Cutler - Midnight Whipsers Part 3

"Uh huh. She cut her hair down to nothing. I don't think Daddy's seen her. She'll be sleeping at the hotel and Aunt Trisha is staying at the house and will be sleeping in her room. Mommy wanted it that way."

"I can't blame her. How's Pauline Bradly? Does she still twirl her hair with her forefinger when she talks to people?" he asked. I laughed.

"She just gets nervous, Gavin. She's really a very shy girl," I explained.

He nodded. When I looked back toward the ocean, I saw that the clouds were beginning to break up. Patches of blue could be seen. That d Gavin's arrival warmed my heart. Gavin knew what I was gazing at; he always teased me about the way the weather affected my moods.

"Sorry for the clouds," he said. "I tried to blow them off, but. . ."

"At least it won't rain," I said. "It looks like it's clearing."

"It wouldn't dare rain. Are you very excited about your party?" he asked.

"Yes. I'll so glad you could come," I added.

"Me too," he said, pausing to look at me. "You look very . . . nice."

"Do I look older? I don't feel older," I said quickly. "Even though everyone is treating ne as if I am."

He studied me with those soft dark eyes for a moment.

"I think you look older," he said. "And prettier,"

he added. He turned away as soon as he uttered the words, but for me they lingered like the scent of blooming roses. "Hey, isn't that Jefferson on the lawn mower out there?" He waved and Jefferson saw us and urged Buster, the grounds worker, to stop so he could get off and run to us.

"GAVIN!" Jefferson cried. Gavin scooped him up and swung him about.

"How you doing, little nephew?"

"I'm working, Gavin, cutting the gra.s.s. Later, I'm going to help repair the steps on the pool. They're chipped."

"Oh, sounds important," Gavin said, winking at me. I was still quivering from the way he had looked at me and had said, "prettier."

"You wanna see? Come on, I'll show you the steps," Jefferson said, clamping his hand around Gavin's. Gavin shrugged helplessly. I followed behind, my head down, my heart in a happy pitter-patter.

How confusing our lives were in so many ways.

Gavin and Daddy were half-brothers, and Gavin was therefore my brother Jefferson's uncle, but he was no blood relation to me. He used to tease me, however, and tell me I had to call him Uncle Gavin, because he was technically my step-uncle. Even though we joked about our relations.h.i.+ps, the strange union of families made us reluctant to talk about how we really felt about each other. I wondered if we would ever get past that and if we did, wouldn't it just complicate everyone's lives even more?

After Jefferson had shown Gavin the work that had to be done on the pool, he ran back to Buster to complete the cutting of the lawns and Gavin and I were alone again. The wind was blowing the clouds apart faster and faster. Sunlight was beaming down on parts of the hotel and grounds. Gavin and I continued our walk through the gardens, talking about our school work and things we had done since we had last seen each other. We both repeated a great many things we had written in our letters, but it seemed as if he had to keep talking just as much as I had to. The silences that fell between us made us both feel funny.

When our eyes met, we would s.h.i.+ft our gazes to something else and both try to think of something else to say.

"I guess we better get back," Gavin finally said.

"It's getting late and I'm sure you want to start getting ready."

"I'm suddenly very nervous," I said. "Not for myself as much as I am for Mommy," I added. "She wants this to be a great party."

"It will be. Don't be nervous," he said, smiling and squeezing my hand quickly. My fingers moved toward his when he released them. "Will you save me a dance?"

"Of course I will, Gavin. In fact, you will be the first person I dance with, okay?"

"First?" The idea seemed to frighten him. He knew it would make us the object of everyone's attention.

"Why not?"

"Maybe you should dance with Jimmy first," he suggested.

"I'll see," I said coquettishly. It made him blush.

"Don't go hiding in a corner with Ricky Smith and Warren Steirie. VII just come looking for you," I threatened playfully.

"I won't hide," he said. "Not tonight; it's too special a night for you."

"I hope it will be for you, too," I said and he brightened.

Across the grounds, I saw Mommy waving and calling to me from the front of our house.

"I have to get going," I said. "See you soon."

I reached out and he did, too. Our fingers touched for an instant, the feeling sending a warm, electric sensation up my arm and through my bosom until it reached my heart and sent it fluttering. I turned to run off and stopped.

