“Daddy thought I needed the
class,” she added. Then she turned to Marla and said, “It means getting them hot, Marla. You know what that is, right?”
“Yes, of course,” she said. “I know when boys are hot.”
Ava laughed.
“I do.”
“She’ll be right on your heels, Lorelei. Be happy about it.”
“Is that why you’re so happy this morning, Ava?” I asked. “I’m right on your heels?”
“Exactly. See, you are getting smarter, wiser, more perceptive.”
“Why does that please you so much, Ava? Not that I’m upset about it. I just want to know why.”
“Why? Why?” She shook her head. “Simple, Lorelei. You’ll be taking over that much faster.”
“And what about you?”
“I’ll leave to fulfill my destiny,” she said, and drove on, her face filled with such pleasure and delight it was truly as if she could see her destiny right before us.
“What is this destiny, exactly?” I asked. “I never understood when Mrs. Fennel said that was what Brianna was pursuing, her destiny.”
She looked at me and smiled. “When your time comes, Lorelei, you’ll know. Believe me, you’ll know,” she said, and left it at that, another secret still wrapped tightly in mystery.
After we arrived at school, Ava asked me to wait until Marla had gotten out to go into the building. She looked more serious now, more her old self, her eyes filled with warning and threat.
“From now on, you have to be even more cautious than before,” she began. “I know what you’ve been through up until now. I know what it was like for you to remain so aloof, be such a loner, with no apparent interest in making close friends, joining anything. Even though you were somewhat attractive, boys gave up on you, right?”
“Yes,” I said, although I wasn’t convinced they had entirely given up on me. Some still smiled and said hello occasionally. A few even tried to start conversations, but I knew where those conversations would lead, so I discouraged them.
“That doesn’t mean you weren’t in their fantasies, Lorelei, and now you’re going to be in them even more. It’s because of the gift, this glow that’s around you.”
“I don’t understand, Ava. Where did it suddenly come from? Just going out with you?”
“No, it started before that. Neither Daddy nor I wanted to mention it until you had gone out with me, been tested in the field, so to speak. You don’t quite realize it all yet, but you’re like a race horse that, if not kept under control, would gallop so hard and fast it would burn itself out. Control is now the key word. When I told Marla you had laid a path to their libidos, I left out that yours is eager to charge forward, too. Remember how I’ve been constantly warning you about your urges, how I teased you about having a crush on a boy or giving away your virginity too quickly? Well, I was preparing you for this,” she said. “This is what Daddy saw coming.”
“The gift?”
“Exactly. It’s the reason you are so special, why we are all so special.”
“I don’t understand why I am special, Ava. I’ve never understood that.”
She nodded. “You will.”
“Why do you keep saying you will, you will? Why can’t you just tell me?”
She was silent a moment and just stared ahead at the school building. “You’re going to be late,” she said.
“No. Answer me,” I said, taking a sharper tone than I had ever taken with her. “Why can’t you just tell me things and not have me go around guessing and wondering?”
“Don’t start regressing on me and acting like a child. No tantrums, now, Lorelei.”
“I’m not having a tantrum. You say I have this special gift, that I’m older. Well, treat me that way. Why can’t you just tell me?”
Her eyes grew smaller, not hateful and not even angry. They were more full of mystery than rage. She looked as if she could see something in me that I couldn’t. I felt as if I were under an X-ray. I actually sat back.