Dollenganger 06 My Sweet Audrina (8 page)

Never before had I seen Papa fly into such a rage. "Get out of here!" he yelled. "Look at my wife! You've scared her to death." He shoved the old woman toward the door, and to my utter amazement he shoved a twenty-dollar bill into her hand. Why was he paying her so much money?
"It's fifty dollars, sir."
"It's twenty or nothing for a report like that," barked Papa, shoving her outside and locking the door behind her. When I entered the salon again, Vera had moved into the shadows to stare at Papa with hard eyes. She had a huge chunk of chocolate cake in her hands, left for me to eat for dinner dessert. . . and she'd eaten twice as much last night.
Catching my glare, she grinned and licked chocolate from her fingers. "All gone, now, sweet Audrina. None left for you, because you had to steal away. Where did you go, sweet Audrina?"
"Shut up!" ordered Papa, falling on his knees beside the couch where Momma lay crying. He tried to console her by saying it was a crackpot idea in the first place. Momma threw her arms about him and really bawled. "Damian, what could she have meant? Everyone says her predictions come true every time."
"Well, not this time."
Vera balled up the wax paper that had held her cake and shoved it into her pocket. "I believe Mrs. Allismore is one hundred percent right. Another freak is about to come into this Whitefern house. I can smell it in the air." With that she headed toward the foyer-- but not quickly enough. In a bounding leap Papa was on his feet and she was over his
knee.
He yanked up her skirt and began to spank her so hard I could see through her transparent white nylon panties how red her buttocks grew. She screamed and fought him, trying to wiggle free, but in no way could she match his strength.
"Stop it, Damian!" screamed my mother and my aunt simultaneously. "That's enough, Damian," Momma finished, raising up on one elbow and looking very weak.
Ruthlessly, Papa shoved Vera off his lap so that she fell on the floor. She began to crawl away, trying to tug down her skirt and cover her panties. "How could you, Damian?" asked my aunt. "Vera is a young woman-- much too old to be spanked. I wouldn't blame her if she never forgives you."
After that, we ate dinner. Everyone was so angry that only Vera and my aunt managed to clean their plates. Later that night I heard Momma sobbing in Papa's arms, still worried about her unborn baby. "Damian, something is wrong with this baby. Sometimes it moves constantly, keeping me awake, and other times it doesn't move at all."
"Sssh," he comforted softly. "All babies are different. We're two healthy people. We'll have another healthy baby. That woman has no more divining power than I do."
What could have been a wonderful summer was spoiled because Vera insisted on following me everywhere. Time and again I tried to slip through the woods without Vera knowing, but she seemed to smell my thoughts and, like an Indian, she was on my trail. Though Arden's mother insisted that we call her Billie, this felt strange. When she kept insisting, finally I did. She was the only adult I'd ever met who was ready to share her adult knowledge with me in a way I could understand. I liked it best when I could steal over without Vera, who had a way of dominating all conversations. Every time we visited, we both went away wondering why Billie didn't invite us into her cottage. I was too polite to say anything. Vera was pretending to be mannerly, so she didn't mention it either.
One day I heard Arden tell Billie that Vera was twelve. I stared at him, feeling very strange. He knew more about Vera than I did. "Did she tell you that?" I asked.
"Gosh, no," he laughed. "Vera's got nutty ideas about telling her age. But she is listed on the school register, and I happen to know she's twelve." He gave me a shy smile. "Are you trying to tell me you don't know your own sister's correct age?"
Quickly I covered. "Of course I do. She says people have long memories, so she's going to pass around so many lies that no one will ever know years from now just what age she was this summer."
Despite Vera, I did have fun that summer. It seemed to me that Billie gave me three times the warmth she gave Vera, and as shameful as it seemed, she seemed more concerned about my welfare than my own mother did. But Momma wasn't feeling well, and I could forgive her. Dark circles appeared beneath her eyes. She walked with her hand supporting her back. She stopped playing the piano and even stopped reading her paperback romances. Every day she'd fall asleep on the purple chaise with the book on her swollen breasts. I loved her so much I'd stand and watch her sleeping, so afraid for her and the little baby that wasn't a boy or a girl. Vera was telling me all the time it was going to be a "neutered" baby of no sex, like a doll. "Nothing between its legs," she'd laugh. "That does happen sometimes. It's a fact. One of the bizarre things that nature can do. It's written about in medical books."
