Echoes of Dollanganger Read online

  “Let’s toast to something different,” she said, holding up her glass. We all raised ours. “To Kristin’s father successfully building a beautiful new home to replace the Halloween house.”

  I looked at Kane. His eyes darkened as if anger had risen into his face from some dark place inside him. Had he told his sister not to mention Foxworth Hall at all? Or had he fallen into his Christopher Dollanganger state of mind and begun to resent anyone wishing the story about him and his siblings could be erased as easily as replacing a building and changing the details of a property?

  I saw the way Julio was looking at me, waiting for my reaction.

  “If anyone can do it,” I said, without any sign of emotion, “my father can.”

  Kane seemed to relax. One crisis passed, I thought. What would come next?

  Nothing more about the original Foxworth Hall or the story of the children was mentioned for the remainder of the dinner, but that didn’t mean it was out of my mind. Despite being intrigued by Julio and Darlena, I found myself drawn continually to Kane, to the way he talked and held himself. Something had changed in him with Darlena’s toast. It wasn’t simply being in a formal setting and being dressed up. He really didn’t sound like himself. He was so careful about his choice of words, so thoughtful about everything he said, and at times, he appeared older than Julio or Darlena. He corrected Darlena about the history of the city, but not in his usual offhanded or casual way that suggested indifference. He was more condescending, which really surprised me. I glanced at Darlena. She seemed to be getting upset with him and the way he was going on about the degeneration of some of the city neighborhoods and criticizing their father’s regular car customers and the salespeople who worked for him.

  “My brother didn’t always sound like my mother,” Darlena said. “It wasn’t that long ago that I was the one changing his diapers,” she told Julio, after Kane had challenged Julio on his view of the economy. “And when he had a bad nightmare, he didn’t run to our mother. He ran to me.”

  Kane’s face reddened a little. He shot a look my way and started to protest that she was exaggerating, but she was on a roll, I thought, out to get revenge or knock him down a peg or two.

  “Mother would ask me to bathe him, because he whined and argued about it so much unless I did it. I even had to put out his clothes, because he wouldn’t wear what Mother wanted him to wear. I was still telling him how to dress when he was in the sixth grade.”

  Kane had shrunk a bit but then suddenly recovered his superior tone. “Why don’t you mention how I had to lie for you when you snuck Ken Taylor into your room for the night after the senior prom?” He turned to Julio. “My parents heard a male voice, and she told them I had been in her room at two in the morning. To protect her, I had to pretend I had gotten into my father’s liquor and gotten sick because her boyfriend threw up in her bathroom.”

  Julio’s eyes widened.

  “That’s not the worst of it,” Kane continued.

  “Okay, okay,” Darlena said, holding up her hands. “Truce.”

  Kane smiled at me in victory, but I didn’t smile back. He had told me very little about his relationship with Darlena. The way he talked about his home life most of the time made it sound as if he were an only child, too. Now I wondered how close he really had been to Darlena during those earlier years. How close were they to each other now, despite this banter between them?

  For the first time, I wondered if he could appreciate Christopher’s diary more than I could because he had a sibling and I was an only child. The way they were both talking about their mother also raised a new red flag in my mind. Kane always made fun of his mother. He was almost indifferent to her, but from the way they were talking about her now, it was as if they were as separated from their parents as the Dollangangers had been. His mother seemed to delegate her role as Kane’s mother to Darlena and then to whoever would take on one responsibility or another while she pursued her own social objectives.

  That’s what made what happened in the original Foxworth Hall attic so fascinating to so many young people like us, I suddenly thought. In various degrees, parents ignored their children and looked for ways to avoid their problems and needs. From the sound of it, Mrs. Hill was more of a cousin to Corrine Foxworth than I or my mother was.

  Maybe to bring some relief to the table, Julio began asking me more questions. Kane had told them I was in the running for class valedictorian. Julio revealed that he had been his high school class valedictorian. Darlena apparently hadn’t known that.

  “Class valedictorian, and you didn’t know W. C. Fields’s famous tombstone?” Kane asked.

  “Becoming valedictorian doesn’t mean you know trivia, Kane,” Darlena said, coming quickly to Julio’s defense.

  Kane pursed his lips with annoyance and sat back.

  Julio and I talked about our favorite subjects, and he described his interest in an international law career.

  I saw that Kane was losing interest. Suddenly, he burst out, “Kristin and I have a party to go to. We’ll skip dessert, but you two enjoy.”

  He saw the surprise on my face.

  “Right?” he asked, more or less demanded.

  “Yes, not that I’m so crazy about the person giving the party.”

  “Yeah, but we’ll ignore her like we always do,” he said.

  “I always do,” I corrected.

  “Whatever you want,” Darlena said. “We enjoyed seeing you, Kristin. I’m sure we’ll see more of you.”

  “You will,” Kane said, punching his words at her.

  “Good,” she said, with just as much defiance in her voice. How quickly they had bounced from being loving brother and sister to competitive siblings.

  Kane rose and Darlena and Julio stood to hug and kiss us good-bye. Kane took my hand, hardly giving me a chance to thank them for including me in their dinner. I felt like he was rushing us out of the restaurant.

