Bittersweet Dreams Read online

  However, I was as guilty as Julie when it came to imposing how I felt on Allison. I knew she was thinking about boys constantly now, and I had offered her the book thinking that knowledge would make her feel as comfortable and as safe as it made me feel. Of course, I knew that she would be titillated by it, especially the graphics, just like I was, even though I knew in my heart that it wouldn’t be enough. She wanted her romance novels and enjoyed toying with her own emotions. She didn’t want to explore in a classroom with a health teacher. She wanted to explore in the rear seat of a car or in a bedroom when no one was home. What I had to offer her would educate her, but it wouldn’t satisfy her. I knew that. I knew because it wasn’t satisfying me.

  Once, when my father was trying to step into my mother’s empty shoes and give me some advice about boys and dating, he told me I shouldn’t depend on my superior intelligence when it came to physical relationships.

  “Just because you’re miles above the guy you’re with, that doesn’t mean you won’t lose control, Mayfair. Lots of smart people get into trouble. It happens so quickly sometimes that you don’t even know it. You know the drill.”

  I was acting as if I were listening with half an ear, but I was totally absorbed by what he was telling me. “Drill?”

  “Sure. You’re at a party. You want to be one of the girls, so you drink or do whatever, too, and then you go off with someone, and you go too far.”

  “Oh, Daddy, please,” I said. “I’m not Suzie Bubble Brain.”

  “Don’t be arrogant when it comes to your emotions, Mayfair,” he warned. “Aside from those who were forced into it, I bet there’s not one pregnant teenager who didn’t know the consequences but did it anyway. Regrets come too easy.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I get the point.” I just wanted him to stop, not because I didn’t appreciate his concern for me but because he was nudging places in my brain and stimulating thoughts and feelings that frankly frightened me.

  All my life, I felt I had complete control of everything and everyone around me.

  Sex was an area where I knew I might not.

  He shrugged and smiled, holding up his hands. “I’ve done my duty,” he said.

  I thought of all that as I thumbed dreamily through the sex manual I had given Allison. I found the graphic drawings and some of the photographs with detailed explanations more than just interesting. They were fascinating, because I was able to see myself in the drawings and some of the photographs. It was like getting on a roller coaster. I was sure that Allison, even though she was much older than I had been when I learned all this, had similar reactions and feelings.

  Actually, despite how Julie had reacted, I still was hoping that Allison would come to me and we could talk about it, the way two real sisters might, but Julie wasn’t going to let that happen if she had any say about it, especially now. It had gotten to where she was frightened of me herself, not just for Allison. It had been gnawing away at her for some time now. I could feel it. This was why she was at my father so much, demanding that he rein me in as if I were a wild horse, complaining about the influence I could have on Allison. She was champing at the bit to complain every chance she got now, and I was sure she believed she had finally found the in-house scandal big enough to get me severely reprimanded, maybe turn me into a meek and obedient stepdaughter. I braced myself for the inevitable confrontation.

  An hour after he had come home from work, my father was knocking on my door. When I opened it, he just stood there shaking his head, a look of great disappointment on his face.

  “Okay, Mayfair, exactly what did you do now? Julie is fit to be tied.”

  “Now, there’s a good idea.”

  “Stop it.”

  “She’s being ridiculous, Daddy,” I said. “I didn’t give Allison a porn magazine, you know.”

  “What did you give her?”

  “I gave her a scientific, informative manual written by a college professor.”

  I went to my bed and got the book. I handed it to him, and he opened it and thumbed through some of it. “Kind of graphic stuff,” he said. “Where did you get it?”

  “I bought it over the internet.”

  “Didn’t they ask your age?”

  “That’s not a work of pornography, Daddy. It’s a scientific discussion about sex. Besides, what is my age?”

  “I’m not talking about your mental age, Mayfair.”

