Daughter of Darkness (11 page)

“But not you?”

“I don’t have that much courage with or without a drink,” he said. “I have the nerve to say something to you, however. If I don’t, I’ll regret it all night.”

“What’s that?”

“You’re absolutely the most beautiful girl I’ve seen here, or anywhere, for that matter.”

“How do I know you don’t tell that to all the girls you meet?”

“You don’t. Tell you what,” he said. “Let me take you out next weekend and see if I say it again.”

I laughed. Maybe I wanted to see it, but what I saw in his face was the sincerity and honesty of a young boy, someone who either hadn’t learned how to deceive or couldn’t live and be comfortable with deception. He was close to me, his lips tempting mine.

“We’d better go back in,” I said.

“Sure.”

He followed me back. Ava saw us and looked suspicious.

“What went on out there?”

“Just talked,” I said. “He talked. I didn’t say anything.”

“I hope not. I think it’s time to leave.”

When the boys who had been hovering around us saw we were going, they protested. They still knew only our first names. Buddy practically begged me to give him my phone number, give him something. Of course, I didn’t. Two things began to happen even before we
started out. Most of the boys simply gave up and moved on to approach other girls. The ones who had tried hardest to get to first base became belligerent as we gathered up our purses. Their remarks were nasty, crude.

“What, do you have some tricks to throw on the street?”

“Going to the dyke club?”

“Last chance to experience a real man, girls, or are you really both virgins and saving it for marriage?”

“Leave them be,” Buddy said. He nearly got into a fight with one boy mouthing off, but I could see the frustration was defeating him as well.

“Let’s go,” Ava whispered.

“Hey,” the big young man who had been with us from the beginning called out. “Your car turning into a pumpkin?”

There was lots of laughter trailing behind us.

“I’d love to bring him home to Daddy,” she muttered, but we continued out.

“Hope I see you again,” Buddy called.

I smiled back at him. I would never tell Ava, but I hoped I’d see him again, too.

“How do you feel?” she asked me when we got back into her car.

“Like I could go on and on for hours.”

She laughed. “That’s good. We have the energy,” she said. “You did well. You had that one hooked and could have reeled him in anytime you wanted. And he knows nothing about you, right? You didn’t talk too much out there on that patio?”

“No. Nothing but the name you invented,” I told her.
But in my heart, I thought,
He knows my smile. He’ll see me in his dreams.
Actually, I thought I would see him in mine.

As soon as we were home, Ava went to speak with Daddy. I knew she was giving him a report about me. I was nervous, of course. I couldn’t help worrying that despite what she had told me, she was going to tell him I hadn’t done well. It was the old sibling rivalry at work.

I didn’t know it then, but Ava was more concerned now about her own future than she was about my rising above her in Daddy’s eyes. Her destiny was calling.

Before I went to sleep, Daddy came to my room. I didn’t hear him come in. I was in the bathroom washing off my makeup. When I stepped into the bedroom, he was standing there, smiling.

“Ava tells me you passed your first test with flying colors,” he said.

What test?
I wondered. All I did was go to a dance club and flirt with some young college men, maybe one in particular.

“You followed your orders well,” he added, perhaps seeing my thoughts on my face. “You understand how you must behave. That’s important, Lorelei. You understand restraint and the importance of guarding our personal lives.”

“I’m glad you’re happy, Daddy.”

“Oh, I’m happy, but I always knew I would be,” he said. He embraced me, kissed me at the top of my head, stroked my hair, and then held me out at arm’s length. I could feel the power in his arms, but also I could see the love in his eyes. He looked at me with such intensity
I felt as though he really could look into my thoughts. I couldn’t help wondering if he could see how much I had been attracted to Buddy. “I can see how alive this has made you. You can feel the power inside you.”

I hadn’t thought about it as being a power, but I knew what he meant. I nodded. “I do feel different, Daddy, older.”