  “Sorry,” he said when we had stepped out and were waiting for the valet to bring the car. “I didn’t expect it to be so boring.”

  “It wasn’t.”

  He looked at me like I was joking. “I haven’t had much time with Julio except for that stuffy, dreadful dinner my mother arranged at gunpoint,” he said. “Thank God we have more people at our Thanksgiving dinner. He’s not what I imagined my sister would bring home, and not because he’s half Latino or anything. He’s just too . . .”

  “Too what?”

  “Full of himself,” he said. “Compensating for an inferiority complex. It gets tired.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “Absolutely. I can see it clearly,” he replied, with uncharacteristic arrogance.

  The car arrived, and we got in.

  “Are we really going to Tina’s party?”

  “I can’t take you to my house, and we can’t go up to your attic, because your father’s probably home or on his way,” he said. “It’s still early.”

  I sat back like someone resigned to a fate.

  “We’ll have a few laughs and leave,” he decided. “Okay?”

  “Whatever,” I said.

  We were both quiet during the drive to Tina Kennedy’s home. How complicated the world had suddenly become. When you’re very young, everything seems so simple, even what is good and what is bad. Too much candy is bad for you. Being clean and neat is good for you. Policemen are good. Criminals are bad. Not looking both ways when crossing is bad. Waiting for the green light is good. Most important, parents love their children; children love their parents. Grandparents are loving and kind, as are uncles and aunts. It’s all so simple. On your birthday, people who love you make you feel special. You get and give presents on Christmas. You wish one another love and happiness on New Year’s Eve.

  You are told that someday you will be old enough to drive and stay out later, and someday you’ll fall in love, and you’ll marry and have children. Everything ahead of you looks good and wonderful. Yes, people get angry at each other, but those
who love each other apologize and are even nicer to each other afterward. Everything in the world seems organized; everything works the way it is supposed to work.

  And then suddenly, one day, yes becomes maybe, and maybe becomes no. Black is also gray at times, and white might really be black beneath. Smiles are not always true. Sometimes they are empty, false. The lights are on in the houses you pass, but the people inside are cloaked in darkness. Nothing you hear, nothing you see, is necessarily true.

  Getting older means learning how to leave with doubt and how to get home again.

  In those years when they were shut up together in the attic, the Dollanganger children were rushed out of their childhood. Gradually, they had lost their chance to dream. What a horrible thing to do to your own children, I thought. Reading about it, reliving it, was making both Kane and me lose what little childhood faith we had left. I suspected now that this was truer for Kane.

  What worried me the most was that by the time we finished the diary, we might not know who we were.

  When we arrived at Tina’s, we could see the party was in full swing and quite unlike the party Kane had had at his home recently. Beer and other alcoholic drinks were in plain sight. The music was so loud you had to shout to be heard by someone standing beside you. A small group was already smoking weed in a room off the living room. How was Tina going to get away with all this once her parents returned?

  The way we were dressed drew everyone’s attention. Kane’s friends began to tease him. Kyra and Suzette had nice things to say about my dress, but most of the other girls were smirking at me with the expression that says, “Who does she think she is?” They didn’t know we had gone to dinner before we had come to the party. Tina’s comment was that she would gladly give me something of hers to wear so I wouldn’t look so stiff and out of place. She looked well into a buzz of some sort, slurring some of her words. I was anticipating her pursuit of Kane.

  When I looked at him, he seemed oblivious to everything going on around us. He just stood there like a disgusted chaperone, turning down offers of beer and booze and declining an invitation to smoke some pot. He brushed everyone off abruptly. Even I was surprised at the way he was ignoring his buddies. I saw the surprised and disgusted looks on their faces. When Tina put her hands on his arm, he pulled away from her so abruptly everyone around them stopped talking and drinking. I didn’t hear what he said, but whatever it was, it shocked her.

  “What’s with Kane?” Suzette asked me.

  “Nothing. Why?”

  “He looks like he lost his best friend or something,” Kyra said. “Usually, he’s the life of the party.”

  “Maybe he’s just a little tired.”

  “From what?” Suzette asked, her eyes widening with some sexual suggestion.

  “I don’t kiss and tell,” I replied, and the girls laughed. Tina was standing nearby, eavesdropping, so I spoke louder.

  They asked where we had gone to dinner, and I described it and the restaurant. Kyra was the only one who had been there, with her parents on an anniversary. Of course, they wanted to know about Darlena’s boyfriend and what she was like, too. While I talked to my girlfriends, I saw Kane circle the living room, gazing at everyone, the couples dancing, observing like someone researching a primitive tribe, paying only half attention to anything anyone said to him, and then planting himself in a corner of the living room and sipping a soft drink. He stood back, looking aloof.

  Tina was off to my right, holding court with some of her closer friends, complaining about Kane, and looking at me with darts in her eyes. What could he possibly have said to her? I didn’t have to wait long to find out. She came toward me with her friends. I braced myself.

  “I don’t know . . . I mean, we don’t know what you’ve done to Kane Hill, but he’s more of a snob than ever.”

  “That’s lame. I didn’t think he was ever a snob,” I replied coolly. I looked at my girlfriends. “Did any of you?”

