Christopher's Diary: Secrets of Foxworth

“So?”

“He showed me the house when I first arrived, and his bedroom was part of the tour.”

“The tour? That’s it?”

“I’ve got to go. I promised to give the house a complete once-over today, and I have homework and a date with Kane.”

“Where?”

“Dinner, probably. I’ll call you tomorrow,” I added. “?’Bye,” I said, and hung up before she could take another breath.

Lana called ten minutes later. I got rid of her quickly, but then Tina Kennedy called and really got me angry when she said Steve Cooper had told her I had slept over at Kane’s house and did it like a pro. She claimed Kane had called Steve to brag.

“That’s a stupid lie. You had better not spread it,” I warned.

She laughed. “Everyone said you’d deny it. That’s okay. Your secret’s safe with me, as safe as those cousins of yours in the attic,” she added, and I slammed my phone shut so hard that I thought I had broken it. It took me almost an hour to calm down. I was in no shape to return to my math.

Kane called an hour later and heard the tension in my voice. “Did your father think I kept you out too late?” he asked.

“No.”

“What’s wrong? You’re forcing me to put antiseptic salve on my ear.”

“Antiseptic?”

“I thought I’d impress you with my expanding vocabulary.”

I laughed and told him about Tina’s phone call.

“I haven’t even spoken to Steve Cooper today,” he said. “And the last thing I would tell him is something that was personal to us. I might as well post it on Facebook.”

“I thought so,” I said. Of course, I meant I hoped so.

“I think survival of the fittest applies more to women than to men.”

He had me smiling. “We’ll see,” I said.

“I’d like to take you someplace special tonight.”

“Where?”

“The River House. My parents practically own a table there.”

I knew it was one of the most expensive restaurants in the city. “That is special. I don’t know if I have the right clothes for it.”

“Whatever you wear will be right,” he said. “I’ll pick you up at seven, okay?”

“Yes,” I said. “Seven’s fine.”

What was my father going to say? I wondered. Would he be impressed or even more concerned, thinking I might get swept off my feet? It was one thing for your father to have confidence in you being responsible when it came to your schoolwork, the house, and d

riving but another when it came to romance.

After I hung up, I did think about what I would wear, and it suddenly occurred to me to do something I had never done. I would go up to the attic and look through my mother’s clothes. I was just about her size now. Naturally, my mind went to Cathy sifting through the clothing in the Foxworth attic. Maybe, like her, I was preparing myself for a role in a play.

From the way Christopher had described the Foxworth attic, I imagined ours was a tenth of the size, if that, and ours had areas dedicated to wires and pipes. The need for a great deal of attic space wasn’t there when our house was built, and few people I knew actually used their attics for anything more than storage. Because my mother’s things were still up there, my father took care of the space. He wouldn’t permit it to become “a reservation for insects or bats,” nor would he permit it to be too dusty. Once a month, he went up (I would often go with him now) and do the two windows, vacuum the floors and stored furnishings, and be sure my mother’s things were not “moth food.” Everything was kept as neat and as organized as it had been in their bedroom.

I wondered why the Foxworths had kept all their ancestral things, pictures, clothes, old Victrolas, and the like. From the way Christopher had described the condition it was all in, including the insect-ridden books, it was clear they had no emotional ties to anything. Maybe in their fanatical religious way of thinking, it was sinful to throw away anything. Or maybe they were clinging to those dying memories, the way my father said most people did in the houses he refurbished.