Wildflowers 04 Cat Read online

  I shook my head and looked down.

  "What?" Misty asked

  "I remember when he bought me a Barbie doll and my mother saw how it had breasts. She was so upset about it that she took the doll and smashed it to pieces with her rolling pin in the kitchen.

  "'This is disgusting!' she cried. 'How can they make toys like this for children and how can you buy something like this for her?' she demanded of my father.

  "My father shrugged and said the doll was the most popular toy in the store for girls. He said the stock in the company was a good one, too.

  "I knew he was right, of course. Barbie dolls were very popular and I always wanted one and all the clothes, too. I had to settle for a rag doll my father brought home the next day. My mother inspected it closely and stamped her seal of approval on it when she saw there wasn't the slightest sexual thing about it. Despite the stringy hair, it didn't even look feminine I ended up naming it Bones."

  "Why didn't your father just tell her to stuff it?" Star asked.

  "My father is a very quiet man. He doesn't raise his voice very often," I said.

  "But he was just trying to let you be a normal girl. Your mother is a little extreme, don't you think?" Jade pursued.

  "Why is your mother so bossy?" Misty asked.

  Suddenly my heart started pounding and the blood rose to my face. I looked down when I spoke. It was almost as if I could see my life, my past and all the events being projected on the floor, the pictures flowing along in a continuous stream.

  "My father's not a coward, even though I can't remember too many times when he and my mother shouted at each other," I said finally.

  "That's practically all I can remember," Jade said. "It's her day," Star said. "We already heard about you once and once is plenty."

  "Is that so?" Jade countered.

  "Yeah, it's so," Star said.

  Jade stared darts back at her.

  "Girls," Doctor Marlowe said softly, shaking her head. They both turned to me.

  "That's not to say my mother didn't criticize my father," I continued. "I don't think a day went by when she didn't have some complaint about his drinking after work, the friends he had, the things she had asked him to do and he had forgotten or neglected. It was just that he would rarely . . . rarely challenge her. I used to believe that early in their marriage, my father decided the best thing for him to do was listen, nod, agree, accept and move on.

  "Funny," I said smiling and still looking down, "but once I thought that he was wiser because of that. I had great respect for my father. He was a success in business and he seemed so well organized, contented, in control, I suppose is the word. He had an informed opinion about everything. Whenever he was

  challenged, he could explain his reasons and ideas. He was very good at convincing people. I guess that came from his being a stockbroker and having to sell hope.

  "Dinner at our house was always educational. My father would comment about something that had happened in the government or in the economy, and most of the time, my mother and I would just listen. I mean, I would listen. When I looked at her, she seemed distracted, lost in her own thoughts. Yet, always at the end, she would say something like, 'Well, what do you expect, Howard? If you leave the barn doors open, the cows will get out."

  "Huh?" Misty said. "What do cows have to do with it?"

  I looked at her and smiled.

  "My mother is full of old expressions like that. She has one for every occasion, every event."

  "My granny has good expressions too," Star said.

  "We already heard," Jade sang and threw her nauseatingly sweet smile at her. "It's Cat's day today, remember?" she said, enjoying her sweet taste of revenge.

  Star smirked and then shook her head and laughed.

  I was jealous of them. Already, I was jealous, I thought. They were at each other all the time, but I could see they also respected and in a funny way liked each other and liked to challenge and tease each other. I wanted them to like me too. Who else would like me but these girls? I worried. I could count on the fingers of one hand the friends I had had and lately, I had none. I felt like a leper because I saw the way some of the other kids looked at me in school.

  It's my own fault, I thought. My face might as well be made of glass and all my thoughts and memories printed on a screen inside my head that anyone could see and read.

  "I feel dirty," I muttered.

  "What?" Misty asked. "Why?"

  I looked up, not realizing I had spoken. It had just come out like a burp. My heart began to pound again. I glanced quickly, fearfully at Doctor Marlowe. She gave me her best calming expression.

  "Did you say you feel dirty?" Misty asked.

  "Let Cathy go at her own pace, Misty," Doctor Marlowe cautioned.

  "She said it."

  "I know. It takes time," Doctor Marlowe insisted, closing and opening her eyes softly. "You know that. All of you do," she added.

  Misty relaxed and sat back.

  After a few deep breaths, I went on.

  "I guess I always felt people were looking at me all the time," I said.

  "With a mother calling you a freak, why wouldn't you?" Jade muttered just loud enough for me to hear.

  "Yes," I said. "I suppose that's true. My mother never liked me to wear what other kids my age were wearing. I had to always wear shoes, never sneakers, and my dresses were drab and not very fashionable. She complained often about the way other young people dressed to go to school, especially girls. Every time she brought me to school, she would wag her head and mutter about the clothes other kids wore. She wrote letters to the administration but for the most part, they went unanswered.

  "One afternoon when she picked me up, she spotted a tiny spot of lipstick on my lip. I was in the fifth grade by then. A lot of girls came to school wearing lipstick, even though they were only ten years old. There was a girl named Dolores Potter who talked me into putting it on while we were in the girls' room together. I was embarrassed to admit I had never done it before, but she could tell and laughed because I put it on too heavily. I fixed it with a tissue and we went to class.

