Misty (Wildflowers 1)

"Everything is in the hands of their lawyers,' he claimed."

"Tell me about it," Jade said, twisting her mouth so that the corner cut into her cheek. "I think my mother's lawyer is after more than just his fee. He'd love to have my mother in his hands."

Star laughed. Cathy's smile of amazement lit her eyes. I saw her whole body relax. For the first time this morning, she actually looked happy.

"I didn't think Charles Allen would say anything else to me because of the way he had rushed off, but at the end of school that day, he was waiting for me in the hallway and he just started talking as if we were still in the middle of a conversation.

"'Although every divorce has to be different by its very nature,' he declared like some professor lecturing on the subject, 'I'm sure we share a great deal in common '

'Excuse me?' I replied. Are we speaking the same language? I wondered.

"'I knew my parents were going to get divorced one day. For years- my father has had a mistress and my mother has known it but pretended not to,' he continued. 'Of course, I feel confident that she has had her assignations as well.'

"'Her what?' I asked.

"'Affairs,' he said with that dry tone. He has a way of lifting the right corner of his mouth when he's making a nasty comment. I called it his Elvis lip. He said he didn't know what I meant, but I knew he did. Charles Allen is very. . . sneaky," I said. "He'd probably call it subtle. As you can see, if I got anything at all out of knowing him, I got a better vocabulary."

"Were you in love with him?" Cathy asked. The words just seemed to leap out of her mouth. They even surprised her and she looked about with terror after she had said them.

I looked at the others and then quickly at Doctor Marlowe, who appeared very pleased about it.

"I thought I might fall in love with him. Why? Are you in love with someone?"

She shook her head quickly and looked down. "Because if you want, stop talking and you can tell us about it."

"All right, Misty," Doctor Marlowe said.

"I don't want to stifle anyone, Doctor Marlowe. if Cathy can't wait to tell us about herself. . ."

"Stop being mischievous," she warned.

"Am I being mischievous?" I asked Jade. She laughed and nodded.

"What do you think, Star?"

"I think if you're going to tell your story, tell it already. Afterward," she added, "we'll decide if you are mischievous or not. But if I had to vote now," she quickly added, "I'd say you had some of the devil in you."

All of us laughed, even Cathy, but her laugh was short, insecure, careful. Who burned the smiles off her face? I wondered.

"I didn't really think that Charles Allen and I would become an item just because we both had parents who were into divorcing. The gossip about Charles Allen was that he had an older girlfriend who was a freshman at the University of Southern California. What I found out was he had a cousin in her first year at USC, but there was nothing romantic about it.

"He has his own car, a BMW convertible. I learned later that he has a trust left to him by his grandfather on his father's side. I don't know how much exactly, but it's pretty obvious that it's a lot of money. He offered to drive me home. I thought why not and it started.

"On the way to my house we talked about our parents a little. It was easy to see he wasn't all that close with either his father or his mother. His mother is an elegant looking lady, tall and thin, but a little wide in the hips. My mother would blame that on her childbearing and say, 'See, that's why I didn't want to have another.'

"Although Charles Allen's mother isn't as concerned about her looks as my mother is, she looked like she was the type who was never surprised."

"Surprised?" Star asked.

"What I mean is no matter what time of day anyone sees her, his mother would always be stylishly dressed. Charles Allen said she was involved in various charities and sat on the boards of a number of non-profit organizations. He thought it was ironic that she gave so much of herself to the sick and the downtrodden and so little to him

"Like me, he had a nanny when he was little. After that, he was mostly cared for by maids and butlers and chauffeurs. He said his parents even hired people to play with him One day, he said he felt as if his parents were doing all they could to avoid being with him 'Keep me occupied and away from them,' he muttered, 'that was their motto.' "

"Don't they like their own son?" Star asked.

I shrugged. "I think they just don't like children, their own included."

"Rich people make me sick," she said.