The Florencia Lozano Homepage - Fan Fiction
Chapter 31
Starr stared down at her brown-loafered feet. Loafers were standard issue footwear at Windsor Lake Academy, along with thick, black tights and skirts that must touch the top of the knees at all times. They were comfortable shoes but lately she’d had a longing to put on something different, a pair of high heels with curved arches and pointed toes…shoes like Tea sometimes wore, or her mother. After all, she was eleven years old now…and had her period. She was a young woman.
As she stuffed the rest of her books into her purple backpack and pulled her coat on, she caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She seemed different suddenly, her baby-soft roundness was slowly disappearing and her face was taking on an elongated maturity that she didn’t altogether recognize.
She felt awkward and self-conscious in ordinary situations and there were new sensations in her body that she couldn’t quite understand or control, like when she watched the ballet dancers on stage in New York. Not the women, but the men with their clinging tights revealing a mysterious distinction that she couldn’t quite fathom, a mystery that made her body react in a way she’d never noticed before. She had never been so acutely aware of the difference between boys and girls as she had been that night, and it intrigued her for some unknown reason.
Picking up her backpack she caught a glimpse of someone out in the garden. A man, she thought, a tall, dark figure hovering in the thick blue mist coming off the lake. When she looked again the man was gone and she wondered if it was one of the security guards, or she had simply imagined it. Slinging her heavy pack over her shoulder she walked out of her room and headed downstairs to the kitchen to say good-by to Tea and her father.
* * * * *
“I have to get to the office, amor, I have so much to do...” Tea protested weakly as Todd buried his face in her neck.
“You know what I’d like to do…” he whispered, pressing her body against the window frame with his own.
Starr watched them curiously from the doorway, knowing she was invading a private moment.
Todd brought Tea’s fingers to his lips and kissed them one at a time as she whispered something to him, her hands pushing his hair back behind his shoulder. When they kissed, their lips were open and Starr observed the pink flesh of their tongues touching delicately and entering each other’s mouths, making strange, wet noises that intrigued her, and made her uneasy at the same time. Their eyes were closed and they seemed lost to everything around them. Again she felt that strange sensation in her body, that excitement, as if she was in the presence of some beautiful, unfolding mystery that hadn’t quite fully revealed itself, a secret world.
“I’m ready to go,” said Starr in a loud voice.
Todd pulled away from Tea instantly, and wiped his mouth, running his hands through his hair nervously and looking out the window. Tea straightened her clothes and smiled awkwardly.
“Starr…honey, we…uh…didn’t see you. Has Dennis called up?” asked Tea, referring to their security guard who generally called Starr from the gate when the school bus was in sight.
“No, not yet.”
“Starr…we were just…” said Todd, stuttering.
“You were kissing, daddy. I know what that is, you don’t have to get all weird about it, you know.”
Tea laughed as Todd rolled his eyes.
“I’m not getting weird about it, you just shouldn’t sneak up on people, that’s all” said Todd, with mild annoyance.
Starr noticed a distinct flush on her father’s face. There was a distinct level of affection with Tea that she’d never seen him share with anyone else, especially not her mother. She couldn’t ever remember her parents kissing and touching like that in all the time they were together and it felt a little odd to see her father behaving this way. He was always touching Tea.
The phone suddenly rang.
“Yeah,” said Todd, picking up the phone on the kitchen wall. “Yeah, I’ll tell her. Starr, your bus is here.”
“Okay,” she said, walking over and kissing them good-by. “I’ll see you later.”
“By sweetie,” said Tea.
“Later, Starr.”
Todd waited till he heard the front door slam and turned to Tea.
“That was weird! Do you think she saw anything?”
Tea laughed.
“Todd? Yes, she saw us kissing. Don’t make a big deal about it, okay?”
“We weren’t just kissing, I had my tongue down your throat. Hey, I don’t want Starr to think I’m, you know, some kind of depraved pervert. It’s bad enough she just found out about my past. I just don’t want her exposed to anything that might…confuse her.”
“Amor, we’re in love, we’re married. I think Starr knows that we make love.”
Todd stared at her wide-eyed.
“Yeah, you think?”
“Yes…I think. She’s eleven years old and kids her age aren’t as innocent as we were. Why are you freaking out about this? You were married to her mother for goodness sake, I’m sure she saw you kissing her.”