  "I was so self-conscious about it. It was like I was wearing a neon sign. I remember every time I lifted my eyes and gazed around the room, I was positive boys were looking at me more. When the bell rang for the end of the day, I rushed into the bathroom and wiped my mouth with a wet paper towel. I thought I had gotten it all off, but there was just this one spot in the corner.

  "My mother always looks at me through a microscope. She doesn't look at anyone else that way. She fixes her eyes on me and looks at every little thing. If I have a strand of hair out of place or my collar is crooked, she spots it and makes me fix it. She has this thing about me being perfect, her idea of perfect," I added. "Anyway, she spotted the lipstick and erupted. The blood rose up through her face like lava. Her eyes popped and her eyebrows rose up and without a word, she brought her right hand around from the steering wheel and snapped it against the side of my face. It felt like a whip made of fire. She was so fast, too. I didn't have a chance to brace myself. My head nearly spun completely around. I guess it frightened me more than it actually hurt, but fear can slice through your heart and bring a deeper pain.

  "I lifted my arms to protect myself. My mother could lose her temper and hit me a dozen times. Where she gets the strength for someone her size, I don't know, but she sure can explode."

  "You mean she still hits you?" Jade asked "Sometimes. Usually, it's just a slap; she doesn't hit me hard anymore and always only once."

  "Whoopie do," Jade said. "How lucky can you be?" "Next time she goes to slap you, put your fist right in her face," Star advised.

  "I couldn't do that. My mother just believes if you spare the rod, you spoil the child."

  "You're not a child!" Jade practically yelled at me. She looked at Doctor Marlowe. "The girl's seventeen, isn't she?" Her eyes were bright with anger, like sparklers on July Fourth. "That's the trouble with parents these day
s. They don't know when to stop treating us like children:'

  "Amen to that," Star said.

  "It's not easy for my mother:' I said in her defense. "The entire burden of raising me has fallen on her shoulders. She doesn't have any family support system. It's really just the two of us:' I explained. "I try to be like she wants me to be. I try not to make her any unhappier."

  I looked at Doctor Marlowe because she and I had discussed some of this. She nodded slightly.

  "I mean, my mother is a victim, too. She doesn't mean to be cruel or anything. She's just . .."

  "What?" Misty asked. "Frightened," I said.

  Doctor Marlowe's eyes filled with satisfaction and she relaxed her lips into a soft smile.

  "It took me a long time to understand that, to realize it," I said, "but it's true. We're two mice living alone in a world full of predatory cats and lots of traps."

  "Is that another one of her expressions?" Jade asked. "No. It's one of mine," I said. She shook her head and looked away.

  "Did your father hit you, too?" Misty asked.

  "No," I said. "He never touched me in a way that wasn't affectionate or loving," I added.

  I glanced at Doctor Marlowe. Should I say it now? Should I begin to talk about the deeper pain? Should I start to explain how those fingers burned through me and touched me in places I was afraid to touch myself?

  Should I talk about lips that had become full of thorns? Should I describe the screams I heard in the night, screams that woke me and confused me until I realized they were coming from inside me? Is it time to bid the little girl inside me good-bye forever and ever?

  In my dreams Doctor Marlowe was standing off to the side with a stopwatch in her hand. I was bracing to begin my flight. Seconds ticked away. She looked up at me almost as she was looking at me now. Her thumb was on the watch's button.

  "Get ready, Cathy. Get set."

  "What if my legs don't move?"

  "They will; they must. It's time. Five, four, three .. ." She pushed down on the button and shouted, "Go! Go

  on, Cathy. Get out of here. Hurry. Run, Cathy. Run!"

  I let go of the little hand that 1 held and chafged forward, tears streaming down my face. I looked back only once to see a rag doll staring after me. It was Bones, but its face had become Daddy's face.

  I ran faster and faster and harder and harder until I was here in Doctor Marlowe's office, surrounded by my sisters in pain.

  3

  "Mothers can be a lot tougher than fathers," Misty was saying. "And a lot meaner."

  "What?"

  I didn't really hear her. It was as if she were

  standing behind a glass wall and her voice was muted. "Mothers can't hit as hard, but they can sting

  more with their words and their looks sometimes," she

  explained with a nod. She looked at Jade and Star,

  who just stared at her. Then, looking as if she was

  going to start to cry, she sat back in her chair. "Anyway," I began again so I wouldn't cry,

  "after the lipstick incident, my mother decided to take

  me out of public school and enroll me in a parochial

  school."

  "Just because of that little bit of lipstick?" Jade

  cried.

  "I wasn't that unhappy about it," I said quickly.

  "I had to wear a uniform and that ended my feeling so

  different from the other girls because of the clothing

  my mother insisted I wear. No one was permitted to

  put on any makeup, of course, even lipstick, which

  made my mother happy. Discipline was strict. I knew girls, however, who snuck cigarettes in and smoked them. One was caught and expelled immediately and that stopped the smoking for a while. I got into trouble with Sister Margaret, who was basically the disciplinarian, because I went into the girls' room when two girls were smoking and the smell got into

  my clothes."

