The Girl Most Likely To... (26 page)

You dad's sister, Rita.

Kat put the pastry down. Oh yeahI was going to go rip her a new asshole when Nola and I were here last month, but I just didn't get around to it.

Riley's eyebrows arched in surprise.

She was the first person I told about being pregnant that day. I went to her house right after I got the test results, and do you know what that woman told me? Kat shook her head, remembering how it had stung. She said I'd have to drop out of school the minute I started to show. Then, as my aunt and not my principal, she told me that whatever I did, I should not tell my father anything about my situation.

Riley shook his head. Jesus, that's brutal. He tossed the half-eaten dessert back into the bag and sighed. At least there are agencies working to keep girls in school nowadays, unlike your experience, but the pregnancy rate here is still a huge problem. In fact… Riley looked at Kat without finishing his thought.

What?

Well, I wanted to start a reproductive health outreach center as part of the clinic. It's kind of pie in the sky at the moment, but I'm hoping we can find a way to make it happen. Riley scooted closer so that his long, lean thigh pressed up against hers. Hey, Kat?

She nodded.

Whenever you're ready to talk to Virgil, I'll go with you. Promise me you won't go alone.

Kat looked up at those bottomless blue eyes and was caressed by the earnestness and love that lived in them. Suddenly, hope filled her up, and it was the kind of hope that was big enough to spread wide and wrap its arms around both of them. No wonder she'd never found a man like Riley in Baltimore or anywhere elsethere was just one of him, and he'd always been right here, waiting for her to come home.

The door opened behind them.

Got a possible drive-away at the Sunoco, Matt announced, weary with the burden of authority.

A what? Kat asked.

That's when a motorist fills the tank and drives off without paying, Matt explained. Been happening a lot more lately with gas prices the way they are.

Kat was appalled. You mean you don't have pre-pay in this town? You still actually trust people?

Matt laughed. Maybe not for much longer. He clomped down the porch steps. See y'all tonight! Bring your appetites!

Nola appeared a moment later, the part in her thick brunette hair askew and one earring missing. I'm moving to Persuasion, she mumbled.

Because you don't have to pre-pay? Riley asked with mock innocence.

Nola stared out toward the street, her eyes unfocused. No, because your brother is ass-kickingly hot.

Kat winced, knowing it was her duty to remind Nola of her convictions, since she seemed incapacitated at the moment. Kat turned to Riley and asked in a loud, clear voice, Does Matt have a beer can collection by any chance?

Riley looked nonplussed. It's bottles. Why?

Virgil hadn't come up with a decent piece in more than twenty years and he knew it. Sure, the lamebrains down at the gallery took whatever he gave them, and they'd sell something every once in a blue moon, so they were happy enough. But he knew he'd been producing nothing but trash for decades, resting on whatever renown he once had. There was no longer any flow in his work, no essence, no energy, and it didn't matter if it was marble, wood, or even that fiberglass-reinforced fake cement shit that he could usually pawn off to the gallerynothing had been good in his art, or his life, since January 1988.

His last truly beautiful creation, his only near masterpiece, was the clay model and rough-cut marble bust of Eleanor Erskine. She was the D-cupped wife of West Virginia's goofy governor, who happened to be the brother of Mountain Laurel's chancellor. That's how Virgil had gotten what was to be the biggest commission of his lifethe twists and turns of coincidence. When the state wanted a bust of the big-busted first lady and was willing to pay $250,000 for it, the Mountain Laurel art professor got thrown a bone. He took it happily, and got to bone the governor's wife as a bonus. Unfortunately, Kat saw him do it.

Virgil fidgeted with the business card in his hand, staring at the name of that dipshit doctor who'd bulldozed her way onto his property a few weeks back. He should call her. Get her to come out here and sit for him right this minute. He wanted to see a beautiful woman completely naked one last time before he died, and she'd reminded him a bit of Eleanor, anyway. If she was anything like the governor's wife, the doctor was haughty because deep down she was naughty. Virgil smiled at his clever turn of phrase and sighed with pleasure. Eleanor Erskine had been a good lay; maybe the doctor would be, too.