I wanted to add that I felt what it could be like to like a boy, maybe even love one, but I knew that would not make him happy. Most fathers felt ambivalent about giving up their daughters, but in Daddy’s case, that would be tragic, probably for both him and me.

“You are different now, Lorelei. You’re closer to being one of us, and I have the best daughters any father could hope to have,” he said softly. He kissed me on the cheek and then turned and smiled just before he left, closing the door softly and leaving me standing in the afterglow of his enormous love.

Maybe my instincts weren’t as sharp and developed as Ava’s were, but instinctively, I knew I would either grow because of that love…

Or drown in it.

5
 
Morning After

Had something really happened to change me? Was I different now, older, almost overnight?

I knew I felt different, even though it seemed silly. Surely, one night out with Ava wasn’t enough to make me feel more mature, and what had I actually done, anyway? Danced, flirted, enjoyed some repartee with college boys, stayed out later than any other time? But older was just how I felt. Could it be that when I went out with Ava, something magical did happen, that I not only looked older but had grown more sophisticated? After all, it was true that my body had matured quickly after what had seemed to be a body on hold forever, so why not my mind and personality?

“Surprising things will happen to you because of the way you are being brought up, the way we live,” Daddy once told me. “But I promise you, it will all be good, all wonderful.”

I believed him. As I observed other girls in school, I did believe that all of us Patios, all of Daddy’s daughters, were truly special in so many ways. It wasn’t only our physical beauty, either. We seemed to move in and out of
another dimension and wore looks on our faces that had others believing we knew very interesting and mysterious things.

One of my fifth-grade teachers, Mr. Foggleman, told me one day that I looked like someone who knew the future. I had no idea what he meant. He tried to explain by telling me I never seemed surprised by anything. “It’s as if you always know something’s coming, expect it, Lorelei. Your father’s not a fortune-teller, is he?”

“He’s everything to me. Why not a fortune-teller, too?” I said, and Mr. Foggleman laughed. He thought I was joking, but I meant every word.

I thought about all that while I stood in front of my full-length mirror and studied myself. Today I was wearing an ordinary cotton short-sleeved red blouse and a dark red skirt. Except for a little lipstick, I wore no makeup, and I had pinned my hair back, more or less so I wouldn’t have to deal with it.

As I looked at myself, I concentrated on my eyes. There really was something new about them. The color hadn’t changed, but I could see a wiser, calmer look. The maturity appeared to radiate out of my eyes and through my face. I felt like a young girl realizing that once she had been cute and now she was on the threshold of real beauty. Dare I think it? Was I even prettier than Ava?

I always felt there was something cheap about Ava’s look. Her sexiness was more obvious. She was attractive in a more movie-star-glamorous sort of way. She had to wear enticing and revealing clothing. She had to do what she told me I had to do, be constantly aware of and employ her attributes, titillate with her nearly bare breasts
and very tight skirts, whereas I was becoming a classic beauty, someone whose loveliness couldn’t be surpassed. In short, I didn’t think I had to try as hard as she did.

I expected I would be the more confident one and yet not the more arrogant one. In my heart of hearts, I hoped this was what Daddy saw in me, why, to me at least, his eyes always said,
No matter what I tell the others, you will be Daddy’s best little girl.

Recently, I had gotten my driver’s license, and Daddy assigned one of our sedans to me. All I did was drive myself and Marla directly to school and drive us home after the last classes of the day. I was still forbidden to join any teams, go out for any stage productions, or become a member of any clubs. Without explaining exactly why it might be dangerous at the time, Daddy told me it was better for us not to have too high a profile. It was more advantageous for us to have less exposure.

“We come and go so quickly, Lorelei,” he did tell me as an initial reason. “It’s better if we’re easily forgotten.”

Of course, he meant only us daughters when he said “we.” I couldn’t imagine Daddy ever being easily forgotten. And yet I supposed that was part of his magic. He could swoop down on a new community, very quickly impress those he wanted to impress, and then slip away like a dream.

