Secrets of the Morning (Cutler 2)

"Oh, how sad," Agnes moaned. "Your mother is such a pretty woman. I can't believe she's so ill."

"No one can," I said dryly, but Agnes missed my sarcasm.

"Did you two have a nice holiday then?" she asked, looking from me to Trisha.

"Yes, we did," Trisha said quickly.

"Mrs. Liddy has made something special for everyone's return. Oh dear," she said, wringing the handkerchief in her hands again. "I was so worried," she muttered and started away.

"She's getting worse," Trisha commented as we looked after her. "She got all dressed up in that old costume in preparation for some terrible scene. Every time a new thought or mood crosses her, she digs into her chest of old costumes and finds something to fit her temperament."

"I feel sorry for her, but she didn't have to become Grandmother Cutler's spy. I don't like lying, but I had no choice," I said.

Trisha nodded and we continued up the stairs to our room to put our things away. Of course, Trisha was fascinated to know what it had been like for me to have lived with a man in his apartment for so many days. She asked all sorts of questions and at least twice, I almost said something that would have given Michael away.

"My mother always says that nights are for fantasy and romance, but when you wake up in the morning and the man beside you is still snoring, reality comes crashing down and pops the bubble," Trisha said. "Did that happen to you?"

"Oh, no. Mornings were just as wonderful as the nights. I made us a big breakfast and we talked and talked with the same excitement. He has so much to say; he's been everywhere in the world."

"Why does he travel so much?" she asked quickly. "Oh, it's his . . . his business."

"What is his business?"

"Something to do with importing," I said quickly.

"You're so lucky," she said. "You're talented and pretty and now you have a mature love affair."

"You're talented and pretty, too, Trisha, and I'm sure you will be in love very soon, too," I predicted. She thought about it and then shrugged with that happy little smile on her face.

"Erik Richards called me three times over the holidays."

"He did?"

"We're going to dinner this coming weekend. At the Plaza! I think he's going to ask me to go steady," she said.

"What are you going to do?"

Going steady sounded so childish to me now, but I didn't want to say anything that would make Trisha feel bad. Michael and I were talking about a life together, a life of performing and loving. Wearing your boyfriend's high school ring around your neck seemed something girls years and years younger than me would do. But Trisha wasn't younger than me.

"He is very good looking," she said. "I think I might just say yes," she concluded, her eyes sparkling with mischief. We laughed and hugged each other and went down to dinner.

Mrs. Liddy had prepared a dinner that rivaled any Thanksgiving spread. Agnes, who was now dressed in a very youthful white dress that had large puffed sleeves and an embroidered collar and hem, with a string of pearls around her neck that would choke a horse, made one of her short, dramatic speeches telling us how thankful she was we were all back safely from our holidays.

"And together again, a family united and ready to face anything the hard cruel world throws at us."

We all looked at each other. It was definitely a speech from one of the melodramas she had performed in during her younger days. Trisha was positive the dress was a costume from that very play.

But I didn't care. Nothing now, not Agnes's eccentricities, not Madame Steichen's temper, not even Grandmother Cutler's hateful actions could do anything to detract from my days of sunshine and happiness. I felt secure. I had been made invincible by the love between Michael and me. It was the fortress that would protect me from what Agnes called, "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune," which, she always reminded us, was a quote from Shakespeare.

But there were "slings and arrows" I hadn't anticipated, falling on my bubble of joy and romantic bliss just the way Trisha's mother had described they might. The weight of reality was far too heavy for fantasy to bear.

It began the morning of the third day after our return from the Thanksgiving holiday. I woke up deathly sick and vomited for twenty minutes. Trisha was afraid I had caught the stomach flu and was about to inform Agnes and ask her to arrange for medical treatment when she asked me the question that dropped icicles down my spine and nailed my feet to the floor.

"You haven't missed a period, have you?" I didn't have to reply. She saw the answer in my face. "Oh Dawn, how long h

as it been?"

"Nearly six weeks," I cried out in dismay. "I just didn't think about it. I've been irregular most of my life."