Misty Read Online Free Page A

along with me.”
    â€œYou mean we just sit here like potted plants? We can’t ask questions?” Jade inquired.
    â€œWhat do you all think? You set the rules. Can you ask each other questions?” she threw back at us.
    â€œYes,” I said. “Why not?”
    Doctor Marlowe looked at Star and Cathy. Star nodded, but Cathy looked away.
    â€œWell, maybe we should just start and see how it goes,” Doctor Marlowe decided.
    â€œWhat exactly are we supposed to tell?” Jade asked.
    â€œIn each session, each of you will tell your story,” she said with a small shrug. “I’ve scheduled four sessions in a row for this.”
    â€œOur story? I got no story,” Star said.
    â€œYou know you do, Star. Each of you just start wherever you want. Here you are today. How did you get here?”
    â€œMy chauffeur brought me,” Jade said.
    â€œCome on, Jade. You know what I mean,” Doctor Marlowe said.
    Jade sat back, folding her arms, suddenly looking impregnable, defying our good doctor to uncork her bottle of secrets.
    â€œSo who’s going to start?” Star demanded.
    Doctor Marlowe looked at Cathy who turned even whiter. She glanced at Jade, passed her dark eyes over Star and settled on me.
    â€œI’d like Misty to start,” she said. “She’s been with me the longest. That okay with you, Misty?”
    â€œSure,” I said. I looked at the others. “Once upon a time I was born. My parents tried to give me back, but it was too late.”
    Jade laughed and Star smiled widely. Cathy’s eyes widened.
    â€œCome on,” Doctor Marlowe urged. “Let’s make good use of our time.”
    She gave me that look down her nose she often gives me when she wants me to try to be serious.
    I took a deep breath.
    â€œOkay,” I said. I sat a bit forward. “I’ll begin. I don’t mind telling my story.” I looked at them all and smiled. “Maybe someone will make it into a movie and it’ll win an Academy Award.”

2

    â€œ I really can start my story with once upon a time because once upon a time, I truly believed I was a little princess living in a fairy tale. My mother and I still live in this Beverly Hills mansion where I grew up. Some people would call it a castle because it’s got this round tower with a high, conical roof. That part houses the main door.
    â€œIt’s a big house. If it wasn’t for the intercom, my mother would have a strained throat daily trying to call to me, and if I don’t reply when she uses the intercom, she’ll call me on my own phone. I’ve got call waiting so when I’m talking to someone, she’ll call and say, ‘Misty, I need you downstairs. Get off the phone. I know you’re on it.’
    â€œOf course, she’s right. I’m usually on the phone.When we were a happy little family with smiles floating like balloons through the house, my daddy used to tell me I was born with a telephone receiver attached to my ear and that was why my birth was so difficult for my mother.”
    I paused and looked at Doctor Marlowe.
    â€œI don’t remember if I ever told you how much trouble I was for my mother when it came time for me to show my face. She was in labor over twenty hours. Sometimes, when she’s reminding me about my difficult birth, it goes to twenty-four hours. Once it was twenty-eight.” I looked at the other girls. “I told her that proves I didn’t want to be here.”
    I threw my hands up and bounced on the sofa.
    â€œ ‘No, no,’ I was screaming in my mother’s womb. ‘You doctors keep your paws off me.’ ”
    Jade and Star laughed. Even Cathy cracked a small smile.
    â€œYou’ve told me that, but not as colorfully,” Doctor Marlowe said.
    â€œYeah, well it’s true. She had to be stitched up afterward as well. I mean, she loves sitting there and describing it all in gruesome