Echoes of Dollanganger (6 page)

I cleared away his dishes and did everything that had to be done in the kitchen before I returned to my room to finish my homework. I knew I wasn't giving it my best. I was rushing now, because I didn't want him to know how distracted I had been. He knew how responsible I was and how dedicated I was to getting my schoolwork done and done well. He would never suspect the diary, especially because Kane was there. He would think it was because of something else, obviously something that had to do with my private time with Kane. I was confident that he wouldn't come right out and ask, “Did you guys spend all your time doing assignments from your teachers, or did you come up with your own homework?” He could tease a little, skirt around it by asking me to tell him how serious we were becoming, but making reference to something explicitly sexual just wasn't something my father would do. He wasn't a prude. He was just a shy man who was left to do and worry about things my mother was supposed to handle.

The irony was that we had done nothing my girlfriends were suspecting we did. All the girls believed that Kane was not timid about making love, and we'd been alone in my bedroom. Not only them but any
parent would suspect more intimacy. All my girlfriends talked about the suspicions their parents had. Suzette went so far as to tell us her mother had given up on her, telling her not to expect her to come rushing in to rescue her. “You're old enough to know better,” she'd said.

My father would never say such a thing, no matter what I did, I thought.

Before I went to sleep, I went down to wake him up and tell him it was time to go to sleep. It was a constant joke between us. He'd watch television and drift off. I would turn it off, and he'd wake up surprised. Then he would kiss me and go to his room to sleep with his memories.

I got into bed and lowered my head to the pillow, Christopher's words rambling on under it, below me in the forbidden diary.

And Kane's questions and thoughts rambling right along with them.

*  *  *

Kane amazed me the following day. He was so excited about what he had read and what we were going to do that I thought for sure he would be talking about nothing else, but from the first moment he set eyes on me in the morning, he seemed to know that to keep me from having any anxiety, especially while we were at school, the diary should remain under my pillow, physically and mentally. Neither of us would mention it. To show me I could rely on him for that, he talked about everything and anything else on our way to school and during the day. He went on and on
about a party Tina Kennedy was planning. I knew she was always chasing him, and he enjoyed teasing me about it. He was so good at ignoring the diary, in fact, that it felt like I had dreamed the entire thing—his discovering the diary under my pillow and our plans for where and how to read it together. However, it couldn't be completely ignored until the moment we took it out from under my pillow again. For one thing, just like Christopher at this point in his diary, we were a week away from Thanksgiving. Finally, on the way to my house after school, Kane mentioned that.

“Quite a coincidence that the time period coincides,” he said.

Neither of us had to say it, but we both thought that was a little eerie. Why had the diary been discovered now? And how coincidental was it that my father would be the one to locate the locked metal box after all these years? Other people, young people, searched in the debris because there were so many rumors and stories about hidden wealth at Foxworth Hall. Malcolm was supposed to be a miser, spending his money mainly on church or some religious charity. The story was that he distrusted everyone, especially bankers, and was one of those people who literally kept money buried somewhere, yet no one had managed to uncover the metal box that contained Christopher's diary—no one until my father was sent to evaluate the foundation for a new prospective buyer.

“I can't imagine what he'll write about their
Thanksgiving shut up like that. If the legendary story about them is true, they spent more than one Thanksgiving and Christmas in that attic and more than one birthday. We've got thirty-five people coming for dinner at our house,” he continued when I didn't comment. “My parents don't do much. There's a full kitchen staff, waiters, and a bartender. It's more like a party than a family gathering, even though two of my uncles and aunts are there with their children, who I don't see very much. That's a good thing. Their pictures are right beside the word ‘brat' in the dictionary. I'm glad Darlena comes home from college, though. What about you? What goes on in your house?”

“As you can imagine, my father fixes quite a dinner. He has a sweet potato pudding to die for.”

“Just the two of you?”

“No. My aunt Barbara, my father's sister, has come occasionally and might come this time, but my father always invites his chief assistant, Todd Winston, and his wife and their two children, and Mrs. Osterhouse, who does his bookkeeping and would like to do more for him, and I don't mean at work. She's a widow who has been with him for a long time.”

“Ah. Do you like her?”

“Yes, she's nice.”

“Nice enough to be a new mother?”

“I'll never have another mother, Kane. Even a saint couldn't step into her shoes.”

“Yeah. I'm sorry I put it that way. What about your father? Any interest? Has he dated her?”

“No. He's polite to her, but I think she tries too hard.”

“Like Tina Kennedy when it comes to yours truly?”

“No, not quite as obvious as that,” I said, and he laughed. “But my father likes subtlety when it comes to women.”

“He's not so subtle when it comes to you.”

“No,” I said, smiling, “and I'm not when it comes to him, either.”

“I like your father. He seems comfortable in his own skin.”

“He never puts on airs, if that's what you mean. I'm proud of him.”

“You should be.” He paused and added, “I think I'm more like him than I am like my own father.”

“Why do you say that?”

“My father's always striving to do more, get bigger, and is quite obvious about it. That's why he's on edge so much. Everything's got to come out just the way he planned. It's always the bottom line, no matter what it is. He wants to make a profit on everything, even relationships. More than once, I've overheard my mother accuse him of marrying her for her family money.”

“Do you think that's true?”

He gave me a look that said, “You have to ask?”

“So you're not coming out just the way he planned, his bottom line for a son?” I asked.

He smiled. “Not exactly.”

“Why not? You do well in school. They say you're the best baseball pitcher the school's ever had. You don't get in trouble, and you're passably good-looking.”

“Passably?”

“Maybe a little more,” I kidded.

