going over her hair carefully looking for gray. "Gotta put my feet on home groundlet em all back there see me again while I still look good. Looks don't last foreva like I used t'think they would. When I was yer age, I thought I'd neva grow old. Didn't worry bout wrinkles

back then; now all I do is think about em, look t'find em."

“You look too closely,” I said, feeling sorry for her. I also felt edgy, as I always felt when I was shut up in a room alone with her. “I think you look ten years younger than your actual age.”

“BUT THAT DON'T MAKE ME LOOK YOUNGA THAN CAL, DO IT?” she shouted with bitterness. “Compared t'me, he looks like a kid.”

It was true. Cal did look younger than Kitty.

Later that same day, when we were eating in the kitchen, Kitty again spoke mournfully about her age. “When I was younga, used t'be t'best-​lookin gal in town. I was, wasn't I, Cal?”

“Yes,” he agreed, forking into the apple pie with a great deal of enthusiasm. (I'd studied cookbooks for months just to make him his favorite dessert.) “You certainly were the best-​looking girl in town.”

How did he know? He hadn't known her then.

“Saw a gray hair in my eyebrow this mornin,” Kitty moaned. “Don't feel good about myself no more, don't.”

“You look great, Kitty, absolutely great,” he said, not even looking at her.

How terrible she was making middle age seem even before she got there. Truthfully, when Kitty was all dressed up, with her makeup on, she was a magnificent-​looking woman. If only she could act as pretty as she could look.

I'd been with Kitty and Cal for two years and two months when she informed me: “Soon as ya finish school this June we'll be headin back t'Winnerrow.”

It thrilled me to think of going back where I happily anticipated seeing Grandpa again, and Fanny. And the prospect of meeting the strange, cruel parents of Kitty intrigued me. She hated them. They had made her what she was (according to Cal), and yet she was going back to stay in their home.

In April Kitty came from a shopping trip bearing gifts for methree new summer dresses that fitted this time, expensive dresses from an exclusive shop, and this time she allowed me to select really pretty new shoes, pink, blue, and white, a pair to match each dress.

“Don't want my folks thinkin I don't treat ya right. Buyin em early, for t'best is all picked ova. Stores rush sununa at ya in winta, shove winta at ya in summa; ya gotta move quick or be left out altogetha.”

For some reason her words took the thrill away from the beautiful clothes that were bought only to prove something to parents Kitty said she hated.

Days later, Kitty took me to her beauty salon in the big hotel for the second time, and introduced me to her new “girls” as her daughter. She seemed very proud of me. The shop was larger, more elaborate, with crystal chandeliers, and hidden lights to make everything sparkle. She had European ladies who gave facials in tiny cubicles, using magnifying optical glasses through which the specialists could peer and find even the smallest flaws in the clients' complexions.

Kitty put me in a pink leather chair that raised and lowered, tilted back, and swiveled, and for the first time in my life I had a professional shampoo, trim, and set. I sat there with the plastic apron about my neck and shoulders, staring into the wide mirror, scared to death when Kitty came in to inspect me that she'd say I looked horrible, and pick up the shears and make my hair even shorter. I sat tense and ready to jump from the chair if she chopped off too much. All eight of her “girls” stood around to admire Kitty's artistry with hair. She didn't hack it up. She carefully layered, snipped, and when she was done, she stood

back and smiled at all her “girls.” "Didn't I tell ya my daughta is a beauty? Ain't I

done improved on nature? Hey, ya, Barbsie, ya saw her when she first cameain't she done improved? Kin't ya tell she's been fed right, treated good? She's my own kid, an mothers like me shouldn't brag bout their own, but jus kin't help it when she's so beautifulan mine, all mine."

“Kitty,” said the oldest of her girls, a woman about forty, “I didn't know you had a child.”

“Didn't want any of ya t'disrespect me fer marryin so young,” Kitty said with the sincerity of truth. “She's not Cal's, but don't she look like him, though, don't she?”

No, I didn't look like him. I took offense, and added another block to my tower of resentments that was bound to topple one day.

I could tell from all the faces of her girls they didn't believe her, yet she went on insisting I was hers, even when she'd told them differently before. Later, when I had the chance, I told Cal about that. He frowned and looked unhappy.

"She's slipping, Heaven. Living a fantasy life. Pretending you are the baby she destroyed. That baby would have been only a little older if she hadn't

aborted it. Be careful to do nothing to set her off . . . for Lord knows she's unpredictable."

Like a time bomb with a long fuse . . Waiting for my match. However, when Kitty improved my looks, I

was childishly overwhelmed with gratitude, as I was for the least kind thing she did for me. I took all her small deeds and treasured them as if I had precious jewels to keep me forever safe. For each kindness, I took off a heavy block of hostility, and yet the very next word she said could make my tower even higher.

I woke up with what I thought was a brilliant idea. I would do something wonderful for Kitty perhaps just to hide the resentment I felt growing day by day. Now that she wasn't awful, I feared her even more. There was something in her eyes, those pale, more than strange eyes.

Cal called early the morning we planned to surprise Kitty with a spring party. “Isn't it too much work? We can't really keep it a surprise,” he added with some exasperation. "She doesn't like surprises. I'll have to tell her. If she comes home with a hair out of place, or chipped fingernail polish, she'd never forgive me, or you. She'll want to look perfect, and wear her best dress, and have her hair doneso have

the house spotless, and maybe then she'll feel pleased to show off."

