Free Shadow Creek by Joy Fielding Page B

realized how unimportant such things were,” he told her. “Call me Daniel, call me Frank, call me Ishmael. It doesn’t matter what you call me. It’s not who I am.”
    I love you, she’d thought, whoever you are.
    “I am everyone,” he’d continued, unprompted. “I am everyone and I am no one. I am whoever I choose to be. Who are you?” he’d challenged, staring deep into her eyes, his hand reaching out to caress her cheek. His touch sent spasms of electricity throughout her body, causing her knees to wobble and her hands to shake.
    “I don’t know,” she whispered, completely in his thrall. “I don’t know who I am.”
    “You are whoever you choose to be,” he intoned solemnly.
    “Whoever I choose to be,” she agreed.
    Which was when she’d told him about her grandparents.
    “My mother used to take me over to their house every Saturday night when I was a little girl,” she began, “so that they could babysit me while she and my father went out. My grandparents had these friends they used to play bridge with, the Farellis. Mr. Farelli was pretty good-looking for an old guy, but his wife was really overweight and unattractive. She had this big mole on her upper lip and there were always a couple of hairs sticking out of it. Not a pretty sight, let me tell you. Anyway,” she continued with a laugh, “one Saturday night when I was about five or six, I was at my grandparents’ house, in the guest room, in bed, trying to sleep, and listening to my grandparents and the Farellis hollering at each other, which they always did when they played bridge. I actually grew up thinking that screaming was part of the game.” She laughed again. “So Mrs. Farelli gets all upset at something my grandfather says, and she comes into the guest room to cool off. And she sits down on the side of the sofa bed—I’m not even sure she realized I was there—and she’s yakking away to herself, and I’m, like, captivated by that ugly mole on her upper lip, which is moving back and forth as she’s talking, with these hairs wagging at me like tails, and I suddenly reach up and grab one of them. Pulledthe damn thing right out. Took half the mole with it. And Mrs. Farelli starts screeching and carrying on, like I’d deliberately tried to maim her or something. I mean, I’m a kid, right? What do I know? What’s she doing in my room anyway? And then suddenly everybody’s in the room, and what’s left of that damn mole starts bleeding like there’s no tomorrow, and I’m watching this blood dripping down her lips into her mouth, which is wide open because she’s still screaming, and I’m, like, fascinated by it. I can’t take my eyes off it. And now everybody’s yelling. ‘What’s the matter with you? Are you stupid? How could you do such a terrible thing?’ And I say, ‘But it looks better now. It was ugly.’ And my grandmother says, ‘Who do you think you are, dummy, to decide what’s ugly and what isn’t?’ And then she yanks me out of bed and turns me over her knee and spanks me, hard, right in front of everybody. And then she calls my parents and makes them come over and get me, says there’s something very wrong with me, and they were really mad because I ruined their evening, right? And that was the last time I ever stayed overnight at my grandparents’ house.”
    “So, who do you think you are, dummy?” Kenny repeated with a laugh.
    “Please don’t call me that,” she said, the word stinging even more than usual, coming from his lips. “I’m not stupid.”
    “No, you’re not. What are you?” he challenged.
    “I’m whatever I want to be.”
    “What else?”
    “I’m
whoever
I want to be,” she said with growing conviction.
    “And who is that?”
    She gave the question a moment’s consideration. “I’ve always liked the name Catherine.”
    “Then Catherine you shall be.”
    And then, the following week, “Call me Veronica.”
    “As in
Betty and …
”
    “I’m definitely not a