Misty Read Online Free Page B

detail, the vomit, the blood, the pain, all of it.”
    â€œWhy do you think she does that?” Doctor Marlowe asked.
    â€œSo, we are asking questions,” I fired back at her. She laughed.
    â€œProfessional habit,” she said.
    â€œShe just wants me to feel guilty and sorry for her so I’ll take her side more against my father,” I said. “She’salways telling me how much easier men have it, especially in a marriage. Well? That’s why, isn’t it?”
    Doctor Marlowe kept her face like a blank slate as usual. I didn’t need her to agree anyway. I knew it was true.
    â€œAnyway, I once thought I was a princess because I could have anything I wanted. I still get everything I want, maybe even more since their divorce. My mother’s always complaining about the amount of alimony and child support she gets. It’s never enough and whenever my daddy gives me something, my mother groans and moans that he has enough money for that, but not enough for decent alimony. The truth is I hate taking anything. It just causes more static. Sometimes, there’s so much static, I have to put my hands over my ears!” I exclaimed.
    I did it right then and everyone stared at me. After a moment the feeling passed. I took a deep breath and continued.
    â€œSometimes, I think about my life in colors.”
    I saw Jade raise her eyebrow. Maybe she did the same thing, I thought.
    â€œWhen I was little and we were the perfect family, everything was bright pink or bright yellow. After their breakup and all the trouble, the world turned gray and everything faded. I thought I was like Cinderella and the clock had hit midnight or something. There was a gong and a puff and I was no longer a princess. I was a. . . a. . .”
    â€œA what?” Doctor Marlowe asked.
    I looked at the others. “An orphan with parents.”
    Jade nodded, her eyes brighter. Star appeared very serious and Cathy suddenly lifted her head and looked at me like I had said something that made a lot of sense to her.
    â€œMy father works for a venture capital company and travels a great deal. It was always hard for me to explain what he did for a living. Other kids my age could tell you in a word or two what their parents did: lawyer, doctor, dentist, pharmacist, department store buyer, nurse.
    â€œMy father studies investments, puts money into businesses and somehow manages with his company to take over those businesses and then sell them at a profit. That’s the way he explained it to me. I remember thinking that didn’t sound fair. Taking over someone else’s company and selling it didn’t sound right. I asked him about that and he said, ‘You can’t think of it like that. It’s business.’
    â€œEverything is business to him in one way or another. For him, that expression can explain everything that happens in the world. Maybe to him even love is business,” I said. “I know this whole divorce is business. My mother is always calling the accountant or her lawyer.
    â€œMommy was vicious about getting every trace of Daddy out of the house. For days after he had left, she searched the rooms for anything that was evidence of his having lived there. She actually took all the pictures of the two of them and cut him out if she thought she looked good in them. She sold or gave away many nice things because they were things he liked or used, right down to the expensive tools in the garage. I told her shewas just going to have to replace some of it, but she replied, ‘At least it won’t have his stigma on it.’
    â€œHis stigma? I thought. What had his stigma on it more than me? I looked like him to some extent, didn’t I? There were times I actually caught her staring at me, and I wondered if she wasn’t thinking I looked too much like him. How could she change that? Maybe she would have me go to her plastic surgeon and ask him to get my father out of my