A Rendezvous to Die For by Betty McMahon Read Free Book Online

pictures of
people—maybe my parents—swim into my consciousness,
unrecognizable and contorted, like figures swimming underwater. Why
was I separated from them? Were they still alive and somewhere
without me? Did they ever wonder about where I was and what I was
doing? Did they know that I had been shifted from one home to another
for ten years?
    I was the Browns’ little girl,
until Mrs. Brown became too ill to care for me, and I was snatched
away to join the Youngmans. I remember the Youngmans. In order to fit
into their household, I had to coexist with Peggy, their precious
princess of a daughter. When anything went wrong, it was always my
fault. The final straw came when Peggy lifted money from her mother’s
purse and shifted the blame to me. Before the week was out, and
despite my protestations of innocence, I was on my way to live with
another family. It became a pattern— packing up and traipsing to
another house of strangers. I’d have to deal with new schools,
having no friends, and trying to establish a relationship with faux
siblings, recreating myself to fit into each new situation.
    I moved often, until Mrs. Andrews
accepted me as her foster daughter. I was thirteen. By then, I had
adapted to so many different families and situations I felt like a
chameleon . . . with multiple personalities. Over the years, my once
sunny disposition had completely eroded. I no longer expected good
things to happen. I had withdrawn into a wimpy, scared little rabbit.
    Most people called my new foster
mother crazy. She was certainly different from your typical PTA-type
mom. I can see her still, stalking J C Penney’s on the trail of the
perfect pair of stretch pants. Not just any stretch pants. Following
her own fashion drummer, she favored anything with purple and red in
it. Flowers, stripes, solids; it didn’t matter, as long as it was
purple and red. Even with my stunted fashion sense, I perceived she
was a bit over the top in her wardrobe choices. I groaned whenever
she put the stretch fabric to its ultimate test, pulling the pants up
over her lumpy thighs. As if that weren’t bad enough, she paired
the pants with pink or green patterned shirts.
    My foster mom teased her gray
hair into a mini-mountain, shellacked it in place with hair spray,
and then applied her makeup mask . . . heavy on the mascara, a
generous swipe of deep-plum lipstick, and matching blobs of blusher
on both cheeks. She thumbed her nose at social conventions of
all sorts. I never figured out how she was accepted as a foster
parent. But if she hadn’t been—and if I hadn’t been sent to
live with her—I’d have ended up on welfare or in prison, as did
so many foster home “graduates.” By the time I got to Mrs. A’s,
I was the ideal target for anyone who wanted to test his mettle on a
pushover. She sent me to school in clothes that attracted the class
bullies like a three-legged rabbit did a coyote. When they found out
I was a foster child, it gave them even more ammunition.
    One day, however, my personality
got a transplant. Whenever I got off the school bus, the kids’
jeers followed me as I shuffled toward home, my chin meeting my
chest. “Prairie chicken!” they taunted. “Cluck, cluck, cluck.”
And I suppose I did look like one. I was dressed that particular day
in an oversized flowered dress with clunky shoes and white socks—Mrs.
A’s idea of how an eighth grader dressed. “Cassandra is a
reject,” one of them shouted, singsong-style, while hanging out the
bus window. “Her parents didn’t want her. Her parents didn’t
want her.”
    Mrs. A heard them. She brought me
into the house, sat me down, and forced me to tell her what was going
on. I tearfully related how I was continuously ridiculed me about my
clothes and my family. “My dear,” she said, “it’s my fault
about the clothes.” She wiped the tears from my face. “We’ll
shop tonight for some updated duds. Then we’ll talk about how
you’re going to defend