Monthly cramps that kept Vera in bed gave me my best times to run to Arden and Billie. Arden and I ate picnic lunches under the trees, spread on red and white checkered gingham tablecloths. I never felt afraid of him. When finally he did touch me, it was to feel my hair. I didn't mind that.
"When is your birthday?" he asked one day while I was sprawled on my back, staring up through the tree above, trying to see the clouds and make them into sailing ships. "September the ninth," I answered unhappily. "I had an older sister who died exactly nine years before I was born. She had my very same name."
Until I'd said this, Arden had been busy hammering a dent out of some tiny wheel he meant to use on something. He stopped hammering and stared at me in a strange way. "An older sister? With your same name?"
"Yes. She was found dead in the woods, under a golden raintree, and because of that, I'm never supposed to come here."
"But you
are
here," he said in a strange voice. "How do you dare to come?"
I smiled. "I'd dare anything to visit Billie."
"To visit my mom? Why, that's very sweet, but what about me?"
That's when I turned on my side so he couldn't see my face. "Oh, I guess I can put up with you."
I turned to peek at him, and he was just sitting there cross-legged in his white shorts, his chest bare and glistening where sunlight hit it. "Well," he said, picking up the hammer and beginning to beat on that little wheel again, "I guess that tells me you've got a lot of growing up to do--or else it tells me you're quite a lot like your sister after all."
"She's not my sister, Arden, but my cousin. My parents only pretend she's theirs to save my aunt from the shame. My aunt went away and came back almost two years later. Vera was only one year old. My aunt was so sure the father of Vera would take one look at his baby and fall in love with her. It didn't happen that way. While my aunt was gone, he married someone else."
Arden didn't say one word. He just smiled to let me know he didn't care who Vera was.
Arden loved his mother more than I thought boys ever could. When she called him, he'd jump up to fly into the house. He'd hang up her wash and take it down. He carried out the garbage cans, something my papa would never do. Arden had strong principles about honesty, loyalty, about helping those who needed it, about devotion and dedication to duty, and he had something else he didn't talk about, but I noticed it anyway. He had an aesthetic eye that seemed to appreciate beauty more than most people did. He'd stop in the woods and work for hours to dig up a bit of quartz that looked like a huge pink diamond. "I'm going to have this made into a pendant for the girl I marry someday. I just don't know what form it ought to take. What do you think, Audrina?"
I felt envious of that girl he'd marry one day even as I took the quartz and turned it over. It had many strange convolutions, but in the center were colors so bright and clear it resembled a rose. "Why not a rose? Just the blossom full and open, not a bud."
"A rose blossom it will be, then," he said, tucking the quartz into his pocket. "Someday when I'm rich, I'm going to give the girl I love everything she's ever dreamed of wanting, and I'm going to do that for my mom, too." A shadow passed over his face. "The only thing is, money can't buy what my mom wants most."
"What's that? If that's not too personal to ask."
"It's personal, very personal." He grew silent, but that was all right. We could go for hours without speaking and still we managed to feel comfortable with each other. I lay on the grass watching him repair his bicycle, glancing at his mother in the window as she blended some mixture for a cake, and I thought this was the way real families were supposed to live, without shouting, arguing, fighting all the time. Shadows in the house put shadows in the mind. Out here under the sky and trees the shadows were only temporary. Whitefern was permanently, densely shadowed.
"Audrina," Arden said suddenly, still fiddling with the spokes of his bike, "what do you really think of me?"
I liked him more than I wanted to admit, but in no way did I want to tell him that. Why would a boy of twelve want to waste his time on a girl of seven? Surely Vera must appeal to him more. But I didn't want to ask this, either. "You are my first friend, Arden, and I guess I am very grateful you bother with me at all."
His eyes met mine briefly, and I saw something glistening in them like tears--why would he cry because I said that? "I'm going to have to tell you something one day, and you're not going to like me after I do."
"Don't ever tell me if that's what it will do. For I don't want to stop liking you, Arden."
He turned away then. What did he have to tell me that would make me dislike him? Did Arden too have a secret, just like everybody else?