"I'm glad you're here," I cried back.

"Me too," he said.

I ran on, crossing from the gloom of clouds into the suns.h.i.+ne that had broken through and promised me the most exciting night of my life. The ocean breeze kissed my face and lifted my hair. I was fleeing from childhood, rus.h.i.+ng headlong onto the threshold of womanhood, both excited and terrified by the new and deeper feelings that lay in waiting.

After my shower Mommy came in to do her hair and make-up beside me at my vanity table. Now that we were side by side, giggling excitedly about the upcoming extravaganza, I could see why most people thought we looked more like sisters than mother aid daughter. Of course, Mommy had been so young when she had had me. She was only in her early thirties now, and she had the sort of face and complexion that would take centuries to show her age.

I hoped I would look just like her forever and ever, but at this moment, with our faces next to each other in the gla.s.s, I could vividly see the differences, differences that had to be attributed to my father. I paused in brus.h.i.+ng down my bangs.

"What did he look like, Mommy?" I suddenly blurted.

"He?"

"My real father?" I said. Somehow, gazing at each other through the mirror made it seem as if we were speaking to each other from a distance and that distance made the questions and the answers easier to ask and to answer. I was hoping Mommy would seize the opportunity to tell me now the things she had promised she would tell me tonight.

"Oh," she said and continued to brush her hair for a few moments. I thought she wasn't going to answer. Then she stopped. "He was very handsome, movie-star handsome, with broad shoulders and dark, silky hair," she said, her voice quiet and sounding far-away. "He always looked elegant and he had these dark blue eyes that sparkled with an impish glint." She smiled at her memories. "All the girls at the school were totally in love with him, of course. And he knew it!" she added, brus.h.i.+ng her hair harder. "You will never meet a more arrogant . . ."

I held my breath, afraid that if I moved or spoke, she would stop.

"I was just another one of those wide-eyed, foolish teenage girls he took advantage of easily. I'm sure to him I was a sitting duck, swooning, believing everything he told me, walking around with my head in the clouds."

"Do I have his eyes then?" I asked cautiously.

"Yours are the same color, but his were usually oily slick and full of false promises."

"I must have his mouth," I offered. She studied me a moment.

"Yes, I suppose, and your chin is shaped like his. Sometimes, when you smile . . ." She stopped as if coming to her senses.

"Was he always terrible, even in the beginning?" I asked quickly, hoping that she would keep talking about him.

"Oh no. In the beginning he was beguiling, charming and loving. I believed everything he told me, swallowed a feast of his lies eagerly. But," she added, tilting her head, her eyes suddenly growing sad, "you have to remember, I was a young girl without any real family to call my own. Grandmother Cutler had agreed to send me to New York, mostly as a way to get rid of me, and my mother was incapable of helping herself, much less me. I was truly an orphan.

"Then along came this devastatingly handsome, world-famous music star showering his attention on me, promising me I would someday sing alongside him on the world's greatest stages. Why wouldn't I fall head over heels and believe every promise? Like a vulture of love, he sensed that," she added bitterly.

"And no one knew?" I asked intrigued with the mystery. Despite Mommy's hards.h.i.+ps afterward, the adventure of such a romance fascinated me.

"We had to keep everything a secret. He was a teacher and I was his student. Grandmother Cutler had her spies, just hoping to find some reason to hurt me. I even lied to Aunt Trisha until I could lie no longer,"

she said. "I was pregnant with you."

"What did he do when you told him?"

"Oh," she said, brus.h.i.+ng her hair again, "he made new promises. We would get married and have a mother's helper and travel. I would still be a musical star." She paused and smirked. "As long as I continued to keep everything a secret so he could safely finish his tenure at the school.

"Then," she added, gazing into the mirror with her eyes so narrow and cold, it was as if she could see him there, "he simply sneaked off. Trisha came home one afternoon, full of excitement because Michael Sutton had abruptly ended his teaching career, supposedly because he was called of to London to star in a new production.

"All lies," she added, shaking her head. "He had deserted me."

"How horrible," I said, my heart pounding. I wondered what I would have done in such a predicament.

