Petals on the Wind (Dollanganger 2)

He smiled and leaned back, then turned to me. "Okay, if you want to talk. I think you and I are a lot alike, even if you won't admit it. Madame and Georges are my mother and father, but they have never seen me as a son, especially my father. My father sees me as an extension of himself. If I become a great dancer, it won't be to my credit; it will be just because I am his son and bear his name. So I put an end to that idea by changing my name. I made it up, just like any performer does when he wants to change his name

"You know how many baseball games I've played? None! They wouldn't let me. Football was out of the question. Besides, they kept me so busy practicing ballet positions, I was too tired for anything else. Georges never let me call him Father when I was little. After a while I wouldn't call him Father if he got down on his knees and begged. I tried my damndest to please him, and I never could. He'd always find some flaw, some minute mistake I'd made to keep any performance from being perfect. So, when I make it, I'm making it on my own steam, and nobody is going to know he is my father! Or that Marisha is my mother. So don't go shooting off your mouth to the rest of the class. They don't know. Isn't it funny? I throw a tantrum if he even dares to mention he has a son, and I refuse to dance. That kills him, so he let me go on to New York, thinking I wouldn't make it without his name. But I have made it, and without his help I think that kills him Now tell me about you. Why are you living with that doctor and not your own parents?"

"My parents are dead," I said, annoyed he'd ask. "Dr. Paul was a friend of my father, so he took us in. He felt sorry for us and didn't want us to go into an orphanage."

"Lucky you," he said with a certain sourness. "I'd never be so lucky." Then he leaned over until his forehead was pressed against mine and our lips were only inches apart. I could feel his breath hot on my face. "Cathy, I don't want to say and do anything wrong with you. I want to make you the best thing that's ever happened to me. I am thirteenth in a long line of male dancers who have married ballerinas, most of them. How do you think that makes me feel? Not lucky, you can bet. I've been in New York since I was eighteen, and last February I turned twenty. That's two years, and still I'm not a star. With you I could be. I've got to prove to Georges I'm the best, and better than he ever was. I've never told anyone this before, but I hurt my back when I was a kid, trying to lift an engine that was too heavy. It bothers me all the time, but still I dance on. And it's not just because you're small and don't weigh much. I know other dancers who are smaller and lighter, but something about your proportions seems to balance just right when I lift. Or maybe it's what you do to your body that adjusts to my hands. . . . Whatever it is you do, you fit me to a tee. Cathy, come with me to New York, please."

"You wouldn't take advantage of me if I did?" "I'd be your guardian angel."

"New York is so big. . .

"I know it like the palm of my hand. Soon you'll know it just as well."

"There's my sister and my brother. I don't want to leave them yet."

"Eventually you'll have to. The longer you stay the harder it will be to make the break. Grow up, Cathy, be your own person. You never are when you stay home and let others dominate you." He looked away, his scowl bitter. I felt sorry for him, and touched too.

"Maybe. Let me think about it more."

Chris was on the upper veranda outside my bedroom when I went in to undress. When I saw him out there in his pajamas, his slouched shoulders drew me to him

"How'd it go?" he asked without looking at me.

Nervously my hands fluttered around. "Okay, I guess. We had wine with dinner Julian got a little drunk, I think. Maybe I did too."

He turned to stare in my eyes. "I don't like him, Cathy! I wish he'd stay in New York and leave you alone! From what I hear from all the girls or boys in your dance company, Julian has claimed you so now no other dancer will ask you out. Cathy, he's from New York. Those guys up there move fast, and you're only fifteen!" He moved to cradle me in his arms.

"Who are you dating?" I asked with a sob in my throat. "Don't tell me you're not seeing any girls."

His cheek was against mine when he answered slowly, "There's no girl I've met who can compare to you.'

"How are your studies going?" I asked, hoping to take his mind off me.

"Great. When I'm not thinking of all I have to do in the first year of med school--gross anatomy, micro- anatomy and neuroanatomy--I get around to prepping for college."

"What do you do in your spare time?"

"What spare time? There's none left when I finish worrying about what's happening to you! I like school, Cathy. I'd really enjoy it if you weren't constantly on my mind. I wait for the weekends when I can see you and Carrie again."

"Oh, Chris . . . you've got to try to forget me and find someone else."

But just one long look into his tortured eyes revealed that what had been started so long ago wasn't going to be easy to stop.

I had to try to find someone else and then he'd know it was over, forever over. My thoughts took wing to Julian who was striving so to prove himself a better dancer than his father. How like me, who had to be better in all ways than my mother.

I was ready the next time Julian flew down. When he asked me for a date, this time I didn't hedge. It might as well be him; we did have the same goals. Then, after the movie and a soft drink in a club for me, and beer for him, he again drove to the lover's lane every city seemed to have. I allowed him this time to do a bit more than just kiss me, but too soon he was breathing hot and fast, and touching me with so much expertise that soon I was responding even when I didn't want to. He pushed me back on the seat. Suddenly I realized what he was about to do--and I grabbed up my handbag and began to beat him on his face. "Stop! I told you before, go slower!"

"You asked for it!" he raged. "You can't lead me on, then turn me off. I despise a tease."

I thought of Chris and began to cry. "Julian, please. I like you, honest I do. But you don't give me a chance to fall in love with you. Please stop coming at me so fast."

He seized my arm and ruthlessly twisted it behind my back until I cried out from the pain. I thought he meant to break it. But he released it just when I was about to scream.

"Look, Cathy. I'm half in love with you already. But no girl strings me along like I'm some country bumpkin. There are plenty of girls willing to give out--so I don't need you as much as I thought--not for anything!"

Of course he didn't need me. Nobody really needed me but Chris and Carrie, though Chris needed me in the wrong way. Momma had twisted and warped him, and turned him toward me, and now he couldn't turn away. I couldn't forgive her for that. She had to pay for everything wrong she'd caused. If he and I had sinned, she had made us.

I thought and thought that night of how I could make Momma pay, and I came up with the exact price that would hurt most. It wouldn't be money, she had too much of that. It would have to be something she prized more than money. Two things--her honorable reputation which was a bit tarnished from marrying her half-uncle, and her young husband. Both would be gone when I was through with her.