Heavenstone 02 - Secret Whispers

her two brothers, Jack and Ray.
    “I was at the bottom of the totem pole when it came to anyone in my family caring about what made me happy,” she said. “Sometimes I felt invisible. You know what I mean? I’d talk, but no one would pay attention. Actually,” she added in a whisper, “I think I was the only one of us who was not planned, and you know what happens then.”
    “What?” I asked, interested in the answer for obvious reasons.
    “The man blames the woman, and the woman resents it and the child as well.”
    I didn’t openly disagree with her, but I didn’t believe that was always the case.
    Because I talked so little about my family and because she thought asking too many questions would only stir up my sorrow, Ellie talked for hours about herself and her family. In a few short months, I knew whom she’d had crushes on as far back as grade school, including teachers; what her first sexual experiences had been like; and a list of her favorites from ice cream to movie stars and singers. I quickly understood that I had become her longed-for audience. In our room, she did not have to fight to get a word in or dominate a conversation. In fact, she soon felt very comfortable spewing out her anger at and her unhappiness with her parents and her brothers and sister. We hadn’t been together a full week before she revealed her secret, the reason her parents wanted her in a well-supervised school.
    Ellie had been a kleptomaniac and had been arrested a number of times, but her secret mental diagnosis concluded that her compulsive behavior was not because of some uncontrollable obsession with stealing but because of her deep-seated need for attention.
    “My parents were told they were lucky I hadn’t turned to nymphomania instead,” she said with that thin, evil little laugh she sometimes used to punctuate the ends of sentences. “Little do they know.”
    “I’m glad you don’t live in Kentucky and frequent the Heaven-stone Department Stores,” I toldher. “We’d be bankrupt.” She loved that. I hadn’t ever thought I was good at dry, sarcastic humor, but Cassie was at my ear prompting me. It was as if she had gotten into my head somehow and, like some traffic cop for thoughts, could direct and redirect ideas. Why I was so good at it didn’t matter. I simply was, and Ellie enjoyed my biting remarks, especially when directed at some of the other girls.
    So, with my unselfish manner, my willingness to be her audience and her sounding board, and my occasional witty remarks, Ellie was quite comfortable. As it turned out, that was fortunate for me in another, bigger way, too. She would point me at the first boy who sparked any romantic interest in me since my tragedies, but that wasn’t to come without cost. Nothing came to me without cost, despite what everyone thought about my being from such a wealthy, powerful, and famous Kentucky family. In this case, the price was the end of my relatively close relationship with Ellie, the only person other than my uncle Perry and my father with whom I had become in any way close. I should have anticipated it. Cassie had warned me.

Feminine Gunslingers
    O NE OF THE many lessons my sister, Cassie, had taught me related to what she called feminine gunslingers.
    “Don’t believe in this myth about your best girlfriend, Semantha. I’m your best girlfriend, because I’m not in any competition with you for any man and never will be. I’ll never be jealous of your beauty, but every girl you meet will see you as a threat. When you walk into a room, they’ll eye you up and down just the way gunslingers eyed their competition.”
    “Why?” I asked. “I won’t try to steal away their boyfriends. I would never do that.”
    Cassie laughed. She loved to laugh and raise her arms as if we were having these conversations in front of a big audience, and she could turn to them and say, “Do you all see this? See how much she needs me?”
    “You don’t have to want to steal away their boyfriends, Semantha, but that won’t stop their boyfriends from looking at you with more interest and excitement than they look at their girlfriends. You’re beautiful. But more important, the girls won’t believeyou’re not trying to steal their boyfriends away. They’ll watch every move you make, and I mean every move—the roll of your eyes, the swing of your hips, and the softness in your voice. They’ll compare themselves to how you wear your makeup, what outfit you have