This particular morning, Ava surprised me by getting up before me and being at breakfast. She had no early classes to attend at UCLA and usually slept until hours after I rose. That didn’t bother me in the least. I was happy to miss her in the morning. Most mornings, she was angry at everything, even the sun for having the
audacity to rise so early.
Why couldn’t night be longer?
she would petulantly ask.

“Ava will have to move to Norway,” Daddy would joke, “or perhaps the North Pole and room with Santa Claus.”

“Fine with me,” she would reply. “They are the luckier ones.”

At the time, I didn’t realize she was talking about families like ours who really did live in Scandinavia. She saw it as some sort of a reward.

“Once you spend a full winter there, you will change your mind,” Daddy told her. “I remember being stuck there for a few months during winter.”

Was there anywhere on this earth where Daddy hadn’t spent some time?

Contrary to her usual morning misery, Ava looked bright and cheery, babbling on with Marla about the fashions teenage girls wore these days. I was hoping to see Daddy at the table, but he had apparently left early on one of those secret missions Mrs. Fennel covered with the words “business trip.” Usually, Ava hated it when she was up and I said “Good morning,” but she said it before I could even think of it.

“I’m taking you and Marla to school today,” she told me immediately. “And I’ll pick you both up at the end of the day.”

“Why?”

She glanced at Mrs. Fennel, who was putting out my bowl of her warm cereal, but Mrs. Fennel didn’t look at her or speak. She barely glanced at me, but when she did, I saw she had a softer, more pleased expression. Her eyes
confirmed that there was something very different about me, and whatever it was, it very definitely pleased her. Had Ava given her a report on our night out as well?

“I need to spend more time with you,” Ava said. “Especially after last night.”

Marla looked at me enviously. Ava wasn’t up this early talking to her because of her. She was up talking to her because of me. “What happened last night?” she asked.

“Never mind,” Ava said.

“I’m old enough to know,” Marla moaned. If she was looking to Mrs. Fennel for any help, she might as well look at the wall, I thought. Neither she nor Ava responded. Marla sulked, but when Mrs. Fennel glanced at her, she quickly returned to her breakfast.

I sat and started on my cereal. Like everything else Mrs. Fennel made, it was different from anything my classmates would eat. From what I understood, many of them didn’t even eat breakfast, and if they did, it was some sweet cake or some supposedly healthy morning drink their mothers made them drink. Of course, they were starving at lunch. Mrs. Fennel always prepared our special lunch drink for Marla and me. We drank it with one of her unique crackers, which were always a dark gray color, nothing that appeared too appetizing to the other students who saw us drinking and eating.

Recently, Meg Logan, pretending to have a change of heart about me, had sweetly asked me what I ate and what skin cream I used. As difficult as it was for her to admit it, she envied me for my complexion and my figure. Of course, I couldn’t tell her, because I really didn’t
know exactly what I was eating or what Mrs. Fennel put into her recipe for our skin creams. I couldn’t describe the flavors, either, at least not in ways she or any of the others would understand, and Mrs. Fennel had made it very clear, frighteningly clear, that we must never let anyone else taste our food.

“Nothing unusual,” I replied, which she took as a blowoff.

She pulled her head back and her nose up, as if she had suddenly smelled something horrible. “Well, excuse me for asking,” she said. “You might not eat anything unusual, but you’re certainly weird.”

“Is that the only word in your vocabulary, Meg? Try ‘different,’ ‘strange,’ ‘peculiar,’ and give ‘weird’ a day off. In fact, shut up for a day, and give the English language a break.”

She muttered something under her breath and hurried away to tell her friends what I had said. They all glared angrily in my direction. Although I wouldn’t show it, I would have to admit that all of this bothered me. When I told Ava about the looks they often gave me, she said, “Ignore them. They’re meaningless,” but I was having trouble doing it—more trouble, I believed, than she and Brianna had had when they were my age. Neither had ever expressed the unhappiness I felt at school and at not being part of anything girls my age were a part of. Why didn’t they long for these things as much as I did?