"I couldn't confide in my mother and I k tew Grandmother Cutler would gloat at my disaster. I went mad, wandered the city streets in the midst of a snowstorm and was. .h.i.t by a car. Luckily, it wasn't a serious injury, but it ended all the lies; only afterward, I was left even more vulnerable than before and completely at the mercy of Grandmother Cutler, who moved swiftly to have me transferred into the hands of her witch sister Emily back at their family plantation, The Meadows.

"The rest of it is too awful to tell," she concluded.

"I was born there?" I asked.

"Yes, and stolen away from me. But Jimmy arrived and thank G.o.d, we were able to get you back,"

she said, her eyes so filled with warmth and love that I felt that finding me was the best thing that had ever happened to her. "There now," she added, kissing me on the cheek. "You've made me tell you all of our sad history on your special birthday."

"But you haven't told me all of it, Mommy. And you promised," I cried.

"Oh Christie, what else must I tell you?" she asked, the corners of her mouth drooping.

"Once my father came here, right?"

"Not here," she said. "He called from Virginia Beach. He begged me to bring you to see him, claiming that was all he wanted-to set eyes on his daughter. What he really wanted was to blackmail me and get some money, but my attorney frightened him off.

"To tell you the truth, I felt sorry for him. He was a shadow of the man he had been. Alcohol and wild living had taken its toll both on him and his career."

"Mommy," I said, bursting with a memory, "that old locket I have buried in my box of jewelry . .

." I opened the box and sifted through until I found it and took it out. She nodded. "It was my father who gave this to me, then?" She nodded again.

"Yes, that's all he ever gave you," she said.

"I can't remember him . . . there's just a picture of some sad face. . dark, melancholy eyes . . ."

"It was just an act to get my sympathy," she said coldly.

"You hate him then?" I asked.

She turned and gazed at herself in the mirror for a long moment before replying.

"Not anymore, I suppose. In my mind he is some sort of ghost, the spirit of deceit, perhaps, but also, the ghost of a young girl's fancy, the ghost of her dream lover, the impossible dream lover. It's what happens when we make our frogs into princes," she said. She turned to me abruptly. "Be careful of that, Christie. Now that you have become a beautiful young lady, you will find yourself very popular. I never had a mother to warn me, but I fear that even if I had, I would still have fallen prey to the charm and the smiles and the promises.

"Be smarter than I was. Don't be afraid to love someone with all your heart, but don't give your heart freely: A little skepticism is a good thing, a necessary thing, and if a man really loves you, truly loves you, he will understand your fears and your hesitation and never try to move too quickly. Do you know what I mean?" she asked.

"Yes, Mommy," I said. Even though Mommy and I had never really had a heart-to-heart about s.e.x, I knew she was talking about going too far with s.e.x as she had.

She kissed me again and squeezed my arm gently.

"Now let's see, where were we?" she said, smiling in the mirror. "Too bad Grandmother Laura isn't well enough to be here with us. She would be parading up and down behind us like a coach, telling us what shades of lipstick and makeup to wear, what earrings, how to wear our hair."

"I want to look like you, Mommy," I said.

"Natural, simple, myself. I don't want to put on tons and tons of makeup and impress people with pounds of jewelry."

She laughed.

"Nevertheless," she said, "there are a few things we can do with our looks-fix our eyebrows, a little rouge, the most complimentary shade of lipstick, and perfume." She squirted a drop of her favorite scent down my cleavage and under the towel I had wrapped around me. We both laughed loudly, loudly enough to bring Daddy to our doorway.

"I thought I had wandered into the dorm at some college," he declared, smiling.

"Never mind, James Gary Longchamp, just be sure you put on your tuxedo like you promised. You should be flattered, Christie," Mommy added, "he's doing it only because it's for you. I can't get him to wear a tie otherwise."

"Why a woman can be as comfortable as she wants and a man has to wear a monkey suit is beyond me," Daddy complained. "But," he said quickly when Mommy scowled, "I'm doing it, gladly doing it." He backed out, his hands up.

When he was gone, Mommy's face softened, her glowing eyes and radiant complexion betraying a love that still loomed larger than life.

"Men are babies," she said. "Remember that.

Even the strongest and toughest are more sensitive than they care to admit."

"I know. Gavin's like that," I said.

She stared at me a moment, that angelic smile on her lips.

"You like Gavin very much, don't you?" she asked.

"Yes," I said tentatively. She nodded as if confirming a suspicion.

"Don't you like him, too, Mommy?"