lieved."
"Did you ever hear from Lloyd again?" Jade asked.
"I received a letter from him about a month later. The only reason I got it was I happened to be there when the mail arrived. I'm sure my mother would have torn it up if she had found it first. It was full of apologies. He said he was doing all right and at least there were no Beverlys where he was. I wrote back, but I had to do it secretly, of course. I told him to send his next letter care of Darlene Stratton, but I haven't heard from him since.
"Things are more or less back to normal at my house. My mother is on her tenth or eleventh new male acquaintance, as she calls them, but there are still frequent meetings of the MHA at our house. There seems to be more of them, too. They cackle so much and so loudly, I have to turn my music up to drown them out.
"For a while afterward, my father was a little better about keeping his dates with me. We had some nice weekends together, one trip up to Santa Barbara and one to San Diego. I even began to enjoy Ariel's company, too. She doesn't seem as worried about my behavior. I know a lot of people started to think of me as reckless and maybe even as dangerous as Lloyd. Who knows what I would do?
"Ariel's just . . . air molded into this soft, pretty person. Funny, but now I keep waiting for Daddy to hurt her and I feel sorry for her. He has started to voice little complaints about her, about the way she keeps the apartment, her inability to boil water, her vapid conversation.
"That's right, Daddy used Charles Allen's very word, 'vapid.'
"Maybe Mommy is right. Maybe all men are monsters, even daddies."
I glanced at Doctor Marlowe.
"I guess I still suffer from a great deal of anger, right, Doctor Marlowe?"
"It's a concern of mine," she admitted.
I smiled at the others.
"Recognizing your problem is the first step toward solving it," I recited.
Jade laughed and Star relaxed her lips with an impish gleam in her eyes. Cathy looked nervously at Doctor Marlowe.
"Well," Doctor Marlowe said, "this has been a good beginning. Wouldn't you all agree? Cathy?" she asked, spotlighting her.
Cathy looked at me and nodded.
"Yes," she said softly.
We heard a small rap on the door and looked up to see Emma.
"I don't mean to interrupt, Doctor Marlowe, but you told me to let you know when their rides arrived. Jade's chauffeur is here and Star's grandmother and Cathy's mother have arrived as well."
"I have to call my mother," I said.
"You can use the phone on my desk, Misty," Doctor Marlowe said.
Everyone rose.
"Shall we say the same time tomorrow then?" Doctor Marlowe asked.
"Whose turn is it tomorrow?" Star asked.
"How about you?" Doctor Marlowe countered.
Star shrugged, gazing at me. I dialed my mother and punched four when the answering machine began. It forwarded the call to her cellular. When she said hello, I heard laughter around her.
"I'm ready. It's time. Where are you?" I asked.
"Oh, we were just finishing. I'll be right there, honey. How did it go?"
"Peachy keen," I said. "I'm cured."
She laughed nervously and repeated she was on her way