Pretty Girl Thirteen (24 page)

Dr. Grant twisted a pearl earring. “It’s not going to be a walk in the park. You’re in a good place right now, which is great. Just be aware that incorporating what’s coming may set you back a little emotionally. I’m not saying you can’t handle it. Just don’t underestimate.”

Angie sighed. Even without Angel, she felt strong. She could handle it. It was time to put the rest of her life in order as well. She signed up for riding lessons as promised, shopped for the ultimate riding outfit, and took her first lesson on the Sunday afternoon before she was due back at school.

They gave her the most gentle horse in the stables. Even so, as the pace picked up a little, Angie felt herself flying. The wind blew her hair back where it hung below the riding helmet. Her knees gripped the bounding animal. Her heart pounded. “Take it, Tattletale,” she whispered, and slipped aside. From a close spot, she watched the little girl take up her body and gallop the horse around and around the corral. The smile in her mind was priceless, worth handing over control for a while.

“Excellent progress,” the instructor said at the end. “Are you sure you’ve never ridden?”

“Only in my imagination,” Angie told him.

“Well, you must have an excellent imagination,” he said.

“So I’ve been told.” Angie smiled inside. Tattletale squeezed her hand in thanks.

“What is up with you?” Kate said when Angie went back to school the next morning. They caught up at the bank of lockers. “You look great.”

“Oh, thanks a lot,” Angie said. “Why so surprised? You were expecting me to look hideous?”

“They said you were out with the flu—that’s why I didn’t call—but obviously not.” Kate pulled two heavy textbooks from her locker.

“Hey, if that was the rumor, go with it.” Angie tapped her chest and faked a cough.

Kate eyed her skeptically. “So what, really? Hiding from the press? Taking an unauthorized family vacation?”

Angie laughed. “Not in the sense you mean. I’ve been communing with my other selves, doing some housekeeping and renovations.”

“What the hell does that mean?” Kate demanded, shouldering her backpack.

Angie grabbed her history book and slammed her own locker shut. “Mostly a lot of hypnosis and visualizing and internal conversation stuff. We’re negotiating a merger. Harder than it sounds.”

Kate snorted. She set off down the hallway with a quick stride. “I didn’t think it sounded easy. Jeez. Your life is way complicated.”

“But there’s a pot of gold at the end of my rainbow, a light at the end of my tunnel.”

“A dawn at the end of your day?”

Angie snickered. “Well, something like that. Have the reporters stopped hanging out at school?”

“They finally gave up Friday. Thank God for the short attention span news cycle. Hey, here’s where I get off. See ya at lunch.” Kate ducked into her Spanish class.

Therapy sessions hadn’t taken all day. Angie had kept up with the schoolwork while she was out, so settling back into each class was no problem. Several teachers asked if she felt better, and she answered as if they meant the flu.

She dreaded lunchtime, just a bit. She figured the best strategy with Greg and Liv was to pretend nothing had happened, that is, if they would let her. She could stand up to them. She could endure. Considering what else she had been through and survived, their petty meanness was nothing. The question was, would they let her?

At the end of the first day, it seemed they might. She was invisible to them at lunchtime, and with no classes together, she thought she had skated by when she heard her name called, and Liv jogged up behind her.

“You’re back,” Liv said bluntly.

“Did you hope I’d changed schools?” Angie asked. “Well, I didn’t.”

Liv scowled. “If you think you’re—”

She didn’t get any further before Angie interrupted. “Liv, before you say anything else, I want to apologize for going after your boyfriend. It was rude and stupid, and I was partially out of my mind.” Wasn’t that the truth! “You can be sure I have no desire to repeat the experience.”

Liv stepped back with a strange expression. “Why not? What’s wrong with him?”

Oh God. “Nothing. He’s just not the right guy for me,” Angie said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”

“Hmm.” Livvie seemed to be considering the merits of the apology. “I couldn’t have told you that?”

“You never had the chance. You stopped talking to me after the first day. Remember?”

“You stopped talking to me,” Liv shot back.

Right. What could she say? Try the truth? “I guess I felt guilty—”

Liv cut her off. “You know, I sensed something, right off. Like there was still this chemistry between you.”

“All physical,” Angie said. “And that’s way over. Emotion-wise, there’s nothing there. You’re the one he likes.” For better or worse, she thought. “He never really wanted to break up with you.”

“Really?” Liv’s shoulders rose a little. “He said that, but I didn’t know whether it was true. You know guys. They’ll say anything they think you want to hear.”

Didn’t she know it! “Yes, they do. But in this case, it was true. He’s all yours, Livvie.” Take him. Please.

Livvie’s lips closed in a self-satisfied smile. “Good. So, whatever. See you round.”

She took off for the parking lot with a bounce in her step. Angie watched as she headed straight for Greg’s car, climbed in, and grabbed him for the public display of affection that was banned in school. Making quite a point of it, actually.

She tested her emotions. Any regrets? Any jealousy? Not a hint.

“R
EADY?
” D
R
. G
RANT ASKED
.

“Maybe.” They’d done all the work they could on the cabin—a wall and a porch with no interior. At least, Angie couldn’t open or see past the doorway to the inside. She couldn’t walk around the corner to the other three sides, assuming they even existed.

“Watch the light,” Dr. Grant said softly. “Watch the light and relax. Sink back into that place, the meeting place. How does it look?”

“Beautiful. Cheerful. Ready for company.” Bright sun beamed on the red and orange flowers. The yellow railing sparkled with morning dew. A broom leaned up against the corner, but there was nothing left to sweep away except the walls between the girls.

“Has anyone arrived?” Dr. Grant’s voice came from a distance.

Angie looked again. Tattletale leaned against the porch railing, dressed for riding in a miniature riding suit.

