Misty (Wildflowers 1)

"'What's so funny about this, Misty?' Daddy demanded with his gruff, Daddy face.

"'Yes, tell us what you think is so funny,' Mommy said, her face in a frown, something she hated to do because it encouraged the birth of wrinkles.

"'The promise,' I said.

" 'What?'

"They looked at each other and then back at me. "'The two of you,' I said, 'making promises to me now.'

"I dragged myself to my feet and wiped the hot tears from my cheeks. Then I gazed at both of them, both sitting there with disturbed faces.

"'You know what a promise is for me in this house, Daddy,' I said. 'It's a lie in disguise.'

"Then I ran out of the den and up to my room and dove onto my bed.

"A little while later, I heard Daddy carrying his things down the stairs. Before he left, he came to my door and knocked, but I wouldn't respond.

"'I'll call you in a day or two, princess,' he said.

"And you know what," I said to my three new friends, "I don't remember him calling me princess since."

4

At first I tried to hide the fact that my parents were getting divorced. None of my friends, not even Darlene, ever thought anything was wrong in my home. It was actually quite the .opposite. They all believed I still had the perfect little family. If they came over and didn't see my father, they just assumed he was on another one of his business trips.

"Darlene has two younger sisters and an older brother. She thinks I'm lucky because I'm an only child. Her brother is always criticizing her. She says he's afraid she'll embarrass him somehow, and her mother is always after her to set a good example for her younger sisters. She complains about her parents and her brother and sisters every time she calls me or I call her. Once, she even said she hated her family and she would rather be an orphan.

"People never know how lucky they are. I've been over at her house on holidays when they're all together, even her grandparents on her mother's side, and they have a great dinner and exchange gifts. Last Christmas Eve, Mommy and I went to a restaurant in Beverly Hills with my mother's two other divorced friends and throughout the dinner, all they did was congratulate themselves for no longer being under their husbands' thumbs. I took one look at them and thought, like these women ever were under anyone's thumb.

"For a while I hoped that my parents would get back together. I used to daydream about Daddy showing up one afternoon with his suitcases in hand and a big smile on his face. I even imagined the conversation.

"'Hi Misty,' he would say. 'I guess the divorce didn't work out. We decided we really were too much in love after all and we would work out our problems because we realize what we're doing to you.'

"What was so wrong with that dream? People are always telling me I have to work out my problems. Teachers, counselors, coaches are always saying don't give up. Whatever happened to that idea?

"Anyway, Daddy didn't come home and after a while, it settled in like a lump of lead in my stomach that he would never come home again, at least to my home.

"Then, one day in school, Clara Weincoup, whose mother sometimes joins my mother and her clan for lunch, stepped up to my table in the cafeteria and turned her mouth into a foghorn, blaring out the news with, 'I heard your parents are getting a divorce.'

"It was like someone's mother or father had died. Everyone shut up and looked at me.

"'Oh, are they?' I asked. 'I was wondering why Daddy packed all his things and left.'

"No one knew whether to laugh or not. Someone did giggle, but the others looked at me as if I had just broken out in gobs of pimples.

"'I just wondered why, that's all,'

Clara said in her singsong voice. 'I always thought your parents got along.' She wore these thick braces on her teeth with the rubber bands and had a nose with nostrils big enough to serve as tunnels of horror at some fun park. She was so immature. Samantha Peters told us she heard Clara still slept with her Ken doll."

"You're kidding," Jade said.

"So what did you say?" Star asked.

"I said, 'You don't have to worry about divorces, Clara, you'll never get married. Not with your personality.'

"Then the table roared. Clara turned the shade of thy blood and walked away. I got rid of her, but the news was out and I could feel the eyes of my so-called friends all over me, looking for differences." "Differences?" Star asked.

"Don't you feel people look at you differently when they first learn-your parents are getting or have gotten divorced?" I asked the three of them.