Charlottesville and pray to God nobody there will know that I'm your sister."
"Cathy, my dearest, sweetest wife, I don't think even if they knew, they'd give a damn. And besides, you look more like my daughter than my wife."
Wonderfully sweet as he was, he could say that with honesty in his eyes. I knew, then he was blind when he looked at me. He saw what he wanted to see, and that was the girl I used to be.
He laughed at my doubting expression. "I love the woman you've become. So don't you go looking for the tarnish when I deliver to you eighteen-karatgold honesty. I'd say twenty-four karat, but you'd then say it was too soft and therefore useless functionally. So I give to you the best there is: my eighteen-karat love that truly believes you are beautiful inside, outside, and in between"
Cindy flew in for one of her whirlwind visits, breathlessly gushing out every detail of her life in exquisite minute detail since last she'd seen us. It seemed incredible that so much could happen to one girl of nineteen.
The instant we were inside the grand foyer, she raced up the stairs, hurling herself into Jory's arms with such abandon I thought she might tip over his chair. "Really," he laughed, "you weigh more than a feather, Cindy." He kissed her, looked her over, then laughed. "Wow! What kind of outfit is that, anyway?"
"The kind that is going to fill the eyes of a certain brother named Bart with horror. I picked this out just to annoy him and dear Uncle Joel."
Jory turned solemn. "Cindy, if I were you, I'd stop deliberately baiting Bart. He's not a little boy anymore."
Unknown to Cindy, Toni had stepped into the room and stood patiently waiting to take Jory's temperature.
"Oh," said Cindy, turning to see Toni. "I thought after that terrible scene Bart made in New York that you'd see him for what he really is and leave this place." The look in Toni's eyes made Cindy glance again at Jory, then back to Toni again, and she laughed. "Well, now you've got good sense! I can read your eyes, Toni, Jory. You're in love! Hooray!" She rushed to hug and kiss Toni before she settled down near Jory's chair and stared up at him with adoration. "I met Melodie in New York. She cried a lot when I told her how pretty the twins are . . . but the day after your divorce went through, she married another dancer. Jory, he looks a lot like you, only not nearly as handsome, and he doesn't dance as well, either."
Jory kept his small smile, as if Melodie had been put on the shelf and there she'd stay. He turned his head to grin at Toni. "Well, there goes my alimony payment. At least she could have let me know."
Again Cindy was staring at Toni. "What about Bart?"
"What about me?" asked a baritone voice from the open doorway.
Only then did we all notice that Bart was in the doorway, lounging insolently against the frame, taking in all we said and did as if we were specimens in his special zoo of family oddities.
"Well,"_ he drawled, "as I live and breathe, our breathless little imitation Marilyn Monroe has come to thrill us all with her stagey presence."
"That's not how I'd describe my feelings on seeing you again," Cindy said with her eyes flashing. "I'm chilled, not thrilled."
Bart looked her over, taking in her skin-tight gold leather pants, her striped cotton knit sweater of white and gold. The horizontal stripes emphasized her breasts, which jiggled freely each time she moved, and knee-high gold boots decorated her feet and legs.
"When are you leaving?" asked Bart while he stared at Toni sitting on Jory's bed and holding his hand. Chris sat next to me on a love seat, trying to catch up on some mail that had been delivered to the house and not to his office.
"Dear brother, say what you will, I don't care. I've come to see my parents and the rest of my family. I'll be leaving soon enough. Chains of steel couldn't keep me here longer than necessary." She laughed and stepped closer and looked up into his face. "You don't have to like me, or approve of me. And even if you open your mouth and say something insulting I'll just laugh again. I've found a man to love me that makes you look like something drug up from the Dismal Swamp!"
"Cindy!" said Chris sharply, putting down his unopened mail. "While you are here, you will dress appropriately, and you will treat Bart with respect, as he will treat you. I'm sick of these childish arguments about nothing."
Cindy looked at him with hurt eyes, making me say apologetically, "Darling, it is Bart's home. And sometimes I would like to see you in clothes that aren't too small."
Her blue eyes changed from those of a woman to those of a child. She wailed, "You're both taking his side--when you know he's nothing but a crazy creep out to make us all unhappy!"
Toni sat uncomfortably until Jory leaned to whisper something in her ear, and then she was smiling. "It doesn't mean anything," I heard him say in an undertone. "I believe Bart and Cindy enjoy tormenting one another."
Unfortunately Bart's attention was drawn from Cindy to take notice of Jory with his arm about Toni's shoulders. He scowled, then beckoned to Toni. "Come with me. I want to show you the inside of the chapel with all its new additions."
"A chapel? Why do we need a chapel?" asked Cindy, who had not been informed of the newest room transformed.
"Cindy, Bart wanted a chapel added to this house." "Well, Mom, if anybody ever needed a chapel close at hand, it's the creep of the hill and the Hall." My second son didn't say a word.
Toni refused to go with him. She gave him the excuse of needing to bathe the twins. Anger lit up Bart's eyes before it died, leaving him standing there, strangely desolate looking. I got up to take his hand. "Darling, I'd love to see what new additions you've made in the chapel."
"Some other time," he said.
I watched him covertly at the dinner table as Cindy taunted Bart in rather ridiculous ways that might have made the rest of us laugh if he could only see the humor she displayed. However, Bart had never been able to laugh at himself, more the pity. He took everything so seriously. Her grin was triumphant. "You see, Bart," she teased, "I can put away my childish foibles, even physical ones. But you can't put away anything
that sours your guts and chews away on your brain. You're like a sewer, ready to hold all that's stinking and rotten and never give it up."