“I'm not as ambitious as he'd like, and he thinks I waste time on too many ‘unprofitable' ventures. He never stops complaining about my enthusiasm when it comes to my future. He thinks I should be just as aggressive and ambitious as he was at my age. He never misses an opportunity to say it. His favorite expression is ‘Youth is wasted on the young.' ”

“That's what most parents say.”

“Not like he does. But from what my relatives say, he wasn't always this intense. He's like someone who wins the lottery and turns from Jekyll to Hyde. Don't quote me, especially in front of my father or my mother, but money changes you and not always for the best.”

“I fear Christopher might come to that same conclusion, even though that's all they're dreaming about in that attic, lots of money.”

“We'll know soon enough,” Kane said, smiling, as he pulled into my driveway.

Now that we were about to start, I really wasn't sure how we were going to do this. Was he going to read it like a bedtime story? Were we going to stop to discuss things the way we might when we were studying a book in school? Was I just going to sit there and
listen the whole time, or was I supposed to take over and read to him?

I headed for the kitchen first.

“What are you doing? Let's get started,” he said, practically leaping at the stairway.

“I thought I'd get us something to drink and eat first. Don't you want a snack? I have—”

“Just water,” he said. “Nothing else. That's all
they
had most of the time. We've got to try to replicate their situation to really appreciate what he writes when I read it.”

I felt a flush come over me. It wasn't excitement, exactly. It was as if he really believed we could do it, that we really could become Christopher and Cathy while we were up in my attic. He saw the look on my face.

“Didn't you ever hear the expression ‘stay in character'? That's all I'm saying.”

“Okay.”

I poured two glasses of cold water, handed him one, and led him up the stairs to my room. After I plucked the diary out from under my pillow, I looked at him. Now that we were about to do it, I half expected him to start laughing and say it was all just a joke, a reason to get me alone with him after school, but he stepped back instead to let me pass.

I led the way to the attic stairs. When we reached the door, I hesitated. Those creaking steps, those dark shadows, everything made it seem as if I was opening this door for the first time. It wasn't simply a door to an attic; it was a door to the past. When I did step in,
I paused as if I was expecting to see the four Dollanganger children waiting for us.

“Perfect,” Kane whispered, coming up beside me. “There's furniture and old things. It really is a miniature Foxworth.”

“Not quite,” I said, looking at my mother's wardrobe. “It's not all other people's leftovers and such. My mother's clothing is in here,” I told him, putting my hand on the wardrobe.

“Oh.” He looked guilty suddenly. “I didn't know. You didn't say anything. Maybe I shouldn't have suggested we come up here.”

“It's all right. I've been up here often. I even wore one of her dresses, remember? That was the night you took me to the River House.”

“Oh. Right. But everything else here . . .”

“Nothing with any real memories for me, and the rest of it is stuff left by the original occupants.”

He went over to the small windows and looked out. “Should I open one of these?”

“A little, but let's not forget to close it before we leave,” I said.

He opened one and then turned and sat on the sofa.

“Come on,” he said, obviously even more excited now. “Let's begin.” He held his hand out for the diary. I gave it to him and sat beside him. He thought a moment and then got up and moved to the chair across from the sofa.

“Why did you do that?”

“Better this way,” he said.

I smiled at him. “Why?”

“It's more like when Christopher read to them or something. Don't worry. You'll understand after we get started,” he said, as if he already knew more about the Dollanganger children than I did. He opened the diary.

I sat back. I had no idea what to expect or what would happen next, but I couldn't help being eager to find out.

He didn't change his voice, exactly, but as he read, I could see him trying to pronounce every word perfectly and speak like a young boy who thought he was much more intelligent than anyone else around him, including, of course, his mother and grandmother. Kane even changed his posture, assuming that Christopher would never slouch.

To play along, I sat back and tried to remember what I was like when I was Cathy Dollanganger's age, when every new little discovery about myself was earth-shattering and when, like her, I needed my mother so much, a mother neither of us had.

And as he read, I could feel myself slipping out of this world and into theirs.

I think the realization that it was almost Thanksgiving shocked me as much as if not more than it shocked Cathy. I did my best to act surprised when Cathy mentioned it, acting almost carefree about it. I knew how dramatic she could be, and I was afraid of what that would do to the twins. I put on a face that said, “So it's almost Thanksgiving, so what?”

She didn't have to tell me. The “what” in “so what?” was that Thanksgivings were always wonderful in our house when my father was alive. To him, it was pre-Christmas, so he always had little novelty presents for us: a challenging mental puzzle for me, a small toy car for Cory, and fake jewelry or combs for Carrie and Cathy. It wasn't much, just little surprises at the dinner table. He didn't do anything resembling a novelty for Momma. He never gave her anything that wasn't very special. Any occasion was good for a new piece of jewelry.

“When you find your soul mate,” he told me, “always treat her like a princess. Women love jewelry.”

Just before Daddy was killed, it got so that Cory used to think a pair of diamond earrings could multiply somehow into a diamond necklace, too, or a bracelet by Christmas. They weren't large diamonds. Maybe they weren't even real diamonds, but Momma was always excited and happy to get gifts, no matter what the occasion and especially if there was no occasion. If he came home with something for her after work, it meant he was thinking about her.

“Oh, look, children!” she would cry. “Your father was thinking of me even when he was at work.”

“I'm always thinking of you, Corrine,” he would say. It made her more buoyant and beautiful, especially at Thanksgiving, because he
would always begin by telling us how thankful he was for our mother. Maybe because of that more than anything, she was eager to make our Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners special. She was never the greatest cook, but she did a good job on the Thanksgiving turkey with all the trimmings, some of which were smuggled in by Mrs. Wheeler, who also made our pies.