The girl flushed crimson; the boy just stared at her as if she were out of her mind.
“You would like some potato chips and dip,” Susan said firmly. “Now.”
Outside there was a noise. The sprawling old elm was climbable, unfortunately. At least the swinging monkeys more closely resembled what Susan remembered fourteen-year-olds to be. She shooed them down, went back inside to serve one last round of hot dogs and took two aspirin. Then, acting on a sudden hunch, she raced upstairs to find another adolescent couple looking for a place to fool around.
Over and over during the melee she caught Barbara’s eyes on hers, still belligerent yet somehow pleading and desperately unhappy. Barbara had never left the dance floor; in fact, Griff’s daughter had never been part of the disasters that had been going on. Barbara hadn’t been smoking or necking or drinking…but as for the friends her mother evidently allowed her to socialize with…
“Look, Susan,” Barbara said miserably some hours after the party had ended, “I’ll clean everything up.”
Susan was on her knees, as was Barbara, both of them trying to remove a stain of unknown origin from the expensive Oriental rug. It was past midnight, and the house was suddenly quiet. Her lovely, lovely house, Susan lamented. Soda cans were everywhere, chips were deeply embedded in the carpet, snacks were strewn about haphazardly and water stains marked the newly varnished sideboards. Susan lifted her head and stared at Barbara, then picked up the soaked towels and stood up, snatching up assorted soda cans on her way back to the kitchen.
Susan was hurt, and close to tears. Barbara trailed silently after her, carrying so many cans that a few tumbled to the floor, making a terrible racket. Barbara’s head jerked up, her eyes still guiltily expecting a tongue-lashing from her new stepmother.
It didn’t happen. Susan simply picked up the last of the debris and then hauled out the vacuum cleaner. She was certainly not going to let Griff come home to this mess; she didn’t care what time it was. Barbara stayed in the kitchen, having filled the sink with soapy water without even being asked to do so.
Susan pushed the noisy vacuum cleaner over every inch of the new carpets, ignoring wet spots, not particularly caring if she got electrocuted. Her head ached; her back was feeling the strain of the long day…but it was her heart that felt torn to pieces. The hurt came from knowing that she’d been so naive as to be set up by one fourteen-year-old child. It came from the hours she’d spent painting and furnishing Barbara’s room, anticipating that a slow but sure course of honest affection and gentleness would win the girl over, a naive belief that if she went ninety percent of the way, Barbara would surely come the other ten percent.
Yes, Barbara was unhappy, guilty and miserable now. Maybe she hadn’t expected things to get quite so out of hand, but Susan was almost certain that Barbara was panicking with fear that Susan would tell Griff about the party. Barbara’s remorse was not really regret for what she’d put Susan through. She couldn’t have gone more out of her way to totally reject her father’s wife…
Finally, after going over the carpet four times, Susan turned off the vacuum cleaner. As she was winding the cord, she glimpsed Barbara from the corner of her eye, hugging the wall by the door, her face pasty-white and her eyes stricken.
In spite of herself, and in spite of every rational instinct she’d ever possessed, Susan felt an unwelcome surge of compassion. “Barbara, it’s all right. Just go to bed,” she said quietly. “It’s all over.”
“Like, I didn’t know some of those guys. They were older. The thing was, the kids I invited needed someone older to drive them to this side of town, but I didn’t-”
However true that was, Susan knew the party had been planned to convey to her exactly what Barbara thought of her stepmother. Pushing a strand of hair back from her cheek, Susan straightened up from winding the vacuum cord. “The two boys you seemed to spend most of your time dancing with,” Susan said casually. “They looked like nice kids…”
“Steve is.” Barbara hesitated. “Those guys that pushed their way in were creeps. Crashers. None of the girls I go around with have anything to do with Barry…”
Barbara was so busy covering her tracks, yet Susan heard the grain of truth. It mattered, because she needed to hear that Barbara didn’t normally associate with certain of those teenagers before she could promise silence, something she knew Barbara was desperate to hear.
She pushed the vacuum cleaner into the closet and closed the door. “I don’t think we need to tell your father,” she said quietly.
Barbara’s face promptly took on a little color.
“It was between you and me, anyway, wasn’t it?” Susan said sadly. “Go to bed, Barbara. It’s late.”
The girl lost no time racing up the stairs. Susan couldn’t possibly have told her that she had no desire to inform Griff for her own sake; that she couldn’t bear to let him know how badly she had bungled her attempt to establish a relationship with the child he loved so dearly. She almost felt like laughing. She’d thought she had so much to share with his only daughter; she could remember so well how tough it was to be that age, that blend of grace and clumsiness, that special insecure person a fourteen-year-old girl was. Her total lack of experience with children had troubled her, but she had thought that at least with Barbara, despite the tough exterior…
First, bugs with Tiger, and now rebellion from Barbara… Susan mounted the stairs with a feeling of despair. She’d known before she married Griff that his kids were part of the package; with so much love inside her, she’d welcomed the challenges she’d known were coming.
It had just never occurred to her before that she could totally fail.
Chapter 6
An hour and a half later, the lights were off, the house was silent and Susan was in bed…very definitely not sleeping. Myriad troubled thoughts bounced back and forth in her mind. How could she have made such a swift, foolish promise to Barbara not to tell Griff about the party? He had a right and a need to know what his daughter was up to, and there was something all wrong with a marriage in which the wife kept secrets from her husband.
At the same time, though, Susan knew there was absolutely no way she could break trust with Barbara, tentative though that trust was. Over and over, she analyzed Barbara’s attitude. One cup teenage insecurity, one cup a dominant mother’s jealous preaching. Mix well. Stir in a loving father who pulled the girl in yet another direction; sift in peer influences and suddenly whip in an unknown woman who could so unfairly add a few more rules and expectations to confuse an already baffled teenager. It was really no surprise that the pie wouldn’t bake.
Susan desperately wanted to tell Griff that she was afraid she was failing two of his three children. She craved his reassurance that he didn’t expect an instant love affair between she and his offspring, that he understood these were just the first rounds. She still had faith that she could win Barbara over eventually. But it was difficult to take a long-term perspective when the clock was happily ticking toward three o’clock in the morning. Fears and insecurities thrived at that hour.
She adored Griff. She had no doubts that he loved her, but who was kidding whom? He would never have married a woman who didn’t love his kids. Well, she did love his children. She would love to take the dark-eyed Barbara in her arms and hug all that tension and insecurity away; she would willingly try to become a football star for Tiger. Instead…
Shut it off, Susan. Turn the pillow to the cool side. You’ve fretted over everything right down to the crossed T’s; now stop analyzing. She closed her eyes determinedly, only to hear a muffled thud from below. Her eyes opened wide in the darkness yet again, but she didn’t move. She was too good a friend of insomnia not to know that an overtired, anxious brain could invent noises in the night.