Into the Garden (Wildflowers 5)

"I'll pass on that," she said. "Especially with what I'm wearing."

"Put on a pair of Cat's pants and one of her sweat- shirts," Misty suggested.

"Just go about your business and stop bossing me around," Jade snapped back at her. She gazed at the paint and grimaced with more disgust. "I'm having coffee at the moment," she added, and hurried back to the kitchen.

We all laughed and then Star took over for Misty while she went to set the ladder up in the pantry. When she was ready, she called to us and Star helped her hand down the cartons. We carried everything into the living room.

"Look at this doll!" Misty declared holding up the one with the battered head and face. "Someone took her frustrations out on it, I guess."

"Gee, I wonder who," Jade said. She sifted through the clothing. "Some of this stuff still has tags on it. It was never used."

"She told me she didn't want to give me any of it," I explained. "She said my mother was just trying to buy my love."

"They do try that," Jade said, her eyes small and angry, "and we let them most of the time. My father has decided he wants to buy me a new car with his own money. It's supposed to make me feel better about his decision to spend the rest of his life with another woman, another family. Maybe Geraldine had the right idea putting all this up in the attic."

"I don't think that was right," Misty said softly. "Cat probably could have used these things."

I sat with the cigar box in my lap and opened it slowly, taking out the first picture. It was a

photograph of Geraldine seated at the piano and a man standing and smiling beside her.

"This must be Alden, my father," I said, and they gathered around. "According to what my mother wrote in her letter to me, he gave Geraldine piano lessons."

"He's good looking," Misty said. "You have his nose and mouth."

I looked at other pictures. Most of them had Geraldine in them as well as my father. One was torn. Someone obviously had been ripped out of the picture.

"I don't think we have to work hard to guess who was standing there next to him," Star said.

"Why don't you do the same thing?" Jade suggested. "Cut Geraldine out of one of the better pictures of him and put the remaining photograph in a nice frame?"

"That's right," Misty said.

I stared at the face of the man who was supposedly my father, my mother's lover. He was handsome, with light brown hair that waved just enough to be perfect. His eyes looked like they sparkled with laughter.

"Nice smile," Jade said. "You should smile more, Cat. That will be your smile, too," she said. "Poor Cat," she added putting her hand on my shoulder, "you found your father and lost him almost at the same time." I felt her body stiffen and looked up at her. "Believe me," she said, "it's easier that way, Cat. It's easier than losing him years and years later."

"You didn't lose your father," Misty told her. "You'll still spend time with him, won't you?"

"Right. Quality time," she said with her mouth twisted as if she had bitten into a rotten apple. "I know the drill well. He'll have his days and he'll try to crowd a week or a month into them while he looks over his shoulder to see what his new wife and family are up to. Thanks, but I think I'd rather be in Cat's position. At least she is past the pain."

"Still, not to let her know about her father until now was cruel," Misty insisted.

Jade shrugged. She was feeling so bitter, it seemed like nothing would put a smile back on her beautiful face, a face where smiles belonged, where they blossomed.

Star took the pictures from my hands and returned them to the cigar box.

"Enough of this sad reminiscing I think now we're all in the right frame of mind to go upstairs and do that room," she said. "Ready?"

"Yes," Jade said, straightening.

"Absolutely," Misty said. "Let's get to it."

I started to shake my head.

"It's too late to turn back now, Cat," Star said. "Roll up your sleeves and follow us. Forward," Star declared, and they headed out of the living room. I did follow, not knowing what to expect next, but feeling as though I was a train, doomed to follow the tracks no matter where they led.

The girls began by tearing down the bland, white curtains and stripping Geraldine's bed. Then they argued about what color we should paint the room.