He put down the business card and looked around him at the debris, the graveyard of his career. He didn't even know why he bothered coming out to the studio anymore. Nothing more than habit, probably, and the need to get away from the TV for a while. Too much violence. Virgil rose from the stool and wandered toward the back of the garage, looking for something in particular. He knew he'd put it on a cart back there somewhere, back when BettyAnn had first gotten sick. He never wanted her to see it.

His hands encountered the cool, smooth surface of the form of his daughter. He wheeled the cart to the worktable, and sat back on the stool. It was always better to work from a live model, of course, because there were nuances in the personality and expressions that a sculptor could get only from life itself. But he'd remembered so much of Katharine. With the old photos BettyAnn thought she'd hidden away, and his many detailed memories, he hadn't done a half-bad job.

Katharine had been a beautiful baby, and he remembered being deeply relieved by that. She'd been born with blond curls and flawless pink skin and those strange citrine-colored eyes. He'd always thought they looked feline, and they made him vaguely uncomfortable. BettyAnn had reassured him that Katharine would grow out of the unusual eye color.

She didn't. Luckily, people accepted them and even thought they were lovely, and didn't question who among the Cavanaughs had such coloring.

From what he could tell from her short visit in the ER, Katharine had grown into a stunning woman. What was she nowthirty-seven? She still had a sexy shape for a woman her age. She'd always had a nice curvy and petite shape.

Virgil shook his head, as if to knock some sense into himself. He stared at the unfinished bust and decided he would complete it. He'd make her all grown-up. He'd give her that smirk of disdain he'd seen on her face in the studio window twenty years ago, the same one she'd shown in the hospital room just last month. Next, he'd flesh out her cheeks and thicken the fall of her hair. But he'd leave her throat just the way it was, dainty and vulnerable.

God, he hadn't meant to, but he'd beaten the shit out of BettyAnn that night. It was like he couldn't stop himself. He'd come home to find her trying to scrape up his $250,000 commission from this very floor. Then she lied to him, saying she'd accidentally knocked it over. He knew better. He'd seen the betrayal in Katharine's eyes as she peeked in the window, and he knew she'd ruined the clay model to get her revenge.

BettyAnn was hysterical, begging for him not to go after their daughter. /Take it out on me!/ she screamed. God, he hated when she got like that, so protective, like he was some kind of monster, like he'd ever hurt his daughter. He was a good man! A damn good father! And that little cat-eyed bitch had been ungrateful from the day she was born, because she didn't know the truth. /She just didn't know./ Virgil let his head fall into his hands. He reached blindly for the tumbler of vodka he'd left on the worktable, brought it down to his lips, and sucked down half of it. BettyAnn had made it out of surgery just fine, and the scars around her eyes eventually healed up so they were hardly noticeable, especially if she wore that special mail-order makeup. But as ridiculous as it sounded now, he'd actually ended up spending three nights in jail, where he'd been forced to endure a visit from the King of Persuasion himself. Aidan Bohland had put his finger in Virgil's face and told him that if he ever touched BettyAnn again, he would lose everythinghis tenure, his home, his reputation. Virgil hated that holier-than-thou bastard. What did he know about keeping a wife in line? Nothing, obviouslyEliza Bohland was known for making a complete fool of herself when she'd had a little too much to drink, which was daily.

Then Big Dopey Bohland had the balls to inform Virgil that Katharine was a special young lady who deserved more attention from her father. Virgil had laughed because it was just so damn ironic, and told Bohland to fuck himself.

Virgil got out of jail on a Saturday. With BettyAnn in the hospital and then laid up at homeand with all the legal rigmarole that had gone into getting the charges against him droppedit was a good two weeks before they reported their daughter officially missing.

And now, twenty years later, she finally found her way back to Persuasion, unashamed of the fact that she couldn't keep her legs together any better than her mother could. Just today, Rita told him that Katharine had rented a house off-campus and that some expensive furniture and whatnots had already been delivered.

