Seductive Poison by Deborah Layton Read Free Book Online

waitress to serve them refreshments. My siblings were always there to smooth the sometimes rough relations between me and our parents. They allowed me to remain the center of attention, the twinkling star.
    My father continued to write and publish his research, travel and give lectures in America and Europe. I never understood why my mother refused to accompany him when he lectured in Germany. I begged her to go and take me, too, but she would look far into the distance and softly say, “I will never go back.” Her refusal to explain herself made me feel left out, frustrated, and furious at her.
    Then suddenly one summer Tommy disappeared, deserting me for the University of California at Davis. Annalisa remained behind and although I remained her high school sorority’s mascot, at nine years of age I was becoming a fading star. Around this time I started to tell really interesting stories to my friends. I believed these stories myself—I really was an Indian princess who had been adopted and taken away from my tribe. Annalisa scolded me for lying but was unaware of how much it was becoming the fabric of my being. I earned a rather unpleasant reputation in the neighborhood and became known as “Liar Layton.” Then Annalisa deserted me for Davis, too.
    I still climbed trees and played kickball, remained the best at handball and arguably was the bravest kid in the neighborhood. I could go out the farthest on any tree limb on the block—that the fire department had to be called to help me down was not a point against me either, I still knew that I had won. I was the biggest daredevil of all! If only my family were there to see me. But everyone was gone. I would have to use other means to catch someone’s attention.
    I began to have conflicts at school. I felt completely justified in chipping the tooth of the boy who cut in front of me in the handball line, and refused to apologize to him in the principal’s office. I threw pebbles into the eyes of the girl who called me a liar. Some parents told their children to stop playing with me. I was too ashamed to tell my parents. Papa was not supposed to know that I wasn’t his adorable Bugsy any longer. I tried to hide from Mama that her little baby girl was losing her charm.
    I still had one more sibling at home, Laurence, but he couldn’t take up the slack. He was focused on more meaningful things: philosophy, being president of the Berkeley High School Democratic Club, and doing his homework every night. Getting his attention was far more time-consuming and arduous than it had once been. I was forced to stand at his door calling his name over and over again.
    “Laurency,” I’d yell until he threatened to get me. Then his exasperated count would begin. He would warn me that by the time he reached ten, I had better be gone. When he reached ten, I’d run and hide, but he never came and looked for me. Then he, too, cast me aside for the ominous black hole in Davis that sucked up everyone important in my life.
    I was ten years old and three of the most influential people in my universe had abandoned me. Absorbed by the pressing concerns of paying for three college tuitions, Mama began to work part-time at the University of California at Berkeley’s main library. Although she was only ten minutes from the house, I returned home from school to an empty home. I remember climbing our tree and sitting high over the front porch waiting for the postman, hoping for letters from my favorite people in the world. Few came.
    My exhausted parents, clueless about how cunning I’d become, were left alone to deal with a spoiled pubescent daughter coming of age in the Berkeley of the tumultuous sixties. They had raised three perfect children, obedient, scholarly, and attentive. And now on their coattails came this wild, lonely, and angry adolescent. My parents were caught off-guard.
    Papa became increasingly disenchanted with my tomboy behavior and publicly mourned the loss of his