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How could I tell her I felt like I came from another world? The nineteenth-century world, old and antiquated as the house I lived in.
My class wasn’t large like Vera had predicted, but small. My school was a private school. That made Vera dislike me even more, since her school was a public one.
Faithfully I attended music classes every day after school. Someday I would be a fine pianist if I kept on as I was. Lamar Rensdale treated me with special kindness.
“Are you grateful you’re in school? Do you wish now I’d minded my own business?”
“No, Mr. Rensdale, I’ll forever be grateful for what you did, for I’m beginning to feel real, and I never did before. I owe you for that.”
“Goodbye, good luck and may your music live on forever,” he called as I ran out the door, hopping into the old car Billie had bought for Arden.
My teachers seemed to be very careful with me, and I appreciated that. They smiled encouragingly and gave me the books I took home each day. After two months in school, I found there was some hidden source of knowledge within me that made it seem I had been to school before. Maybe I had really absorbed all the First Audrina’s memories, or else my mother and my aunt had taught me very well while I sat at the kitchen table. Those other tutors that Papa kept saying he’d hired (and I couldn’t remember) must have contributed, too.
For the first time, Arden was allowed to visit and sit down at our table on Easter Sunday. I’d pleaded and begged and cried and threatened, wanting Billie, too, but Billie had refused. “Come to see me after your dinner. We’ll have that chocolate mousse you say your aunt doesn’t know how to make right for dessert.”
Easter Sunday dinner was a miserable meal because Papa kept questioning Arden about who his father had been and what his occupation had been, and why he had left his wife and son. All through the meal Vera flirted with Arden, batting her long eyelashes, twisting and turning to show off her breasts that clearly showed she didn’t wear a bra. Arden seemed awed by the size of my home. He glanced around uneasily, as if thinking he’d never be able to afford anything half as grand.
When summer came, Arden and I spent every spare minute together. He taught me how to swim in the River Lyle, really swim like he did. The river bottom was muddy and layered with oysters and crabs; mullets swam, jumping and frolicking mostly during the twilight hours. Their little splashes came to me in dreams, waking me sometimes so that I’d drift to the window and gaze down on the glittering moonlit water. Something wonderful was happening inside me this summer, making me eager to wake up and escape the house; but try as I would to leave Vera behind, she always came trailing after.
Vera was demanding that Arden teach her how to drive his old car. I was hoping he wouldn’t want to, but he did teach her to drive the country roads without much traffic. One day, after such a lesson, we hurried back to the river and tore off our outer clothes. All of us wore swimsuits beneath our shorts. The temperature was soaring near a hundred degrees. I turned to see Arden staring at Vera in her skimpy bikini. The three little triangles were bright green and very flattering to her hair color. Her pale skin had tanned to a light copper shade, and even I had to admit she looked extremely pretty. Already she’d developed a woman’s figure, with high, full breasts that jutted out that little-nothing green bra. My c
hest was still flat as a pan bottom.
Vera strolled closer to Arden with a lighter green towel thrown casually over her shoulder. Her hips undulated. Apparently the fascination of watching them move like that made Arden forget all about me. “I’m terribly tired after all that driving, and the long hike here. Arden, would you mind helping me down the incline?”
He hurried to assist her down the gentle slope, which I knew she could manage perfectly well. For some reason he couldn’t seem to let go of her waist or arm. His fingers on her upper arm just brushed the swelling contours of her new bosom. I flushed with anger when she smiled up into his eyes. “You grow more handsome each year, Arden.”
He grew nervous, flushed, then snatched his hands away and looked guiltily at me. “Thank you,” he said with difficulty. “You seem prettier each day yourself.”
My eyes widened as I watched Vera lie on her stomach in the bright sunlight. Arden hovered above, seemingly unable to move away. “Arden, would you mind smoothing on some of my suntan lotion? With my kind of light-sensitive skin, I have to be very careful or I get a terrible burn.”
She had the palest skin I’d ever seen. Even as I stared at her pretty copper tan, I was wondering when she’d acquired it. Then, to my amazement, Vera was asking him to untie her bra in back. “I don’t want pale string marks. Stop glaring at me, Audrina. I won’t show anything if I don’t move too quickly. Not that Arden hasn’t seen naked boobs before.” She grinned when he jerked away and looked surprised—and guilty. Still he knelt down to untie her bra, and even if he looked embarrassed and awkward, he managed to smear some of that oil on her back—and a darn long time it took him to do it, too.
It was taking too long. I thought his hands lingered unnecessarily long in certain places. He appeared so excited his hands trembled. Furious with him, with Vera, I jumped up and ran all the way home, hating them both.
Hours later Vera limped into my room, flushed and happy looking. “What a silly prude you are,” she said as she fell into my best chair. “I’m not interested in your boyfriend. I’ve got my eyes on someone else.”
I didn’t believe her. “You leave Arden alone, Vera. To get him you’ll have to kill me first.”
It might have been better if I’d never said that. Her dark eyes lit up. “Ohh, if I really wanted him, he’d be easy enough to take,” she purred like some fat cat. “But he’s just a boy, too immature for me. But maybe he’s more mature than I thought and I owe him another chance. The next time I’ll let him apply the oil—all over.”
“Papa would kill you.”
She threw a bare leg over the velvet arm of my chair, exposing so much I had to look away. “But you won’t tell him, Audrina, his sweet Audrina, for you’ve got a great big secret. You’re taking lessons from the Don Juan of Whitefern Village. Lamar Rensdale has seduced every virgin within a radius of twenty miles.”
“You’re crazy!” I shouted. “He’s never done anything …”
She leaned over the opposite arm of the chair so that her hair dangled to the floor. The tiny bikini top rode up so high I saw she had tanned her breasts, too. “But Papa won’t believe that,” she answered smugly, shaking her hair to free it of sand. “Papa will believe anything the villagers tell him. So you’d better be nice to me, Audrina.”
I felt sick as she got up, went to the mirror and took off her bathing suit, showing me what she had and I didn’t. Then, still naked, she sauntered out of my room, leaving her wet suit on my rug.
Now I was nervous about my music lessons, afraid now of the man I’d trusted before. I cringed when he leaned above me, and shrank when his hand accidently touched mine. His handsome face showed puzzlement as his eyes tried to meet mine and failed. “What’s wrong, Audrina?”
“Nothing.”
“I hate it when someone says that, when obviously something is very wrong. What made you stop trusting me?”
“I guess I’ve heard a few things,” I whispered with my head bowed. “I’m afraid I can’t come here again.”