  “What’s more important? Days? Months? An accumulation of years? There are twenty-year-olds who shouldn’t be driving or drinking and certainly not having unprotected sex and becoming parents.”

  “Okay, okay,” he said, handing the book back to me. “I’m not going to debate you about that. However, you have to remember that Julie is Allison’s mother. She should be the one who decides what she reads, not you. You want to give her something, you ask her mother first. Do you understand? Do you?” he followed when I didn’t respond.

  “It’s not brain surgery.”

  “Don’t be smart, Mayfair.”

  “You know, there’s an interesting word, Daddy, smart. If someone just overheard you saying that, they’d think you were a bad father. Don’t you want your daughter to be intelligent?”

  “Stop it, Mayfair.”

  I would have, but I couldn’t stand him always taking Julie’s side, so I continued lecturing him, instead of crying or screaming. “Smart also means witty but often in an insolent way, and that’s what you mean, I believe. Smart can also mean fashionable, as in ‘That’s a smart-looking suit.’ We also hear it used to mean accomplished, talented, as in ‘He’s a right smart ballplayer.’ ”

  We stared at each other.

  Then he shook his head and walked out, closing my door softly. I had frustrated and defeated him again, but I didn’t feel good about it. I flopped onto my bed and looked up at the ceiling. Sometimes, maybe more often than I’d care to admit, I hated myself. It was as if I couldn’t stop myself from being who I didn’t want to be, who they expected me to be.

  I should have known then. If I couldn’t stop myself, how could I really do anything about the future I really wanted?

  No wonder I was in a car being taken away like someone who was going to a mental clinic.

  6

  Before all this, there were many people, even many other students, who thought I was a lucky girl. I had a wealthy father, I lived in a beautiful house, I was attractive enough to draw the envy of other girls and the interest of men who didn’t know me yet, and I was a super-brilliant student, a rock star in the educational system. Because I would never let them, no one ever saw the other side of me, what I might admit now was the tragic side. I didn’t want to give anyone the satisfaction of knowing that I wasn’t as perfect as I was thought to be. I had come to rely on that image, depend on it to get me through any crisis, whether it was of my own making or not. I should have known it wasn’t going to be enough.

  Only my high-school guidance counselor, Mr. Martin, had an inkling about what I was really feeling about myself, what my weaknesses and deficiencies were. When I had first entered high school, he really did try to get me to join some extracurricular activity like the drama club. He gave me a copy of the school play to read and told me I would enjoy the experience. Even though I thought he might be right, I resisted. I didn’t want to be on any girls’ teams, either. It wasn’t because I didn’t like plays or sports. To be honest, I was afraid of the interchanges I would have with the others. Simply put, I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to be a teenager after all, and I had yet to fail at anything in my life. Nevertheless, Mr. Martin was persistent, reasonable, and logical. He would call me in to talk with him periodically, stop me in the hallways, or repeat the advice whenever he had an opportunity to speak with my father especially.

  “I know they see you as someone very different, Mayfair, and that’s why they don’t warm up to you,” Mr. Martin told me, “but maybe if you join something and they get to know you better, they won’t be so put off by your intell
ectual achievements.”

  “I don’t care that much about making friends here, Mr. Martin,” I said. I couldn’t argue with his premise, so I tried a quick escape.

  But he wasn’t buying it. “Yes, you do,” he insisted.

  Finally, he gave up, even though I was sure that he could see in my face that I didn’t mean what I told him. I wasn’t always as good at hiding my feelings as I thought I was, especially from someone trained to see through the fog of excuses and fears.

  Of course I would have loved to have a best friend, someone else to talk to, to share my intimate thoughts and feelings. Of course I wanted to giggle and laugh over silly things and talk for hours about things that didn’t matter. But I wouldn’t admit it, and I wouldn’t do anything to make it happen.

