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"I drank a lot more than wine at her age," she replied.

Basil and Ami both roared with laughter. I looked up at Mrs. Cukor. She stared a moment and then walked back into the kitchen.

Wade shook his head and then dropped his eyes to the table and concentrated on eating his salad in silence. There is a war going on in this home, I thought. The bullets are only words, perhaps, and the only thing wounded might be pride, but nevertheless there was tension all around me, tension between Mrs. McAlister and Mrs. Cukor, tension between Wade and his ,father, even some tension between Wade and Ami, and now some-thing unspoken between Mrs. Cukor and me, something perhaps only I would notice. In the midst of all this Ami frolicked about as if nothing mattered but her own happiness, and nothing could disturb or prevent it. Was she someone to admire or to pity? I wondered.

Basil continued to dominate the conversation at dinner. Perhaps because of me, he told story after story about his own teenage days.

"I was never much of a student. Fact is, I never got my high school diploma," he said, making it sound like an accomplishment. "The real school is out there anyway," he bellowed, waving at the window. He had finished off an entire bottle of red wine himself and was working on a second bottle. Ami was flushed from the two glasses she had drunk. I had barely drunk half of mine, and Wade had one glass and then stopped drinking wine altogether.

"Dad, please," Wade said softly.

"What, please? What, am I saying something that ain't true? I put you through college and got you all the fine clothes you wore and your car. Not too shabby for someone who didn't graduate high school. Don't you forget it," he warned, his thick right thumb up and his long, thick right forefinger pointed at Wade like a pistol.

"No one is saying anything bad about you. It's different today. Harder for young people to get those opportunities witlidia a good education."

"Oh, right. Young people today. Poor unfortunate young people."

He muttered something under his breath and went back to his food.

Wade looked up at me with apology in his eyes. I smiled, but he looked away quickly, afraid his father might catch our exchange.

Mrs. Cukor brought out the strawberry shortcake as if she was carrying poison to the table. She put it down as hard as she had put down my wineglass and then brought in the coffee. I thought it was delicious, and apparently so did Wade and his father. Ami didn't eat any, I noticed.

In fact, she ate sparingly the whole time, leaving food on her plate. I wondered if she was doing it deliberately, as she had told me she did sometimes. I couldn't help but eat everything given to me. The food was wonderful, and I finally drank my wine and had a second glass. Was I being a pig?

"You don't want to ever finish all the food on your plate," she whispered afterward. "Even if you're taken to an expensive restaurant. Only men finish everything. Some because they're paying for it and would eat sawdust if they paid for it."

We all went into the living room, where Basil had an after-dinner drink, and then another. He made speeches about business today, politics, the school of hard knocks, and how easy we all had it compared to what he had to go through. Wade sat quietly listening, while Ami fidgeted. It was apparent that Basil was just talking and wasn't even aware if anyone was listening or not. Finally Ami suggested she and I be excused; I had experienced such a dramatic day, I was surely exhausted.

I told Basil I was happy to have met him. He looked confused for a moment and then smiled and gave me a kiss on the cheek, a little too close to my lips, I thought. He kissed Ami good night as well and then turned back to Wade to continue his lecture. I looked at Wade as we left the room and felt sorry for him, a trapped audience.

"I hate it when Basil gets that way," Ami said. "I couldn't wait to get out of there."

I had started for the stairway when she seized my arm.

"No, no, silly. We're not really going to go to bed this early. I just used that as an excuse. Come on," she said. "We're not wasting all the work we did to look this good on a dinner with the Emerson men."

"What?"

I didn't understand, but I let her pull me along, through the hallway, past the kitchen, to the door to the garage. She opened that door and told me to get into her red Jaguar sports car.

"Where are we going?"

"To burn some of that candle on both ends," she said, laughing.

I got into the car, and she backed it out and drove quickly away from the house.

"What about Wade?" I asked.

"What about him? He'll have to help Basil to bed as usual, and then he'll go down to his office and work on his books until all hours of the morning," she explained.

"Won't he be upset that we've left?" I asked.

She looked at me without speaking and then turned back to the road.

"No," she said finally. "Wade won't be a bit upset."

I didn't want to ask, Why not? How much of their personal lives. should be my business the first day I moved in with them? I thought.


Tags: V.C. Andrews Gemini Horror