Cat (Wildflowers 4)

I was quiet, thinking

"Yes, it is," I said. "It's my fault; it's my mother's fault and it's my father's fault."

I looked up at them.

"I wanted to be loved, to be wanted. There were other voices inside me, screaming at me, but I kept them smothered. I thought maybe Daddy would make me a special girl. Maybe I'd become as sophisticated as some of the snobs at my school. Maybe the boys would really like me and maybe I could be the most popular girl there. I'd surprise them all, I thought. With Daddy's help, I'd surprise everyone, even myself.

'Why can't I be beautiful? I'm tired of being a freak and feeling odd and different and hiding myself. I'm tired of being ashamed of who I am and what I look like. Daddy made me feel pretty and mature and he would make me better than them.

'Shut up,' I told the voices inside me that told me what we were doing was wrong. 'Keep still and don't dare try to stop me, not now, not ever.'

"Maybe I was bad then. Maybe I was just as bad as he was. I went to sleep that night anxious, and yet excited about the dance and what boys I might meet there."

I looked up at Doctor Marlowe.

"Maybe that's why," I said referring to the big question we had left hanging between us after all my sessions with her to date. "Maybe this is the reason why I don't hate him as much as my mother wants me to hate him, as much as everyone wants me to hate him"

She nodded, a soft smile on her face.

I looked back at the girls.

Yes, I thought, this is good. I'm glad I'm here. I'll go on no matter what I see in their faces and in their eyes.

8

" As usual, by the time I rose and went down to breakfast the next day, my father had already gone to work. I had had very strange dreams all night. They were full of startling colors and strange places and faces. I remember seeing myself walking through a field of multicolored clouds that then floated away to uncover a field where arms and hands appeared to be growing out of the ground like stalks of corn. I twisted and turned, avoiding them. They reached out toward me as if they had eyes as well as fingers and I had to move and spin to avoid being seized.

"I guess I literally turned and twisted in my bed too, because when I woke, I actually ached all over, especially right here in my waist and in the back of my legs," I explained showing them.

"I was afraid my mother would take one look at me that morning, see how upset I was, and fire a slew of sharp questions, but she was occupied with her electric stove. Something was wrong and she was complaining about the way modern appliances simply created more complicated problems.

"Still, I felt strange after what Daddy and I had done, and I probably would have felt even more anxious about it if it wasn't for a conversation I overheard at lunch. Debbie Hartley was talking about her newest boyfriend Alex Lomax, she was

complaining about him, actually. Debbie is one of the most popular girls at school. Everyone believes she has had the most experience with boys, so when she says something about dating or some boy, the girls are all glued to her every word as if she was spouting gospel. I was no exception.

"I sat just within listening range and tried to act as if I wasn't interested, but she began by describing how Alex had tricked her into going for a ride in his father's new Cadillac the night before and then parked in some deserted dump, knowing all along that his intention was to get her into the- backseat, 'Where,' she said, 'he surprised me by producing a condom!'

"My ears perked up. It was almost the same situation Daddy had envisioned.

"'He had the nerve to assume that when I told him before I wasn't ready, I meant we didn't have protection,' Debbie declared. 'Of course, he tried everything, telling me how much he cared for me, how he couldn't sleep because I was constantly on his mind. Then he tried kissing me on the neck, nibbling my ear, acting as if I was nothing more than some car engine he was trying to get started.'

"'What did you do?' Judy Gibson asked her.

"'I told him if he didn't back off, I'd kick him where he would remember it until his dying day,' she said with fury in her voice 'Imagine, using as an excuse my saying I wasn't ready. Boys deliberately misunderstand things you say or misinterpret things you do just to get you to do what they want,' she proclaimed. The girls nodded and bobbed their heads simultaneously like puppets on strings.

" `So you're not going with him to the dance?' Betty Anderson asked her.

"'Of course I am. He's cute, isn't he? I can handle him He'll behave now, but you've got to show them who's in control fast or . .

"'Or what?' Judy asked breathlessly.

"'Or you'll be pushing a baby carriage in the Beverly Center mall,' she predicted.

"All the girls around her nodded again in unison, all wide-eyed. My heart was racing. Daddy was teaching me the right things, I thought. If all these girls, who supposedly were far more experienced with boys than I was, were this vulnerable, what could I expect?"

"I bet that Debbie Hartley was full of jelly beans," Star said. "She was just trying to be a big deal in front of her sheep."

"You think so?" I asked.