  Frustrated with me, Mr. Martin became intrigued with the possibility of my being accepted at the country’s most prestigious colleges. While still in high school, I had been able to take a number of college classes and had enough credits to enter most universities as a junior. We had a meeting about the situation, but my father wasn’t happy about Mr. Martin’s priorities. He was afraid I was moving too quickly. On the other hand, it was difficult to argue against Mr. Martin’s point that I was wasting my abilities.

  “I know she’s bored with her classes here,” he told my father. “Her teachers are doing the best they can for her, but another year in high school, at least one like this, might not be the best choice.”

  “I’m not worried about her mental development. I’m worried about her social development,” my father replied. “I mean, you were the one who brought up the problem of her not developing fully as a person if we kept her separated from her classmates. We agreed and insisted that she be put back into regular classes. Why isn’t it helping?” he asked.

  I was surprised to hear him say that in front of me. He sounded frightened about it, frightened that I would never be a fully rounded person and never be happy. Although he did try to get me to do some of the things Mr. Martin and some of my earlier teachers had suggested, my father never gave me the impression that he thought there was anything actually freakish about me. He was always proud of my accomplishments, but since he had married Julie and she was constantly complaining about me, he began to look at me differently.

  And because he was doing that, I started doing it, too.

  Hours after my tiff with Julie about lending Allison the sex manual and my sarcastic reaction to my father, I looked at myself in the mirror and thought about all this. Suddenly, I began to wonder if I really was as pretty and as sexy as some of the other girls in my class. Maybe those who gave me compliments weren’t doing it simply to be nice. Even Julie had, reluctantly or not, complimented my features and expressed some envy.

  Maybe it was because of the way Julie had come after me for giving Allison the book on sex or maybe it was the way my father was seeing me now, but whatever the reason, I decided to do something I hadn’t much done up to now. I decided to improve my appearance to see if that would make any difference at school. Perhaps I could stop being seen as part of the woodwork, fading into the hallways and the backs of classrooms. Maybe I could sparkle, too, and from something other than my intellectual capacities. Perhaps this would lead me to socialize and be the more well-rounded person everyone seemed to want me to be. I had to start somewhere if I was going to attempt a change, and my looks were the most logical and easiest place to begin.

  Whether I liked it or not, Julie was the expert when it came to that, I thought, and one thing I knew was to go to the best source for the information you wanted and needed. If I ignored her, I’d be just like any fool who refused to face facts, scientific truths, just to satisfy his or her prejudices.

  I surprised her at dinner that night. She was still pouting over my giving Allison the book and my comments when she had come to reprimand me. She wouldn’t look at me. Her jaw looked frozen. It wasn’t uncommon for her to go into such a determined sulk so she could extract more sympathy from my father, but I could feel it was more intense. My father looked at me, practically pleading for me to mend fences.

  “I want to apologize,” I began.

  “Oh,” she said petulantly. She still didn’t look at me. She was capable of childlike tantrums and could sulk for hours, if not days, until she got her way.

  “Yes. A while back, I was ungrateful when you went out of your way to help me with makeup.”

  “What?” She looked at my father. Of course, both she and my father were expecting a different apology.

  “You do all that so well,” I said. “I should have paid more attention to the lessons you were trying to give me.” Giving her any compliment was like swallowing spoiled milk, but I did it.

  “Well, I did try to help you.”

  “Maybe you can show it all to me again. And I would appreciate your suggestions about my hair.”

  “Your hair?”

  “I know the clothes I wear are blah, too,” I admitted. “You’re right about the colors I choose. Almost all of my clothes are not in fashion and don’t flatter my figure at all.”

  She straightened up and nodded. “Exactly. I’ve tried to get you to see that, and . . .”

  “You have. I was foolish to refuse your offers of help. I should appreciate that there’s someone like you so easily available to me to give me good advice. I hope you are still willing to do that.”

  Even though this wasn’t the place my father had hoped I would go, he was beaming. Allison, however, was staring at me with suspicious eyes. I was stealing away her mother’s attention, her mother’s concentration on her when it came to these things, but Julie enjoyed being in the spotlight.