“Only at our wedding ceremonies…and that was perfunctory, a legality or something. I never touched Blair in front of Starr. It didn’t feel right.”
“Well, Todd, I think it’s healthy for Starr to see us being…affectionate. You don’t want her to be afraid of intimacy and love, do you?”
“No, I don’t. But, I don’t know, Tea. She’s growing up too fast and I didn’t think I’d have to deal with this shit for a few more years.”
Tea walked over and put her arms around him.
“In a few years she’ll be a teenager, dating boys…”
“No, no, no! Absolutely, no boys,” said Todd shaking his head. “Come on, let’s go and say good by to our other daughter, the one I don’t have to worry about for another decade.”
Todd took her hand and pulled Tea out of the kitchen and up the stairway, heading for the nursery.
When they got to the top of the stairs, they stood in the doorway looking at the empty crib. Tea noticed one of the side-railings had been lowered as she walked into the room and looked around.
“She’s not here.”
“She’s not here.”
Todd walked out onto the landing, looking everywhere.
“HEDDA!” he yelled from the top of the staircase.
“Yes, Mr. Manning? What is it?” called Hedda, from below the stairway.
Todd peered over the balcony as Hedda came up from the laundry room carrying a basket heaping with clean, folded clothes. Alma wasn’t with her.
“Hedda, where the hell is Alma?”
“I left her sleeping in her crib,” she said looking up at them, perplexed.
Todd and Tea stared at one another and started looking around the rooms on the second floor. They looked everywhere.
“Alma? Mija…where are you?” asked Tea, panic rising in her voice as she ran in and out of rooms and checked in the closets.
Todd ran across the hall to Starr’s room. He looked in her closet and checked the bathroom. Tea came running in behind him.
“Is she here?”
“No,” said Todd.
They stared at one another.
“Oh, my God…where is she?” asked Tea, her stomach sinking.
Suddenly, Tea heard some noise coming from beneath Starr’s bed. Todd fell on his knees and reached underneath it. Alma was giggling and wriggling as Todd pulled her out from underneath, her brand new front teeth gleaming like two small pearls in her tiny pink mouth.
“Alma…diabolita,” said Tea with relief, as Todd handed her over.
Hedda rushed in, breathless from climbing the stairs in a panic.
“Aye, the little devil! How did she get out of her crib?” asked Hedda.
“She’s a Manning! We’re great at breaking out of confined spaces,” said Todd, smiling proudly as Alma giggled triumphantly. “She’s been crawling around a lot, and walking a little, I guess it was just a matter of time. I guess we’d better put a security gate at the top of the stairs.”
They all laughed with relief as the phone started ringing.
Todd ran down to the foyer and picked it up.
“Todd Manning. What? What do you mean…she left ten minutes ago,” said Todd. “I’ll be right down.”
Tea came downstairs, as Todd headed for the door.
“Tea, Starr’s bus is here and she hasn’t showed up at the gate yet.”
“But…she should have been there by now.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Todd, running out the door. Tea grabbed a coat from the rack in the hallway and followed him out.
Todd moved quickly along the walkway and across the gravel driveway toward the road that ran along the lake.
“STARR! STARR…YOU’RE BUS IS HERE! WHERE THE HELL ARE YOU…THIS ISN’T FUNNY,” he shouted as he ran down the road.
“STARR…STARR!” called Tea.
Finally they got to the gate and Dennis, a tall, lanky man of forty with shaggy, brown hair was standing there waiting for them.
“She hasn’t come down yet, Mr. Manning.”
Todd ran back toward the house with Tea running behind him. Stopping halfway, something caught his eye in the distance, something purple beneath a large bush by a ragged path that led into a wooded area at the edge of the property. As he got closer, he saw what it was. Falling on the ground he slid under the brush and pulled it out. It was Starr’s backpack.
Todd handed Tea the pack and bolted into the woods, following the path, as Tea clutched the purple pack to her chest.
“STARR! STARR!”
Tea heard Todd’s voice fading as he disappeared behind some trees. A few minutes later he returned carrying something dark in his hand. It was Starr’s loafer.
“Starr…” whispered Tea.
Dennis came running over.
“Call the police,” said Todd grimly.
2003 Copyright by Trog
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