Secrets of Foxworth by V.C. Andrews Read Free Book Online Page B

she comes running into my room to tell me about something they’ve said that she is probably exaggerating.
    Cathy can be very dramatic. I think she believes we live in a movie or something and that our mother and father are famous stars because Daddy is so handsome and Momma is so beautiful.
    She came running in this afternoon to tell me that Daddy practically “swooned” over Momma when he saw her. I had the feeling that she got the word “swooned” from our mother, who probably has told her that Daddy swooned over something she did with her hair or clothes. Cathy would never have come up with a word like that on her own.
    Our mother had gone to the beauty salonearlier today and had her nails done. Momma lets Cathy go into her bathroom when she’s taking a bath in her perfumed bubble water sometimes. They leave the door open so I can see them. Momma isn’t shy about being naked in front of us. I know she is very proud of her figure, which is a figure most women envy, but she also knows I try to think of the human body the way a doctor should. There have been times when she’ll ask me to wash her back for her. Cathy stands to the side, watching enviously, so I have to let her do it, too.
    Cathy often sits on the edge of the tub and listens to our mother go on and on about beauty tips so that when she’s old enough, she’ll be ready. On more than one occasion, I’ve seen Cathy imitating her, luxuriating in her own bath and pretending to put on makeup the way Momma does. She comes into my room when she does her hair and puts on a dress to ask me how she looks. Twice this week, she asked me to wash her back the way I would wash Momma’s. Usually, I do it too quickly, and she complains.
    â€œAm I as beautiful as our mother?” she always wants to know.
    â€œNo,” I tell her. “Not yet. You’re too young to be beautiful like our mother.”
    She hates my answers. “You’re so correct all the time, Christopher. Ugh!” she cries, frustrated, and charges out to complain about me.
    I am correct. It’s important to me to be correct, and I don’t want to live in some fantasy, some movie. Facts are more important than dreams.
    Cathy’s a girl. She may never believe that facts are more important. I do know some women who do, especially some of my teachers, like Miss Rober, who teaches math and taps the blackboard so hard to make a decimal point that she often breaks the chalk. Miss Rober is fifty-something and has never been married. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t wish she was.
    Last week, I told Momma that, and she looked at me funny and asked, “How do you know she does? Some women don’t, you know.”
    â€œShe’s not a nun, Momma. She wears her clothes to attract men, very tight sweaters and skirts. She likes to show cleavage.”
    â€œChristopher Dollanganger! I do believe you’re getting too old for your age,” she said, which at first I thought was just a funny misstatement but later understood.
    Maybe she won’t be asking me to wash her back as much or will close her door whenever she gets dressed. She won’t come in on me when I bathe and will avoid looking at me when I get dressed.
    There will be something between us that has never been: embarrassment.
    I hope it doesn’t come to that, but then again, I know it’s as inevitable as facial hair and shaving.
    I paused to take a breath. I couldn’t remember when my father had looked uncomfortable looking at me when I was naked. Until she became ill, Mom would help me bathe. Once I was old enough to bathe or shower myself, even she stayed out of the bathroom. And of course, my father was embarrassed even to see me in my underwear now. In fact, it was Suzette’s mother who took me for my first bra. When she volunteered for the job, Dad was visibly relieved. Mrs. Osterhouse was always offering to help me do things when it came to