Misty (Wildflowers 1)

"So who's going to start?" Star demanded

Doctor Marlowe looked at Cathy who turned even whiter. She glanced at Jade, passed her dark eyes over Star and settled on me.

"I'd like Misty to start," she said. "She's been with me the longest. That okay with you, Misty?"

"Sure," I said. I looked at the others. "Once upon a time I was born. My parents tried to give me back, but it was too late."

Jade laughed and Star smiled widely. Cathy's eyes widened.

"Come on," Doctor Marlowe urged. "Let's make good use of our time."

She gave me that look down her nose she often gives me when she wants me to try to be serious.

I took a deep breath.

"Okay," I said. I sat a bit forward. "I'll begin. I don't mind telling my story." I looked at them all and smiled "Maybe someone will make it into a movie and it'll win an Academy Award."

2

I really can start my story with once upon a time because once upon a time, I truly believed I was a little princess living in a fairy tale. My mother and I still live in this Beverly Hills mansion where I grew up. Some people would call it a castle because it's got this round tower with a high, conical roof. That part houses the main door.

"It's a big house. If it wasn't for the intercom, my mother would have a strained throat daily trying to call to me, and if I don't reply when she uses the intercom, she'll call me on my own phone. I've got call waiting so when I'm talking to someone, she'll call and say, 'Misty, I need you downstairs. Get off the phone. I know you're on it.'

"Of course, she's right. I'm usually on the phone. When we were a happy little family with smiles floating like balloons through the house, my daddy used to tell me I was born with a telephone receiver attached to my ear and that was why my birth was so difficult for my mother."

I paused and looked at Doctor Marlowe. "I don't remember if I ever told you how much trouble I was for my mother when it came time for me to show my face. She was in labor over twenty hours. Sometimes, when she's reminding me about my difficult birth, it goes to twenty-four hours. Once it was twenty- eight." I looked at the other girls. "I told her that proves I didn't want to be here."

I threw my hands up and bounced on the sofa. "'No, no,' I was screaming in my mother's womb. 'You doctors keep your paws off me.' "

Jade and Star laughed. Even Cathy cracked a small smile.

"You've told me that, but not as colorfully," Doctor Marlowe said.

"Yeah, well it's true. She had to be stitched up afterward as well. I mean, she loves sitting there and describing it all in gruesome detail, the vomit, the blood, the pain, all of it."

"Why do you think she does that?" Doctor Marlowe asked.

"So, we are asking questions," I fired back at her. She laughed.

"Professional habit," she said.

"She just wants me to feel guilty and sorry for her so I'll take her side more against my father," I said. "She's always telling me how much easier men have it, especially in a marriage. Well? That's why, isn't it?"

Doctor Marlowe kept her face like a blank slate as usual. I didn't need her to agree anyway. I knew it was true.

"Anyway, I once thought I was a princess because I could have anything I wanted. I still get everything I want, maybe even more since their divorce. My mother's always complaining about the amount of alimony and child support she gets. It's never enough and whenever my daddy gives me something, my mother groans and moans that he has enough money for that, but not enough for decent alimony. The truth is I hate taking anything. It just causes more static. Sometimes, there's so much static, I have to put my hands over my ears!" I exclaimed.

I did it right then and everyone stared at me. After a moment the feeling passed. I took a deep breath and continued.

"Sometimes, I think about my life in colors."

I saw Jade raise her eyebrow. Maybe she did the same thing, I thought.

"When I was little and we were the perfect family, everything was bright pink or bright yellow. After their breakup and all the trouble, the world turned gray and everything faded. I thought I was like Cinderella and the clock had hit midnight or something. There was a gong and a puff and I was no longer a princess. I was

"A what?" Doctor Marlowe asked.

I looked at the others. "An orphan with parents."