  “Well, thank you for saying that.”

  “The point is, I’ve come to the logical conclusion that I need some help with this.”

  “Of course you do, and that’s nothing to be ashamed about.”

  “I’m not ashamed,” I snapped.

  Her smile began to fade. Allison started to smile.

  Can’t she get anything right? I thought. I softened my tone again. “I’m simply admitting that it’s an area in which I am deficient, an area in which you obviously have great expertise.”

  “Exactly. I’ve been tutored by some of the best cosmeticians and hairstylists and have followed fashion studiously all my life.”

  “She must like somebody who’s not paying attention to her,” Allison piped up, smiling with suspicious eyes.

  My father looked from her to me. “Oh?” he said.

  “No, that’s not it,” I said.

  “You don’t have to be afraid to admit you have a crush on someone,” Julie said, enjoying my discomfort for a change. “If you have someone special in mind, it’s better if you describe him a bit.”

  “There isn’t anyone special.” I looked at Allison. “If there was, I wouldn’t need to be coming to you now, Julie.”

  “Well, there will be,” she assured me. “You have the natural beauty that makes it easy to work miracles.”

  I could see that Allison wasn’t pleased with her mother giving me compliments. I wanted to lean over and assure her that I wasn’t looking for them, that I couldn’t care less about what her mother thought of my looks, or me, for that matter, but I kept myself in check.

  “Right after dinner, we’ll do another lesson in makeup, and I’ll look at your hair again.” Julie sat back and looked at me as if seeing me for the first time. Then she nodded to herself. “As you often say, it’s not brain surgery.”

  Oh, how she was enjoying this, but for me, it was like going to the dentist. It had to be done.

  “I think we should make an appointment with my hairstylist this Saturday, after which we can do some shopping and see if we can make some real improvements in your wardrobe. You’ll need new shoes, too, and a few decent purses. I think she needs a more feminine-looking watch,” she told my father.

  “Of course. I was going to get her one for her birthday, but . . .”

  “You
can get her another, something more special, perhaps. I think I know what you need, Mayfair.”

  “Thank you,” I said.

  “Can I go, too?” Allison asked.

  “No,” Julie said. “I don’t want to be distracted. I shop for you all the time, and besides, it won’t be much fun for you to stand there and watch me buying things for Mayfair and not you.”

  Allison seemed disappointed, but she also looked at me with real envy, and I couldn’t remember her doing that before. It didn’t bother me. Actually, it made me feel a little better, even a little lightheaded.

  My father looked like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. I didn’t want him to get too excited and happy about this. Once I had gotten what I wanted from Julie, I didn’t intend to do much more with her. She would never replace my mother, and I would never call her anything but Julie. In my eyes, she was simply a good source for this particular information. I’d put her back on the shelf afterward, just as I put back a library book or clicked off a website.

  However, days later, I couldn’t deny that I was happy about the changes she had made in my appearance. She did have a good hairstylist, who complimented me on the health of my hair. Julie stood by and oversaw it all, concentrating on the smallest details and making me feel like some sort of celebrity. I had to admit that the cut she and the stylist chose did change my whole look, and that change began changes inside me, too. I could feel a growing confidence that came from the way others in the salon looked at my metamorphosis from someone with potential to someone who could invite cameras.

  From the salon, we went to one of Julie’s favorite boutiques. Everything was quite expensive, all created by one designer or another. She made me try on and model a few different styles, discussing every one with the store’s sales manager, a French woman who obviously knew more than she did. At the end of the day, I had a half dozen new outfits and pairs of shoes. She even took me to get some costume jewelry, especially earrings, and made sure I had a nice watch. I had never wanted to get my ears pierced, but I clenched my teeth and agreed to have it done. I kept reminding myself that she knew better than I did about all this and it was a sign of ignorance to deny it for personal reasons.