One early morning I ran to meet Arden so he could teach me how to catch fish and bait the hook with live worms. Vera trailed along behind, though I'd tried to slip out unseen. I didn't like spearing the worms on the hook, so soon Arden was pulling out his kit of fancy flies and trying to show me how to cast from shore. He stood on a riverbank higher than most to demonstrate the right technique. Seated beside me, Vera leaned to whisper about Arden in his red swimming trunks, giggling and pointing to where all the little babies would come from.
"I don't believe one word of what you say," I whispered back, turning red and knowing perfectly well that what she said was true. Why did she make everything about boys seem so vulgar and gross? As much as I disliked Vera, she did have a way of digging up all the facts no one else wanted to talk about. I figured her interest in medical books was teaching her more about life than I'd ever find out on my own.
"I'll bet you and Arden have already played show and tell."
Laughing more, she explained what she meant. I slapped at her for even thinking we'd do that. "I hate you sometimes, Vera!"
"Hey, you two," called Arden, turning to hold up his catch. "This is a really big one. A bass, and big enough for all of us. Let's take it to Mom and she'll broil it for our lunch."
"Oh, Arden," exclaimed Vera, clasping her hands together and widening her dark eyes with awe. "I do believe that's the granddaddy fish all the fishing experts around here have been trying to catch for years and years. And to think you caught it. What a wonderful fisherman you are?'
Usually Vera seemed to annoy Arden, but this time he smiled broadly, flattered by her praise. "Gosh, Vera, it just jumped on my line."
I hated him for falling for her stupid flattery, for not recognizing that Vera would say anything to make him look at her more than he looked at me. I jumped to my feet and ran to where I'd left my sundress. Behind concealing bushes I hoped to change from my swimming suit into my clothes. But my clothes were gone, even my sandals! Already my white bathing suit was on the ground, wet and muddy, and I was looking everywhere, thinking my clothes may have been blown away. "Vera, did you hide my clothes?"
At that instant, as I looked in another direction, I caught a glimpse of a quick hand that snatched up my discarded bathing suit. I recognized the ring on her finger. Vera's hand. I yelled at her and started to give chase, but Arden was out there and I didn't have on one stitch. "Arden," I cried, "stop Vera! She's stolen all my clothes and my bathing suit, too." Almost crying, I looked around for something I could use to conceal my nudity.
I heard Arden thrashing around in the bushes, calling Vera--and then he was coming my way, making plenty of noise. "Audrina, I can't find Vera. She can't run very fast, so she must be hiding. You can put on my shirt. It's long enough to cover you until you reach home."
Daring to peek, I saw him turn to head for where he'd left his clothes. "Hey!" he cried, "my clothes are gone, too! But it's all right, Audrina. You just stay where you are and I'll run home and ask Mom to loan you something of hers to wear home."
At that moment my father came running through the bushes, shoving them aside as he yelled at Arden, "Where's my daughter?" He looked wildly around, then riveted his threatening eyes on Arden again. "All right, young man--where is Audrina? What have you done to her?"
Shocked into momentary speechlessness, Arden shook his head, unable to say a word. Then, as my father advanced, his huge hands balling into fists, he found his voice. "Sir, she was here a moment ago. She must be on her way home."
"No," growled Papa, knitting his thick brows and scowling. "I would have passed her on the way if that were true. If she's not home, and she's not here, where else can she be? I know she visits you and your mother often. Vera told me that. Now where the hell is Audrina?"
There was an edge of panic in Arden's voice. "I really don't know, sir." He leaned over to pick up his catch of fish. "I was teaching Audrina how to fish. She doesn't like hurting the worms, so I was showing her how to cast with flies. Audrina caught two of these big ones, and Vera caught one. Here's the one I caught."
Papa's back was to me. If I dared, I might be able to sneak away and perhaps he'd never even see me. Scrunching down, I began to steal away. Suddenly I was shoved from behind. I screamed as I fell face forward, directly into a briar bush.
Papa bellowed my name. He came charging my way, thrashing through the heavy underbrush, yelling to find me naked, screaming out his rage as he tore off his expensive summer sports jacket and threw it over my shoulders. Spinning on his heel, he raced back to where Arden stood and seized him by the shoulders. Then brutally he began to shake him.
"Stop it, Papa!" I yelled. "Arden hasn't done anything wrong! We were only fishing, and wearing bathing suits so we wouldn't ruin our clothes. It was Vera who stole my sundress, and when I had my bathing suit off, she snatched that and ran."