He made out the guest list, including all Kitty's girls and their husbands, and her ceramic students (which included both sexes) and their spouses. He'd even given me one hundred dollars so I could buy Kitty a gift I chose myself. A hot-​pink leather handbag that cost sixty-​five dollars had been my choice. With the money left over I purchased party decorations . . . wasting money, Kitty would say later on, but I dared her wrath anyway.

Cal called the afternoon of the party, which we thought could be a kind of graduation party for her students. “Look, Heaven, don't bother making a cake. I can buy one at the bakery, and it won't be so much trouble.”

“Oh, no,” I said quickly. "Bakery cakes aren't nearly as tasty as a cake made from scratch, and you know how she's always talking about her mother's cakes, and how difficult cakes are to make right. She mocks my cooking, and baking a scratch cake will have to prove something, won't it? Besides, I've already baked one. You won't believe your eyes when you see all the sweet _ pink roses and little green leaves I put on the top and sides. If I say so myself,

it's the most beautiful-​looking cake I've ever seen and also the first one I've seen that I can eat.“ I sighed because I'd never had a party of my own, with guests; none of us had, back in the Willies. Even our birthdays had been celebrated by staring in Winnerrow store windows at cakes probably made of cardboard. I sighed as I admired the lovely cake. ”I just hope it'll taste as wonderful as it looks."

He laughed, assured me it would be delicious, and we both hung up.

The party was to begin at eight. Cal would eat in town, as would Kitty, who would then rush home to dress for her “surprise” party.

In my own room I took out my mother's bride doll, sat her on my bed so she could watch as I began to dress, pulling over my head a wonderful dress of cornflower-​blue georgette. To me the doll represented my mother, and through those glassy eyes the soul of my mother was looking at me with admiration, love, and understanding. I found myself talking to the doll as I brushed my hair and arranged it in a new style that was more adult. Along with pretty new shoes and stockings, the dress had been a gift from Cal on my seventeenth birthday.

By six o'clock I was ready for the party. I felt

silly to be ready so early, like a child who just couldn't wait to dress up. Once more I checked over the house. I'd strung gay paper ribbons from the dining-​room chandelier, and Cal had hung balloons after Kitty had left this morning. How festive the house looked; yet I grew tired when there wasnothing left to do but sit and wait for guests to arrive. In my room again I stared out the window. The early evening grew darker exceptionally quickly as storm clouds gathered overhead, blackening the sunset. Soon a light rain was falling. Rainy days always made me sleepy. I carefully lay on my bed, spreading my skirt so it wouldn't wrinkle, and then cuddled my bride doll in my arms, and into sweet dreams of my mother I easily slid.

She and I were running in the hills, she with her shining pale hair, me with my long dark hairthen I had her color of hair and she had mine, and I didn't know who I was. We laughed in the silent way of dreams . . . and froze in a time frame . . . froze, froze .. .

I bolted wide awake. Seeing first the bulging yellow eyes of another green frog planter. What had awakened me? I rolled my eyes without turning my head. That golden fish? That elephant table that wasn't

as perfect as some downstairs? All the junk went into my room, those ceramics not fit to be seen or sold. Why did everything have its glassy stare fixed on me?

A loud roll of thunder rumbled overhead. Almost immediately a bolt of lightning zigzagged through the room. I hugged my doll closer.

Abruptly the sky opened. It wasn't a pleasant summer drizzle that fell. I sat up and peered out the blurry window to see the street below was flooded, the houses across the street out of focus and distant- appearing, as if they were in another world. Again I curled up on my bed, forgetful of my beautiful georgette dress. With my “mother” doll in my arms, I drifted off again.

The rain was a loud drumming sound, shutting out all other noise. The thunder overhead rumbled like those fabled giant bowling balls heard by Rip Van Winkle, all rolling at once, colliding in thundering crashes, creating fierce electrical bolts that lit up the darkness every few seconds. Like a magic movie director I fitted all nature's noises into my dream scenes . . .

In the misty dream more beautiful than reality, Logan and I were dancing in a forest green and shadowy. He was older, so was I. . . something was

building between us, some electrical excitement that made my heart beat faster, louder . . .

Out of the dark loomed a figure, not in misty white like a ghost, but in hot pink. Kitty!

I sat up, rubbed my eyes.

“Well . . .” drawled Kitty's deadliest flat voice when the thunder stilled momentarily, “looky what hill-​scum crud is doin now. All dressed up an on t'bed.”

What was I doing so terrible that Kitty would look like the wrath of God come to end the world?

“Do ya hear me, idiot?”

This time I jerked as if slapped. How could she treat me like this when I'd slaved all day to make a party for her? Enough! I'd had enough! I was tired, at last, of being called so many ugly names, sick and tired and fed up. This time I wasn't going to be cowed, or weak. No! I wasn't hill-​scum crud!

My rebellion rose like a giant firemaybe because she glared her eyes so hard, and that reminded me of all the times she'd slapped without cause. “Yeah, I hear you, bigmouth!”

“WHAT'S THAT YA SAID?” “I said, BIGMOUTH, I HEAR YOU!” “WHAT?” Louder now, more demanding.

“Kitty BIGMOUTH. Kitty LOUDMOUTH. Kitty who yells NO every night to her husband so I have to hear it. What's wrong with you, Kitty? Have you lost your sexual appetite now that you're growing old?”