“I will.”
“Maybe. You’d better. After my classes, I’m scouting a new hunting ground for us, the setting for your full initiation. It’s a club about fifty miles away near San Bernardino. I’ll be with you, but it might be my last outing for Daddy in California, or anywhere, for that matter.”
“You’ll really be on your own after that?”
“I’ll be on my own,” she said.
“And that doesn’t frighten you?”
“Frighten me? Hell, no. It’s my destiny, and the same will someday be true for you.”
“I still don’t understand that.”
“I’ve told you. You will. Okay, if you want me, I’ll be in my room showing Marla how to fix her hair and put on makeup. I’m turning her into a little femme fatale.”
“Why are you doing all this with her so soon? She’s years younger than I was, and I thought it would be my responsibility to prepare her.”
“Daddy’s orders,” she said. “Don’t look so worried about it. Everything will be just fine if you do what you were meant to do and nothing else.” She flashed a cold smile and left.
Maybe it was my experience with Buddy or simply something newly born inside me, but whatever it was, it enhanced my sense of loneliness. I had never felt more like an outsider than I did at that moment. When I walked through our home, everything suddenly looked strange to me. I felt as if I had entered someone else’s home. It occurred to me that except for the old piano I played, there was nothing in the house that called to me and only me. There was nothing I cherished and would want to bring with me when I left. What were my possessions, really? My clothes? Hardly. Most of them were handed down to me from Ava, and the things Daddy bought for me I was expected someday to hand down to Marla. What was mine, really mine?
There was only one thing that came to mind, and that was the picture of the woman who could be my mother. No one knew I had it, and that secret felt good to hold and to keep. I owned something of my past, something that told me more about who I was. It was my icon, my most religious possession.
I returned to my room and took the picture out. For a while, I simply stared at her face, as if I hoped it would somehow come to life and she would tell me exactly what I was to do. How I wished and hoped she was truly my mother. I needed her. I knew exactly what I would ask her if she were really there.
Should I see Buddy again? Can I fall in love? I imagined a conversation with her.
Had you fallen in love, Mommy? I loved the sound of the word Mommy.
Yes.
Was it poison, Mommy?
Oh, no, no. It filled me with hope and made every sunny day brighter, every color richer, everything I smelled and ate vibrant. It was truly being born again. I never felt so young and alive, Lorelei. It was far, far from poison.
That’s the way I feel right now when I think of Buddy, when I’m with Buddy, Mommy.
Then that’s good, Lorelei. Don’t lose it.
Where are you, Mommy? Why did you let me go? Did Daddy do the same thing to you that he did to Ava’s mother and the others? Will I ever see you, talk to you?
There was no reply. She became simply a photograph again, flat and cold. There was nothing to hug, no cheeks to kiss, no scent of hair to smell, and no lips to feel on my cheeks. Yet I embraced the photograph and held it against my heart.
The sound of footsteps jolted me. I quickly hid the picture and turned just as Ava opened my door.
“Who are you talking to?” she demanded.
“Talking? No one. Who’s here to talk to?”
“I was sure I heard you talking,” she said. I should have remembered how keen her hearing was now.
“I was probably thinking aloud,” I admitted.
“You weren’t on the cell phone?”
“What? Hardly,” I said.
She continued to stare suspiciously.