  "So why would that get you into trouble?" Star

  asked.

  "Sister Margaret is known for her nose, not

  because it's too big or anything, but because she can

  smell cigarette smoke a mile away. Her nostrils twitch

  like a rabbit's when she suspects someone.

  "Anyway, later I was in the cafeteria waiting to

  get my lunch. I wasn't even thinking about having

  been in the bathroom with the smokers when suddenly

  I felt her hand squeeze down on my left shoulder, her

  fingers pinching me hard and puffing me out of the

  line.

  "'Come with me,' she demanded, and marched

  me to the office where she accused me of smoking

  just because she could smell it in my hair and clothes.

  I swore I hadn't been smoking and I started to cry,

  which was enough for Sister Louise, the principal, to

  judge me innocent, but Sister Margaret was relentless. "'All right, if you didn't smoke, you were right

  in it and certainly close enough to see what was going

  on. Who was smoking?' she demanded.

  "The thought of telling on girls I had just gotten

  to know was terrifying, almost as terrifying as being

  caught myself. I shook my head and she grabbed my

  shoulders and shook me so hard, I thought my eyes

  would roll out. The sisters could hit you, too," I told

  them.

  In anticipation of what I was about to describe,

  Star's eyes widened with anger.

  "She made me put out my hands and slapped

  them with a ruler until the tears were streaming down

  my cheeks and my palms were nearly cherry red and I

  couldn't close my fingers."

  "I'd have kicked her into her precious heaven,"

  Star said.

  "What did you do?" Misty asked.

  "I told her again and again I didn't know who

  was smoking. 'I don't know everyone,' I lied. I closed

  my eyes expecting lightning to strike me or something

  because I was lying to a nun.

  "'Then you'll point them out,' she decided and

  marched me back to the cafeteria.

  "The moment we entered, all the girls knew why I had been brought back. They stopped talking and looked up at me. You could almost hear them breathe. The two girls who had been smoking were very frightened. They looked down quickly, probably

  reciting Hail Marys at the table.

  "'They're not here,' I said.

  "'What do you mean? They have to be here.

  Everyone's here,' Sister Margaret snapped. She still

  had her hand on my shoulder and squeezed so hard, it

  sent pain down my spine and through my legs. "I pretended to look around the cafeteria and

  then I shook my head.

  "'They're not here!' I cried. Tears were dripping

  off my chin by now.

  "She was fuming. I thought I could see the

  smoke she hated so much coming out of her ears. "'Very well,' she said. 'Until your memory

  improves, you'll eat lunch by yourself in my office

  facing the blank wall every day.' She kept me there

  for a week before telling me to return to the cafeteria.

  The good thing was they never told my mother," I

  said.

  "How old were you when this all happened?"

  Jade asked.

  "I had just turned eleven. I was still in the fifth

  grade."

  "Girls were smoking in the fifth grade?" she

  muttered.

  "That's nothing. Kids in my school have been

  smoking forever," Star added.

  "Terrific. Maybe Cathy's mother is right.

  Maybe the country is going to hell," Jade said. "You don't know anything about hell," Star told

  her. "Your idea of hell is a bad hair
do"

  "Is that so?"

  "Girls. Aren't we getting a little off course?"

  Doctor Marlowe softly suggested.

  Jade threw a look at Star that could stop a

  charging bull, but Star waved it off with a smug turn

  of her head and a small grunt.

  "It sounds so horrible. What did your father say

  about your changing to a parochial school?" Misty

  asked. "Was he for it, too?"

  "Like I said, when it came to most things

  concerning me, my mother was in charge. She told

  him what she wanted me to do, of course. It was an

  expense, but he just nodded as usual, glanced at me

  for a moment, snapped his paper and continued to

  read."

  "Didn't he care about what you thought and

  wanted?" Misty followed.

  I shook my head.

  "Another absentee parent," Jade quipped. "Why

  do they bother to have children in the first place?

  What are we, some kind of status symbol, something

  to collect like a car or a big-screen television set? I'm

  not going to have any children unless my husband

  signs a contract in blood, swearing to be a concerned

  parent."

  "You know you have to get pregnant to have

  children," Star teased with a coy smile. "You know

  that means you'll lose your perfect figure, and you'll

  throw up in the morning."

  "I know what it is to be pregnant, thank you." "Unless you adopt like her parents did," Star

  said nodding at me.

  "Yes, that's right," Misty said. "It doesn't sound

  like they really wanted children. Why did they adopt

  you?" she wondered.

  I turned and gazed through the window. Angry

  clouds had reached Brentwood and had drawn a dark

  gray veil over the trees, the grass and flowers. The

  wind was picking up and the tree branches were

  swaying. They looked like they were all saying, "No,

  no, no."

  Why did they adopt me? If I had asked myself

  this question once, I had asked it a thousand times.

  My mother wouldn't reveal any answers, but I had my