  “Of course not,” Suzette said. “He’s anything but that.” The girls around us seconded it with “Absolutely” and “For sure,” nodding their heads.

  Tina could see she was outnumbered. “He’s ruining my party,” she whined.

  I looked at him across the way, still standing in a corner, looking so defiant that no one approached him. “You mean, it wasn’t ruined before we got here?” I asked.

  Even her friends broke out in smiles, and a few laughed.

  “Anytime you want to leave is fine with me,” Tina said, and marched off.

  “Me, too, actually,” I muttered. I made my way across the living room to Kane. “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Opening my eyes,” he said. “I never realized how juvenile some of our friends are.”

  “Are they?”

  He looked at me with a smirk instead of that charming offbeat smile I had come to cherish. “Christopher Dollanganger at ten was more mature.”

  “But was he happy? Could he ever be?”

  “I guess we’ll find out.”

  I didn’t want to continue talking about the Dollangangers. Even with the music blaring, I was afraid of being overheard. “What did you say to Tina Kennedy? Our quick departure won’t break her heart.”

  He finally smiled. “I merely told her that her multiple orgasms were embarrassing me. And I added something else that had to do with her physiology.”

  “Why did we come here, Kane? You’re not even trying to enjoy this party.”

  “You don’t want me to get into things, drink and then drive, or smoke that crap and talk about some new violent video game or about which one of these girls is the easiest, do you?”

  “Then let’s go,” I said, almost shouting. “I didn’t want to come here.”

  He nodded and started around the living room, avoiding anyone who wanted to speak to him. I followed, and just before we exited, I looked back at my girlfriends. Almost all of them lifted their shoulders and raised their hands, palms up. What could I tell them that would help them understand? That everyone gets in and out of a mood, and Kane was just in a dark one? It would pass, just like it did for them? That was all I could think of saying, and I knew it would be what I would repeat when they called or saw me. I smiled and nodded. Only Suzette smiled back. Everyone else continued to look confused.

  The cool night air was a relief. My ears were ringing when I got into the car. Without speaking, Kane started the engine and drove us away as if we were fleeing a bank robbery. He slowed down at the corner.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I thought we’d amuse ourselves for a while, but I guess I was just not in the mood.”

  “Exactly how I would put it,” I said.

  “Let’s face it, Kristin. You and I are so far above all that now.”

  “Above what, Kane? A party with the only friends we have?”

  “That sort of party.”

  Maybe he was right, I thought. I should be happy that he felt this way. It wasn’t a party my father would approve of me attending. Someone could easily get into serious trouble driving later on, and Tina’s parents would be in equally big trouble. Everything he was saying was right, and yet there was something about it that disturbed me. It was as if he were being too adult. No wonder Tina had called him snobby. People who were as wealthy as Kane’s family were expected to be snobby. Their friends were all well-to-do. If they mingled with people who had less, it was usually at some event at school.

  When we arrived on my street, he slowed down and suddenly pulled to the curb when my house came into view.

  “What are we doing?” I asked. He was just looking up in the direction of my attic.

  “I so looked forward to going up there with you this week,” he said, still looking at the attic and not at me. “It really has become special for us, hasn’t it?” he asked, turning to me.

  “Yes.”

  He smiled. “I’m glad you think of it the same way. I’ll probably be sorry when we reach the end of the diary.”

  I didn
’t know what to say. Sorry when we reached the end of the diary? He looked like he really meant it. “I don’t know how I’ll feel then, Kane. What I do know is not to expect a happy ending.”

  “Yes, but we’re there. We’re part of them in a way no one else is, right?”

  “I suppose. Yes.”

  “Maybe when we’re alone like this, we should call each other Christopher and Cathy.”

  “What?”

  “I’m just kidding,” he said quickly, then shifted into drive and turned into my driveway. My father’s truck was there. I could tell from where it was parked that he had used it and not my car to go to his dinner. “Sorry this wasn’t the greatest night,” Kane said.

  “I enjoyed the dinner, Kane. I really did. I like your sister, and I liked Julio, too. I think you’re being a little too hard on him.”

  “Yeah, maybe. We’ll do it again, but just ourselves one night. I like dressing up for you.”

  He leaned forward to kiss me. It wasn’t a bad kiss; it was just different. I could feel him holding back, and I thought that maybe he didn’t want to get too passionate in my driveway. He opened his car door and hurried around to open mine.

  “M’lady,” he said, holding out his arm. We walked up to the front door together. “Any way we can get together in the attic tomorrow?” he asked as soon as we got there.

  “I don’t think so. I have to do some housework in the morning and then go with my father and get all our shopping done for Thanksgiving dinner and our regular week’s food. We’ll probably do some pre-Christmas shopping, too. Dad likes me to help him pick out gifts for Todd’s children and his wife and something for my aunt Barbara. We’ll have lunch out, and he’ll want to make us dinner. He hasn’t for a while. I need to spend some quality time with him.”

  I could feel his disappointment. Then he burst into more of a Kane Hill smile. “Well, only two and a half days left of school before the Thanksgiving break. I bet we finish the diary by a week from tomorrow, anyway.”