Sense of Rumor (Mount Faith Series: Book 6) (3 page)

Tracy had come off the phone and was looking at her father with a stunned look on her face. "Dad, please," she squealed. "She is our guest. What has she done to you? Why are you attacking her like this?"

"It's not her; it's what she represents," Mr. Carr said with a huff. "She's a worthless piece of trash. Only thing she knows how to do is wear skimpy clothes and sleep around with men for money. I've said it before; I'll say it again. She's a bad influence, Tracy."

Arnella finished off her cinnamon rolls and picked up her orange juice. She might as well have enough to eat and drink now because she was not sure that there was anything in her house.

Her mother had gone to the States for the summer, and her brother was working at Mount Faith as an intern pastor. The house would be empty; it had been empty of food when she left there for Tracy's party.

Mr. Carr's heated recriminations were not new to her. Since she was a little girl, she had been hearing that she was worthless. She already felt worthless; he was right to a point. So far, she had contributed nothing to society, but she intended to at some point.
What was he contributing?
she thought resentfully. He was a banker. What do they contribute?

She didn't want to go to university to immerse herself in what she considered boring subjects. She didn't want to get a high-powered job like Mr. Carr or Mrs. Carr, who was a dentist, nor did she want to be like Tracy, who was studying to be a lawyer. She wanted to be an artist.

She had several paintings to finish. She just needed the inspiration to finish them, or was it paint she needed? Painting was an expensive mistress. Painting was her dream, but it seemed as if she was a worthless piece of nothing, to hear Mr. Carr tell it.

She got up from the table, her belly full. "I really hope the rant is over because I have to run. Even worthless people have things to do," she said smartly. "Thanks for the breakfast though. You have helped the poor and lowly for the day; that is a great contribution to society. No thanks for the lecture. For a lecture to be effective, the person you are lecturing must be willing to listen to you. I thought your tone was judgmental and self righteous."

"Get out!" Mr. Carr growled. "I don't want to see you around my house again. Make sure she is only taking what she carried." He bellowed as Tracy raced after Arnella.

Arnella hurried through the vast marble-tiled hall to the imposing wood structure with intricate carvings that was the door. Mr. Carr had ordered it from some far away place in the Middle East, and it arrived just last month. As usual, she admired the craftsmanship of the place and the tasteful sculptures dotted around, but she dared not linger.

"Wait, Arnella," Tracy shouted.

Arnella paused with her hands on the door.

"I am sorry about Daddy," Tracy said earnestly. "For the life of me I can't understand why he unloaded on you like that this morning."

"That's okay." Arnella gave her a smile. "I guess I'll not be invited to any cocktail parties hosted by him. By the way, what happened yesterday?"

"What do you mean?" Tracy asked, looking at Arnella wide eyed.

"I woke up in your guest room; obviously something is wrong, I can't remember being there or even spending the night," Arnella whispered, "and I am having little hints of memories. I was having sex with David and Jeff. Please tell me that did not happen; that it was a nightmare."

Tracy frowned. "You disappeared for a while. I was busy with some of my other guests. When I started searching for you, you were fast asleep in the pool room."

"So where were Cory, David, and Jeff?" Arnella insisted.

"I don't know. They must have left. Come to think of it, I never saw them after that."

Arnella huffed, "Those pigs must have drugged me, had sex with me and took off."

"No." Tracy looked surprised. "That can't be. Are you sure you are not hallucinating? You did sleep for most of the evening."

"I am not hallucinating," Arnella said gruffly. "I can't say what really happened but I have little snippets of memory of the three of them doing things to me."

"Then go do a test then and find out what substance is in your body and go do a rape kit too," Tracy said flippantly, pushing her hands in her shorts pockets. "Too bad you bathed this morning, though. That would prove to be a bit of challenge for you to prove anything."

Arnella grunted. "I was violated here. I know I was not dreaming. I woke up with bruises and pain."

She stepped through the door onto the spacious veranda. Tracy walked behind her. "Arnella, I don't want to say you are not thinking straight, but how could that happen to you at my party? David, Cory, and Jeff are old classmates. Come on, you must have been extremely tired. You slept like a log throughout most of the party."

Arnella inhaled angrily; this girl was implying that she did not know what she knew. She clenched her fist and walked down the steps.
Don't get angry
kept ringing in her head.
Don't get angry.
Tracy had managed to do in one sentence what her father with all his bellowing and blustering hadn't done.

She blinked back the tears that were in her eyes and swallowed. She headed to her mother's, half-rusted Volkswagon Bug, which was parked outside of the four-car garage. It looked like it was fit for the junkyard, with its patches of green and blue; one door was yellow. Yesterday when she had driven up to the party, she had tried to park it so that it did not look too conspicuous among the SUV's and the top of the line European cars. Tracy did not have poor friends; she was the only exception, but now she was not too sure she wanted Tracy as a friend anymore. There was something not right about how she was readily supporting Cory, David, and Jeff when she told her about what happened.

"Arnella don't be mad," Tracy said, a pacifying note in her voice, "about what Daddy said in there." Tracy was trying hard to change the subject about Arnella's hallucination.

Arnella decided to bite. She turned around and looked at her, hoping that her face did not display any sort of mistrust. It was hard because she was feeling quite bitter about her lack of support. Arnella was not the type to lie. In fact, she was brutally honest. Why did Tracy so quickly suggest that she was hallucinating?

"Why don't you come and do some art courses at school? I saw an advertisement for an Art certificate," Tracy continued brightly, obviously thinking that Arnella would leave the subject of her party alone. "Mount Faith has a good working student program for those who can't afford it, and I might be living in a studio apartment at Blue Palm next semester, if they accept me. The studio has a living room; you can sleep on my couch till you can afford to pay rent somewhere. I know you aren't closely related to the Bancroft's at Mount Faith, but they are really rich. They should be able to help a poor relative like you."

