Free Bittersweet Dreams by V.C. Andrews Page B

I’m not in any mating season.”
    â€œMating season?” She looked like she would cry again.
    â€œI want to use makeup,” Allison said. “I want to look nicer now. Let me.”
    Julie shook her body as if she were throwing off water like a drenched dog. “This is giving me a headache,” she said. “I wanted to do something nice for you, and you’re giving me a headache. Curious, primitive . . . I’ve never heard any young girl talk like you do.”
    â€œIt’s interesting, that’s all I’m saying, Julie. You know, it wasn’t that long ago that girls were forbidden to wear lipstick until they were at least eighteen,” I told her. “Think about the changes in social mores that have occurred not only over the past century but over the past decade. There are girls in high school now with tattoos on their necks, breasts, and rear ends, and their parents didn’t stop them. Girls wear rings in their noses, their navels, and their lips. They punch holes in their cheeks. Now, there is a tribe in Central Africa—”
    â€œStop!” she cried, and popped out of her seat with her hands over her ears. Both Allison and I were a little shocked at her burst of frustration. She relaxed and regained her composure, because Allison was looking at her wide-eyed. I might have been smiling. “I need to see about dinner,” Julie said. “Either finish putting on your nail polish or wash off what you’ve done.” She scrunched up her shoulders and left her bedroom.
    I looked at myself in the mirror. I did have my mother’s green eyes, slightly almond-shaped. I had naturally long eyelashes but still didn’t understand why Julie coveted them so. My nose was slightly longer than I would have liked, but it was straight, and I had full grapefruit-pink lips that I knew Julie also coveted. Whenever she complimented me on my rich, smooth complexion, she sounded like she was complaining. I knew she thought my beauty was wasted. She wasn’t alone. I had heard that sort of comment bitterly made by other girls in school from time to time. I wasn’t unappreciative of my good looks. I just wasn’t as absorbed with them as she and the other girls were. Maybe that was a fault. I was thinking more about it lately.
    My menarche came later than for most girls, but once it had, my body began a determined march to maturity, led by full, perky breasts. I read everything I could get my hands on in articles or books that discussed the subject of female development, and then I analyzed my own reactions to my budding sexual desires. I even thought about keeping a journal about my own development, but I decided there was really nothing unusual enough about me to warrant the effort.
    That was the way I was.
    I analyzed everything I did or started to do and determined how much time and energy I should spend on it.
    Like this makeup thing.
    It was easier to wash off the three nails I had painted, give my hair four or five quick brushes so it wouldn’t fall over my eyes, and then get back to my calculus.
    â€œYou’re being ungrateful to my mother,” Allison said. The word ungrateful was in practically every other sentence her mother tossed in my direction.
    â€œDo you know the meaning of gratitude, or are you just parroting your mother?”
    â€œDon’t call me a parrot!” she screamed, and walked out when I began to laugh.
    However, there was no question that Julie saw all that as another example of my deliberate failure rather than appreciating what she was trying to do for me. She complained to my father at dinner.
    â€œAfter all,” she said, “I’m making the best effort I can, Roger. I offer to take her to get new clothes, new shoes, anything, but she shows no interest. She has to meet me at least halfway.”
    He nodded and told me I should be more appreciative. He tried to sound stern, but I knew he