Petals on the Wind (Dollanganger 2)

She took a long time before she spoke again, keeping me in suspense, on edge. I picked up my coat, trying to signal to her that I was trying to leave.

"Nice fur coat," she commented. "I suppose my brother gave you that. I've heard he's throwing away his money like a drunken sailor. Giving all he's saved to three nobodies who came on a bus and took over his life." She laughed low and sarcastically, the way women of culture know how to laugh. "Now I know why, seeing you; though I've heard from others you were pretty enough to make any man foolish. Still, I had no idea a child such as you could look so voluptuous, so sensual and skinny all at the same time. You're a peculiar blend, Miss Dahl. All innocence and sophistication too. Such a brew must be heady intoxication for a man of my brother's type." She chortled. "There's nothing like the combination of youth, long blond hair, a beautiful face and full breasts to bring out the beast even in the best of men." She sighed, as if pitying me. "Yes, that's the trouble with being too young and beautiful. Men are made their worst selves. Paul's made an ass of himself before, you know. You're not his first little playmate; though he's never given one a fur coat before, and a diamond ring. Just as if he could possibly marry you."

So this was Paul's sister, Amanda--the queer sister who knitted him sweaters and mailed them off Parcel Post, but refused to speak to him on the streets.

Amanda got up and prowled around me. A cat on the stalk, ready to spring. Her perfume was Oriental, musky, heavy, as she moved in on what she must think a timid prey. "Such flawless skin you have," she said, reaching to stroke my cheek, "so firm, like porcelain. You won't keep that skin, or all that hair once you're thirty-five or so, and long before then he'll have tired of you. He likes his women young, very young. He likes them pretty, intelligent and talented. I have to acknowledge he has good taste, if not good sense. You see," she smiled again that hateful smile, "I really don't give a damn what he does as long as it stays within the limits of decency and doesn't reflect on my life."

"Get out of here," I managed to say. "You don't know your brother at all. He's an honorable, generous man and in no way could he harm your life.'

Pityingly she smiled.

"My dear child, don't you realize you are ruining his career? Are you fool enough to think this affair has gone unnoticed? In a town the size of Clairmont everybody knows everything. Though Henny can't talk, the neighbors do have eyes and ears. Gossip, that's all I hear, gossip--throwing away his money on juvenile delinquents who take advantage of his good nature, and soon enough he'll be broke, and he won't have a medical practice left!" She was heating up now, and I feared any moment she'd rake my face with her long red nails.

"Get out of here!" I ordered hotly. "I know all about you, Amanda, for gossip has reached my ears too! Your trouble is you think your brother owes you the rest of his life because you worked to help put him through college and medical school. But I used to keep his books, and he's paid you back, plus ten percent interest--so he doesn't owe you anything! You're a liar to try and make him seem small in my eyes--for you can't do that! I love him, and he loves me, and nothing you say can stop our marriage!"

She laughed again, hard and mirthless, then her face turned hard, determined "Don't order me to do anything! When I'm ready to go, I'll leave--and that's when I've had my say! I flew up here just to see his newest little paramour, his dancing doll . . . and believe me you won't be his last. Why Julia used to tell me he--"

I hotly interrupted, "Get out! Don't you dare say one word more about him! I know about Julia. He's told me. If she drove him to others, I don't blame him; she wasn't a real wife; she was a housekeeper, a cook--not a wife!"

Merrily she laughed--God how she liked to laugh! She was enjoying this, someone competitive enough to fight back, someone she could claw. "Fool girl! That's the same old line every married man passes on to his newest conquest. Julia was one of the dearest, sweetest, kindest and most wonderful women who ever lived. She did everything she could to please him. Her one fault lay in the fact she couldn't give him all the sex he wanted, or the kind of sex he demanded, so yes, in a way, he did have to turn to others--like you. I'll admit most married men fool around, but they still don't do what he did!"

I hated the spiteful witch now, really detested her. "What's he done that was so terrible? Julia drowned his three-year-old son--there's nothing on earth that would make me take the life of my child! I don't need revenge that much!"

"I agree," she said, back to mild tone now. "That was an insane thing for Julia to do. Scotty was such a handsome, lovely boy--but Paul drove her to do what she did. I understand her reasoning. Scotty was the thing Paul loved most. When you seek to destroy someone emotionally, you kill what he loves best."

Oh! The horror of her!

"He wears a hair shirt, doesn't he?" she asked in a gloating way, her dark, pretty eyes glowing with satisfaction. "He tortures himself, blames himself, longs for his son, and then you came along, and he put a baby in you. Don't think the whole town doesn't know about your abortion! We know! We know everything!"

"You lie!" I shrieked. "It wasn't an abortion! I had a D & C because my periods weren't regular!"

"It's on the hospital records," she said to me smugly. "You miscarried a two-headed embryo with three legs--twins who didn't separate properly. You poor thing, don't you know a D & C is an abortion procedure?"

Drowning, drowning, I was going under, black swirls of water all around . . . two headed? Three legs? Oh, God--the monster baby I so dreaded! But Paul hadn't touched me then, not Paul. "Don't cry," she soothed, and I yanked from the touch of her large hand that flashed with diamonds, "all men are beasts, and I guess he didn't tell you. But don't you see, you can't marry him. I'm doing this or your own good. You're beautiful, young, gifted, and to live in sin with a married man is a pure waste. Save yourself while you can."

Tears blurred my vision. I rubbed at my eyes as a child would, feeling a child in a crazy adult world as I stared dully at her bland, smooth face. "Paul's not a married man. Paul's a widower. Julia's dead. She killed herself the day she drowned Scotty."

Like a mother she patted my shoulder. "No, child, Julia is not dead. Julia lives in 'an institution where my brother put her after she drowned Scotty. She's still his legal wife, insane or not."

She thrust into my slack hand several snapshots, pictures of a thin, pitiful-looking woman lying on a hospital bed, her face in profile in both. A woman ravaged by suffering. Her eyes wide open and staring blankly into space, and her dark hair lay like strings on the pillows. Yet I'd seen too many pictures of Julia not to recognize her, even as changed as she was.

"By the way," said Paul's sister, leaving me with the snapshots, "I enjoyed the performance. You're a marvelous dancer. And that young man--he's spectacular. Take him. He's obviously in love with you." She left then. Left me in a daze of broken dreams and floundering in despair. How was I ever going to learn to swim in an ocean of deceit?

Julian took me to the big bash which was being thrown in our honor. Hordes of pe

ople surrounded us, congratulated us, said so many flattering words. They meant nothing to me. All I could think was Paul had lied to me, lied to me, took me when he knew he was married--lies, I hated lies!

Never had Julian been sweeter or more considerate. He held me close in one of those slow, old-fashioned dances, so close I could feel every hard muscle of his lean body, and the maleness of him pressed hard, hard. "I love you, Cathy," he whispered. "I want you so much I can't sleep at night. I want to hold you, make love to you. If you don't let me soon, I'll go mad." He buried his face in my piled up hair "I've never had anyone brand new, like you. Cathy, please, please love me, love me."

His face swam before me. He seemed dreamgodlike, perfect, and yet, and yet. . . "Julian, what if I told you I wasn't brand new?"

"But you are! I know you are!"

"How can you tell?" I giggled drunkenly. "Is there something written on my face that says I am still a virgin?"

"Yes," he said firmly. "Your eyes. Your eyes tell me you don't know what it's like to be loved."

"Julian, I fear you don't know much."