Angie spoke aloud for the doctor’s benefit. “Just Tattletale so far. I think today’s the day. She looks ready to move on.”

“Are you?”

Angie thought hard. This was what they’d been building toward—unity. Would she still feel like herself? Would she feel smaller or larger? Losing Little Wife and Angel had been abrupt, and their private knowledge had been stripped away. This would be completely different.

Angie extended her hands to Tattletale, who smiled shyly and stepped into Angie’s arms. Angie hugged her. “No one’s ever going to hurt us again,” she promised. “And you don’t have to take care of me—we’ll take care of each other. Okay?”

The little girl raised her face to the sun. The wind lifted a strand of golden hair and blew it across her lips. With soft fingertips, Angie brushed it away and felt the brush across her own lips. It was her own hair, and the little girl was her and she was the little girl and they were apart and they were together, standing in the rays of the morning sun, hearing the meadow birds singing, touching the dew on the railing with ten fingers, not twenty.

Angie was dressed in the blue jeans and pink sweater she’d worn there, but a riding crop was in her hand and tall boots were on her legs. “Yes, we’ll ride today,” she said, but of course there was no one else to hear her.

She probed the new memories gingerly. Yuncle. Somehow she didn’t hate him. Or fear him. Of course there was confusion and pain and embarrassment and even boredom. Now she remembered the day when he left for the army. Her tenth birthday, and he’d promised her a special present. He looked so handsome in his uniform. Grampy and Grandma were so proud, they said, that he had found a calling after drifting through high school—whatever that meant. It was her birthday, and everyone was making such a fuss about him. No fair.

Grampy took pictures of the family in all the different possible groups. Angie wanted one just of her and her soldier, like the pictures she’d seen of ladies sending their boyfriends off to war.

“Ready, Grampy? Take this!”

She threw her arms around Yuncle’s neck and kissed him like the pictures, arched backward, one foot up, long and hard. She clung to his lips and waited for the sound of a click, but it never came. Yuncle pushed her off him, and she fell on the floor.

Everyone was staring at her with strange, disgusted looks on their faces.

Mom gave a nervous giggle. “Too much television, I guess. Gives them crazy ideas.”

Yuncle left for the war without speaking directly to her again. She never found out what the special present was. And that was why she had cried for a week.

Tears of childish regret rolled down her cheeks in Dr. Grant’s dark office.

“Angie, how do you feel?” Dr. Grant’s office came back into focus.

Angie rubbed her cheeks and answered hoarsely. “I feel, um, enlightened.” In both senses. Lighter and informed. “I have this irresistible urge to eat sugary breakfast cereals.”

Dr. Grant’s eyes widened. “Really?”

“No, just kidding. I … it’s great, though. She’s part of me now, but woven into me everywhere instead of apart. I can’t describe it. I just feel more settled. But I don’t understand why Girl Scout didn’t come.”

“Maybe she’s still scared of losing her independence,” the doctor suggested. “Or maybe she has unfinished business.”

Angie picked a loose pill off her sweater and rolled it in her fingers. “She’s the only one who never took me over except in therapy. Or redoing my homework.” The pill dropped to the carpet. “At least that stopped. You know, she’s never been out in the real world.”

“That’s an interesting point. She lived her whole life in that rustic kitchen. What do you suppose she would like to do?”

Angie wracked her brains and immediately heard the answer shouted at her. “Go to a restaurant!”

Dr. Grant broke into unexpected giggles. “Of course,” she said. “Let me see what I can arrange for tomorrow.”

For the rest of the week, therapy was scheduled during the lunch hour. Angie got only thirty minutes for lunch, but her after-lunch class was studio art. She could easily make up the work with a long day at the easel, so Mom agreed to let Dr. Grant pick her up from school right after morning classes. “I can’t exactly say I understand it, but Dr. Grant seems to know what she’s doing. You’ve been so much calmer lately.”

Angie swallowed a snippy retort. She didn’t want to blow it.

Tuesday was the best Italian spot in town. Angie sat across the booth from her therapist, feeling self-conscious. “How will I make sure Girl Scout gets to enjoy the food instead of me?”

“Look at me,” Dr. Grant said. She lifted her spoon and twirled it slowly to catch the light.

“Now what?” Angie asked. “What’s that supposed to do?”

Dr. Grant smiled. The table was covered with empty dishes, and Angie’s stomach felt hugely distended. Her top jeans button was unsnapped.

“Oh my God. Don’t tell me she ate all that!” Angie wailed. The taste of oregano and thyme hung in her mouth.

“Should we go for a walk?” the doctor suggested.

“Yeah. Like a 10K,” Angie said. “Better yet, let Girl Scout walk it off.”

Wednesday: Chinese. Thursday: barbecue. By Friday, Angie was scared to step on the scale. Dr. Grant assured her that the eating binge was almost done. She told Angie that Girl Scout had been taking a scientific interest in the dining experience, asking to speak to the chef, quizzing him or her on ingredients and techniques. “I saved the best for last. There’s a lovely French restaurant she’ll especially enjoy.”

Angie felt a twinge of jealousy. Her alter was spending all this quality time with Dr. Grant, and all she had to show for it was three extra pounds and garlic breath.

“I’ve booked the entire afternoon with you, Angie. We’ll have the drive over to talk and set the stage. I think this might be the right time. We’re on the verge. Can you feel it?”

“I just feel hungry,” she answered. “I used to eat salad for lunch. What have you two done to me?”

The atmosphere of the French restaurant was cheerful and formal at the same time. Crisp white linens on the tables were set with china plates and crystal glasses. The waiters wore black suits and addressed them as
mam’selle
and
madame
, thinking that they were mother and daughter. A spray of pink camellias floated between them as a centerpiece.