Star (Wildflowers 2)

"You forget everything," Misty said.

"What a good idea," Jade quipped. Everyone stopped eating and looked at her. She shrugged. "If we could forget everything and then start over like a blank cassette, I mean."

"You don't have to forget the past," Doctor Marlowe said softly. "What you've got to learn to do is handle it, live with it, put it in perspective, keep it from permitting you to have a future.

"After all, that's what we're here to do," she concluded.

No one responded. We continued eating instead, each of us hoping she was right. Misty and Jade got into a conversation about clothes and Misty admitted she had some very nice things to wear when she wanted to, but just felt more comfortable in jeans and T-shirts.

From the way the others acted when Doctor Marlowe offered to show us the rest of the house when we finished eating, I gathered they, like me, were brought only to the office before this. She took us to the living room first and explained some of the paintings her father had purchased in Europe years and years ago. She told us he favored the

Impressionists and one of the paintings was an authentic Monet. I didn't know anything much about art, but I saw that Jade was impressed.

One picture caught all our interests. It was a painting of a little girl, maybe seven or eight, standing by a pond and looking at her own reflection in the water.

"My father liked this one a great deal, too," Doctor Marlowe said, standing behind us. "He told me that to him it was as if the little girl realized for the first time that she was really beautiful."

"That's not supposed to be the first time she'd seen herself, is it?" I asked.

"I don't think so, no."

"Maybe nobody told her she was pretty and so she thought she wasn't," Misty said.

"And she didn't dare hope otherwise," Jade added.

"Maybe they told her she wasn't pretty and she knew they were liars," Cat interjected with more anger in her voice than we had heard before. Misty shifted her eyes to look at her. Jade kept staring at the picture, but nudged me. I looked at Cat. She had her teeth clenched and her eyes looked like they had a little candle behind them.

"Does the painting have a name?" Misty asked.

"It's called Reflections in a Pond," Doctor Marlowe said.

"That's it?"

"Sometimes, things are nothing more than what they are," Doctor Marlowe replied.

"If that were the case all the time, you'd be out of work," Jade quipped.

Doctor Marlowe laughed hard. She really roared. It brought smiles to all our faces. I felt so light and happy that I almost didn't want to go back to the office and tell the rest of my story. I knew what that was going to do to our merry mood.

But that's what we had come here to do and anyway, everyone expected it. We all went to the bathroom and then settled back in the office.

"I really appreciate how smoothly things are going here. Thank you, girls," Doctor Marlowe said after we were seated. Then she turned to me.

Here I go again, I thought. It was like getting on a roller coaster.

"I keep saying things got worse after this and worse after that," I began, "so you probably all think it was about as bad as it could be, but it wasn't. It got worse again when Momma got a boyfriend.

"I knew she was going out with different men from time to time, but she never brought anyone home with her before Aaron Marks. He was someone new to the neighborhood and One-Eyed Bill's, which is where they met, of course.

"I gotta say that I never thought Momma was faithful to Daddy when they were together anyway. Whenever Daddy went off on a job that took a few days, I had the feeling Momma was with someone. She'd never admit it to me, of course, but you hear things on the street, hear talk and whatnot and just pick up on it if you wanted to be smart enough.

"Momma'd be with me and meet some girlfriend from One-Eyed Bill's and they'd get to talking and laughing and I could read between the lines that Momma went off with someone, maybe even just to his car behind the bar or something. I was worried she'd get some disease or get pregnant with some other man's baby, but I was afraid to say anything.

"If I looked suspicious or surprised, she'd just say, 'You

know Shirley was fooling. She doesn't mean half of what she says, Star. Don't you go saying anything to your Daddy or Granny, hear?'

"If I didn't answer she'd slap me on the arm or shoulder until I turned to her and cried, 'What?'