Virgil stared at the pretty clay face frozen in time and felt the old craving course through him. It surprised him how strong it was, considering the lid had been on it for twenty years. It was the vodka.

The vodka always triggered his urges. And his urge for Katharine had always been the strongest.

He drank what was left in the glass, feeling the heat lollygag through his bloodstream. He allowed himself to remember how it used to be. Oh, how he'd enjoyed the act of hitting BettyAnn. It was a sweet, sweet agony. A taboo rapture. And it was the only way he'd ever found to dampen the flames, since it wouldn't be right to touch Katharine the way he longed to.

He looked down at his pants and laughed. By God, he was getting peckerwood! He didn't even think that was possible anymore, what with all the medicine he was taking.

Suddenly, he was certain she was spying on him again. His eyes shot to the window, but there was nothingno blond curls, no cat eyes. Then he realized it was the bust on the worktable that was mocking him.

Virgil raised his tumbler, found it empty, and threw it against the wall. BettyAnn had betrayed him. She'd always known Kat left here pregnant with Bohland's child. That was BettyAnn's big secret the day she died. Virgil had spent the last few days systematically ripping the house to shreds in search for what else that ungrateful bitch might have kept from him. He found nothing.

Virgil cried. A man needed to know he controlled some part of his life, and Virgil's life's greatest pleasure had always been the absolute knowledge that he controlled dumb little BettyAnn absolutely. But she'd been fooling him all along. Underneath it all, she was a lying slut, just like all the rest.

Virgil studied the unfinished bust through his tears, circling around the table, looking from every angle. Something about the way the image danced and distorted in the teardrops made him smile. Then he began to laugh. It was incredible! A miracle!

In the eleventh hour of life, he'd finally found the inspiration for his masterpiece.

Kat stepped out into the crisp morning with a smile on her face and determination in her heart. Today was going to be all about schoolwhen she'd finished the registration process at Mountain Laurel she planned to pay a little visit to Principal Cavanaugh.

Kat chugged up the hill to campus, struck by the charm of its Gothic limestone spires, its ornate wrought-iron front gate, and its tidy fall landscape. It looked magical to her that morning, and welcoming.

Things went smoothly in the admissions office. She picked up a class schedule and orientation package, and though Kat was told it would be several weeks before all her transcripts were transferred, it would leave her plenty of time before winter quarter began in January.

While there, Kat ran into no fewer than five women she'd known in school. She chatted briefly with each of them, giving each enough to satisfy her appetite for gossip. They all wanted to know where she'd been and if she'd come back for Riley Bohland, and she gave them the basics, adding that she was looking forward to catching up with old friends, including Riley. She knew every word of it would be all over town by supper time.

As Kat wandered the campus, it became painfully obvious that everyone there was Aidan's age. Her heart suddenly felt like it weighed a thousand pounds, a big, thousand-pound stone of loneliness for her son.

It was almost comic now. Every morning she would call Aidan and talk to his voice mail. He never answered and he never called back. As Kat strolled down the hill toward town, she decided it was time for her daily exercise in futility.

She got Aidan's voice mail, of course, and had readied herself to leave another message about Thanksgiving dinner at her house when she heard a real, live voice.

Hey, Mom.

Kat froze. She looked around for a place to sit and chose a small stone planter in front of a hair salon, where she managed to prop herself.

Sweetheart, she said. Are you all right?

Look, Mom, I just need some time. I've been doing a lot of thinking. I'm fine, but I need some space.

Kat nodded in silence, realizing that she'd asked Riley for the exact same thing, for the exact same reasonforgiveness is a process, not something you can pick up at the drive-thru. She dared not say another word. She didn't want Aidan to know she was crying.

I know you're crying, Mom. Don't try to hide it. It's time to stop hiding shit from me, OK?

I know. I know. She sniffed. I miss you so much!

Well, I miss you, too. Look, I'm late for class. We'll catch up later.

All right, Aidan.

Hey, Mom?

Yes? Her heart began to pound with anticipation.

I'm bringing Rachel up over break. Dad said that would be OK, so if I decide to accept your dinner invitation, she'll be coming along.