Cinnamon (Shooting Stars 1)

He smiled and shrugged.

"Maybe I should go out for the play, too."

"Maybe," I said and watched him get into his car and drive away.

Then I turned and reentered the house. Grandmother Beverly was standing in the shadows. She stepped into the light so that the glow of the chandelier washed the darkness off her face. It glowed like ivory, her eves twirling with anger.

"Your father will hear of this," she promised.

"Yes," I said. "and when you tell him, ask him what's worse, what I did or what he did? Ask him if adultery is worse," I threw back at her.

She raised her hands to the base of her throat.

"That's... a lie, but even so," she added quickly. "you're still a minor and..."

"I'm not a child. Grandmother. A hundred years ago, women were married and had children by my age. I'm a woman and what makes me age is not time. What makes me age is what the so-called adults around me do, to me, in spite of me. They won't let us be children. They kill the child in us quickly and then they ask us to be grownups like they are.

"I'd rather live in my attic," I spat and left her still mostly in the shadows, glaring out at me like some owl in the darkness waiting for easier prey.

I sprawled on my bed and gazed up at the ceiling until I felt my heart slow and my body calm down. Then I reached for the script Miss Hamilton had given me. It was a play entitled Death Takes a Holiday. I was familiar with the story. It was one of Mommy's favorites, actually.

A young woman is courted by a handsome man who turns out to be Death on holiday and when it's time for him to leave, he tells her who he is and she reveals she always knew and she's still willing to go with him.

Romantic slop?

Maybe.

But at the moment. I would gladly put my hand into his and run off. I could do this part well. I thought.

I could do it so well. I'd frighten myself.

6 Seizing the Stage

Grandmother Beverly didn't tell Daddy about Clarence and me. She had a better way and a far more effective place to snap her punitive whip. Now it was Clarence's turn to be called out of class, only for him it was to meet with his father. Because Clarence didn't return for his afternoon classes. I didn't find out about it until I returned from visiting with Mommy. Instinctively, I knew something terrible was going on. Every time I thought about him, about our teacher calling out his name and telling him to report to the office, I felt my heart thump along like a flat tire.

When I drove into the clinic parking lot and entered the building. I tried to push my anxieties under a b

lanket of smiles. The last thing I wanted to do was lay my problems at Mommy's hospital bed. For her sake, everything had to look pleasant. She was a weakened vessel sailing in a tumultuous sea. Adding the weight of my problems to her own might sink her for good.

She had just finished having a cup of tea and was still sitting up in her bed. I could see from the brightness in her eyes that she had crossed through the darkness between her heart-breaking memories and the present. She still looked quite fragile, her lips trembling slightly, like the lips of someone on the verge of opening a dam of tears, but there was a significant change in her demeanor. It brightened my own spirits and I rushed to her side.

"Mommy, you're better," I cried and threw my arms around her. I kissed her and she did start to shed some tears.

"I was asking for you. Cinnamon," she said. "They told me some silly story about my younger sister coming here."

I laughed, and held her hand. "That was me, Mommy. I pretended to be your sister the first time I visited."

She shook her head.

"-Why?"

"I don't know." I said shifting my eyes guiltily.

She stared at me, her own eyes filling with understanding.

"Who wants to have a mother in here?" she asked gazing around. "I know how you feel." She sighed, closed her eyes and lowered herself to her pillow. "I lost the baby. Cinnamon. I lost her."

"It wasn't your fault. Mommy. You did everything the doctor told you to do."