Dark Angel (Casteel 2)

The rain had freshened and cooled the room that had been unbearably stuffy. The dusty shadows of late afternoon enhanced the view, turning the old houses with their fancy porches and verandas softly romantic. I felt disoriented as I stared around the small room with its cheap furnishings. Where was I?

Before I could decide, the door burst open. Dripping wet and complaining

loudly to herself about the weather and the loss of her last pocket change, my sister Fanny, age sixteen, hurtled across the narrow space that separated us and threw herself into my arms.

"Heaven, it's ya! Ya really did come! Ya do kerr 'bout me!" One swift embrace, one peck on my cheek, and she shoved away, to stare down at herself. "Damn rain done gone an messed up my best outfit!" Fanny turned to yank off her sodden red dress before she fell into a chair and tugged off her black, midcalf plastic boots that were beaded with water. "Damned if my feet don't hurt clear up t'my waist."

I froze. Kitty flashed before my eyes. Often she'd used those words, but then, all hill and valley people in the Willies used more or less the same expressions.

"Damned agent hurries me out of here when I planned t'stay an wait fer ya t'show up, and when I get there all they want me t'do is 'read.' I already told 'em I kin't read good yet. I want a dancin' part or a singin' role! But they don't give me nothin' but bit parts without lines . . an' I been poundin' these sidewalks fer almost half a year or more!"

Fanny had always been able to discard her frustration like a garment easy to rip off, and she did that now. Flashing my way her brilliant smile that revealed small, white, even teeth, she turned on her charm. Oh, the lucky Casteel children born with their healthy teeth!

"Ya bring me somethin? Did ya? Tom done wrote an said ya got tons of money t'waste, and ya sent him lots of Christmas gifts, an gifts t'Grandpa. Why Grandpa don't need no money! no gifts! I'm t'one who needs all ya kin spare!"

She had grown thinner and prettier since the last time I saw her, seemingly taller, or perhaps her height was only exaggerated by the tight, black slip she wore, so she resembled a shapely pencil. Her black hair lay in long wet strands on her head, but even wet and disheveled she was still striking enough to turn many a man's eye.

I was confused in my feelings about her--loving her because she was blood kin, feeling I had to love her and take care of her.

The eager greed in her dark eyes repelled me as one by one I took from the large leather shopping bag the gifts I'd brought her. Even before I had the last box from the bag she was ripping open the first gift that she'd seized, heedless of the beautiful and expensive wrappings and ribbons, heedless of anything but what was inside. Fanny squealed when she saw the scarlet dress.

"Oh, oh! Ya brought me jus' what I need fer t'party I'm goin ta next week! A red dancin' dress!"

Tossing the dress aside she ripped into her second present, her squeals rising and falling in the excitement of discovering the scarlet evening bag decorated with wide bands of rhinestones. The red satin slippers were a bit too small, but somehow she managed to jam her feet inside, and her beautiful, exotic face wore a rapt expression when finally she pulled out the white fox stole. "All this ya bought fer me? My own new fur? Oh, Heaven, I neva thought ya liked me, an ya do! Ya'd have t'love me t'give me so much."

Then, I guess for the first time, she really saw me. Her black eyes narrowed until the whites were only glimmers between her heavily lashed lids. I had changed a great deal, my mirrors told me that. The beauty that had been but slight when I lived in the hills had intensified, and a clever hairstylist had worked miracles that flattered my face. My expensive dress clung to ripe curves fitted neatly onto a slender body, and I knew as she looked me over that I had dressed with particular care for this meeting with my sister.

Her dark eyes skimmed down over my body to my shoes, back to my face. She drew in her breath, making a whistling sound. "Well, looky here, my olemaid sister done gone an made herself sexy lookin'."

Hot, embarrassed blood flooded my face. "We don't live in the hills anymore. Girls in Boston don't marry at twelve, thirteen, or fourteen. You could hardly call me an old maid."

"Ya talk funny," she stated, open hostility in her eyes now. "All ya brought me is thins! When ya sent Grandpa money, an he's got no place t'spend it!"

"Look in your purse, Fanny."

Again squealing with delight, she yanked open the delicate small purse that had cost two hundred dollars, and she stared at the ten one-hundred-dollar bills as if she expected more. "Oh, Jesus Christ on t'cross," she breathed, busily counting, "look what ya done gone an' did . . . saved my life. Was broke . . . had me only enough left to finish out this week." She looked up, her dark eyes sparked with red highlights from the dress. "Thank ya, Heaven."

She smiled, and when Fanny smiled her white teeth flashed brilliantly in contrast to her Indian coloring. "Go on now, ya tell me what ya been doin' in ole bean town, where,' hear all t'ladies wear blue stockins an t'men are hotter fer politics than they are fer screwin'!"

I was a fool that day--careless, forgetful of just what kind of girl Fanny was.

Maybe it was because for the first time in her life Fanny really listened attentively to me. And only when it was too late did I falter and curse myself for revealing much that I should have kept secret, especially from Fanny.

By the time I came to my senses, she was curled up on the bed wearing nothing but her black panties and her front-hook bra that she kept

unfastening, then automatically fastening. "Now let me get this queer thin' straight--yer grandma Jillian is sixty-one years ole an looks young? What kind of air they got up there anyway?"

The sharpness in her eyes gave me sanity again, and put me on guard. "Tell me what you've been doing," I hastily said. "What do you hear about your baby?"

Apparently I'd chosen the right topic of diversion. She lit into the subject with a vengeance. "Ole lady Wise sends me snapshots of my baby all t'time. They call her Darcy. Ain't that some pretty name though? She's got black hair . . . oh, gosh, she's some pretty thin'," and then she was jumping up and pawing through a drawer scrambled with clothes, and from a large brown envelope she pulled out twenty or more snapshots showing a baby girl in various stages of development. "Ya sure kin tell who her ma is, kin't ya?" Fanny asked proudly. "Of course she's got some of Waysie, too. Not much, but some."

Waysie? I smiled to think of the good Reverend called "Waysie." But Fanny didn't exaggerate. The little girl I gazed at was a beautiful child. It stunned me that a baby born from such an unholy union would turn out so well. "She's beautiful, Fanny, truly beautiful, and as you said, she has inherited the best of your features, and her father's."

Dramatically Fanny's face distorted. She threw herself on the bed she'd rumpled, crushing her new red dress and shoes and purse that she'd left there, and she began to wail and cry, beating at the cheap pillows with both fists.

"It ain't no good here, Heaven! Ain't at all like I thought it'd be when I were a youngun in t'hills! Those directors an' producers at t'Opry like my looks an' hate my voice! They tell me t'go an take voice lessons, an go back t'school, an learn how t'talk, or betta yet, they tell me t'study dancin' so I don't have ta say nothin' ! I went one day an took a lesson t'learn grace like they said I had t'have, an it hurt so bad stretching my muscles I neva went back! I thought all ya had t'know how t'do was kick high, an ya know I've been kicking high all my life! An my singin' voice makes 'em screw up their faces like it hurts their ears. They say I got too much twang! I thought country singers couldn't have too much of anythin'! Heaven, they say I've got a great face an body, but I'm only a mediocre talent-- what do they mean by that? If I'm medium bad, that means I'm medium good an' I could get betta!

"But I don't want it no more! It hurts t'hear 'em laugh at me. An' now all my money is gone. It went so fast once I got used t'spendin it. I used t'sleep on top of it. Fraid somebody'd take it. Iffen ya hadn't come I'd have me only fifteen dollars t'finish out t'week, an then I were plannin' on hittin' t'streets an' peddlin' my wares." -