Arnella opened her mouth to say something about her relatives but quickly closed it with a snap. Why hadn't she ever told Tracy that she was not that distant from the Bancroft's in Mount Faith? It never came up; that's why. Tracy obviously thought she was a charity case. Always had, it seemed.

She did not like the way Tracy mentioned the word 'poor' in her little heart-felt statement just now. The snobbishness was literally dripping from each word. Why hadn't she noticed before how patronizing Tracy was?

She shook her head. "Thanks for the generous offer, Tracy, but I know how to do art. I don't need someone to teach me. I should be teaching it. What I want is a studio, supplies, and time to do my thing. I have to go now." She glanced at her watch, a leather strap timepiece she had taken from her brother. The time had stopped at 2:00 pm. It was malfunctioning like everything else in her life right now. It looked like it was about seven thirty in the morning though.

"If I ever make it up to Mount Faith, it will be because I am too broke and have to throw myself to the mercies of the wealthy Bancroft's. See ya."

"See ya," Tracy said, watching her friend as she yanked open her car door. “By the way, what do you think about Alric?” she asked, anxious to hear Arnella's reply.

"You've have asked me that a million times." Arnella looked back at her, juggling her car keys. "He's okay, in a stuck up sort of way. We have lived on the same street for years. He's a cool dude if you like that type. Your father would have no problem inviting him to supper."

Tracy nodded, satisfied. "Okay then, drive safely."

Arnella waved and got into the car. It took her five tries to start it, all the time wondering if it had something to do with the fact that the fuel gage was on “E”. She was going to have to buy gas and then go to a doctor to be checked out. She would prefer to err on the side of caution where the exchange of bodily fluids was concerned. However, that would mean that most of her money would be swallowed up in doctor's bills. She could go to a free clinic instead, but that would take her all day. Then she would head up to Mount Faith to indeed throw herself to the mercies of the wealthy Bancroft's.

Chapter Three

It took Arnella two weeks to make up her mind to go visit her uncle. A girl had her pride, and she was not into begging but her art supplies had run out. She had no money to buy even a small bottle of watercolor paint. Her mother had called the day before saying that she was not sure she would be coming back until November.

Her brother had called to check up on her, and she had tried to sound breezy and light for him, but he had picked up that something was wrong and had begged her to come and stay with him at Mount Faith for the rest of the summer. The summer had two more weeks and then it would be time for the new school term.

Arnella chewed her lip. She might just do that. She had swallowed her pride and asked Vanley for gas money. All she needed now was to grovel at her uncle's feet and find out how he could help her with her art supplies. She hated that she had to ask him, of all the people in the world. He was going to insist that she sign up for some stupid course or do some useless degree.

She thought of her cousin, Micah. He had rebelled but had still done a degree. That was the power of her uncle. She would surely die of boredom if she were to do a degree; all her creativity would dry up, hemmed in by the rigid thoughts of people who couldn't think for themselves. To her, school was a holocaust to creative thinkers.

She sighed and looked around her art room. It was rustic and dramatic. The place had good natural lighting in the day, but the awful artificial lights she had to work with at night didn't lend itself to creating great art. She needed to get proper bulbs for her studio, not the dull ones she now had. She had done a few paintings featuring trees—dying trees. The stark twigs and lifeless brown trunks enhanced the bland beige that she had painted her studio wall. She had completed five paintings, but she wanted to do several more of mostly nature scenes.

She was drawing a scene of driftwood with seaweeds wrapped around it on a beach. She had run out of blue and green.
Driftwood at sunset.
She could already see it in her mind's eye: a lonely scene that seemed peaceful at first glance, but angry waves surrounded it and dark skies blocked the sun. The painting was an allegory of her life.

One by one, she tenderly wrapped her paintings in white sheets and carried them downstairs to her mother's VW bug. At least the car was still holding up. It looked as if it were on its last though. The car was battered and rusting, kind of like her mother's heart, she thought poetically. These days she was thinking poetically a lot. Ever since she got back her STI reports. They were all negative. Thank God. It still didn't negate the fact that she knew something was done to her. She hadn't called Tracy since then, and she was not going to contact her again. It was time to let that particular friendship go. She was never going to be Tracy's sort of people.

She went upstairs for her bag and flung it in the trunk. It had a rusted out circular hole in the bottom, about the size of her fist. She hoped it didn't rain, or her stuff would get wet.

She took one last look around the yard. The grass was overgrown, as usual, and the lone areola cherry tree that was standing at the front had weeds choking its branches. It looked like something she could paint too, another allegory.

She headed for the door and locked it. It was doubtful that anyone would want to rob the place though. It had nothing of value in it, now that her paintings were gone. She glimpsed, from the corner of her eye in time to see Alric's Audi slowly making its way past the house. She seldom saw him coming around the area anymore, not since Tracy's party. She watched as Alric slowed the car at her gate then wound down his window halfway and looked at her balefully.

What was his problem?
She hadn't done anything to him. She headed to her car, ignoring him, but she realized that he had stopped completely. He wound down his window fully and beckoned to her. Arnella was sure that she didn't want to hear what Alric 'holier than thou' Peterson had to say. She was tired of sermons. She got enough from her intern pastor brother, and she was tired of men anyway. Her newest experience with the three rats had cemented that in her mind. She walked to the car door bristling.

"What?" She said hostilely, bending down by the car to look at him fully.

"Good morning to you too, Arnella," Alric said. His voice was well modulated and sounded smooth, like a radio announcer's.
Does everybody who went to that university come out sounding refined
? she wondered.