© 2003 by Ashleen Woods AislinnDragon@aol.com http://www.oocities.org/Sonya_Harris_13/VCfanfiction.html
To find out Brie's story, read Air
STORY LAST UPDATED ON 30/06/2003
PROLOGUE
I'm taking it like a man, though I don't feel as though I am yet. I feel more immature, almost vulnerable, than anything else. Sometimes I hold onto Elise as though I'll fall into the ocean and drown if I let go. And she can tell, damn it, she can tell I need her and that's what bothers me. What if she decides I'm too protective, or too attached? What if I frighten her away? What then?
For now, it doesn't matter; I can once again push my feelings aside and live just in the here and the now. But the past is always closing in behind me…
CHAPTER ONE
"Sit up straight in your chair, River," Mother pronounced, as though she was talking through her pointed nose.
My first instinct was to roll my eyes and say no. But instead, I straightened my back and looked forward across the table at my oldest sister, Amelia. Amelia let the slightest smile flash past her lips then looked back at her plate, being careful not to let her elbows touch the white tablecloth.
"And what are you smiling at, Amelia? It isn't funny that your brother is not disciplined."
"No, Mother, I was only thinking to myself. You see, the girls in my Literature Circle and I have decided to read the Shakespeare play
The Taming of the Shrew, and I was reading ahead of them since I am the founder and president of the society. I found it rather amusing is all."
Mother snorted, but let it slide. She always let her favourite's slide. I stopped myself from clicking my fork against the plate and continued taking the annoyingly "dainty" bites Mother insisted I took when I ate. She hen-picked Father, too, although he pretended he was the head of the household.
"You know that buyer, Mr Richardson, stopped by my office again today," Father said, glancing across to the end of the table where Mother was sitting. "I knew he would buy that piece of property, he was just debating on whether he wanted the extra bit of land with the stream or not."
"Oh, really. What did he say?"
"He wanted the whole lot. You cannot fool a Johnson, no. I told you that many a time. You cannot fool a Johnson."
"Yes, Mr Johnson. You are the best in the state." County was more like it.
I was getting sick to my stomach. "Father, Mother, may I please be excused? I have my studies to get to," I asked, setting my fork down.
"No you may not. You can sit here and wait until the rest of us finish dining. Honestly, you act as though a lower class mongrel raised you. The thought." She looked up at the ceiling then continued eating.
My youngest sister gently elbowed me and whispered. "You never can have your way with her. She caught me out talking with the gardener the other day and sent me straight to my room."
"Well, I am not sure. Maybe we should have sent them to a boarding school in England after all, darling. They do not put up with improper behaviour there at all."
"No, they actually discipline their children," Mother replied, glaring across the table at Father, who tried to not squirm uncomfortably.
I suppressed a sigh, and sat staring at my half-eaten plate of chicken
cordon bleu, the "real" stuff. Not that "crap" or "craup" you get in the boxes at supermarkets, where our type never set foot. We never had to grocery-shop. Never had to go to the mall, only the high-class expensive designer shops. It was really quite dull. I wanted a way out. I was the only boy in the mix, and Mother was trying to turn me into another girl. Three girls you would think were enough, but no, she wanted a fourth. Crazy, that damn woman was, but what could I do but exactly what she wanted me to? We all knew she was the one who really held the purse strings. If she said to disinherit, then it would be so, as if she was God, or Moses, or someone who actually mattered.
Again, it was dull. I lived in a ridiculously large mansion. It was huge, to say the least. I didn't think I'd ever even been on the third floor west wing. Hell, I didn't think I'd been on the third floor but three times in all my sixteen years of life in this hell that was supposed to be so great. The rich could do whatever they want, eh? Well, maybe the normal rich, if you could call them normal. But not in our household.
Mother came from a true blue-blood family in Virginia. I didn't know how she ended up here, meeting my dad who's only the second generation of wealthy, but she met him and spawned three girls before I, a male, accidentally came along. I shouldn't say spawned for all of my sisters. I liked Emily. Amelia was looking to be just a carbon copy of mother, without the wrinkles. I guess my other older sister, younger than Amelia, but older than Emily, was okay. Elisabeth. She wasn't home much. She went to a private school back in Virginia, the one where mother had gone.
Amelia wanted to be a lawyer, a perfect job for one who was already turning out to be a bloodsucking fiend, and so she stayed here, in New York, and was going to Yale. From New York City, where her apartment was, it was just an Amtrak ride to campus. She usually lived on campus, but it was winter break for her (unfortunately). I, on the other hand, didn't get out of my private school until the weekend before Christmas, which was at least a two weeks wait for me at the time. And I didn't know which was worse, school or home. Thank God Emily and Elisabeth were easy to get along with.
Dinner finally ended, and I was saved from having to waste more time with a family who on the whole resented me. Amelia felt threatened by me. I was the only son in a family of girls. She was scared that if Mother died first, Father might switch his will around to suite his only son.
Mother, I didn't understand her. When I was a boy, she would take me shopping and have me shop just as if I was just one of the girls. Normally, I wouldn't care about this. But it was because of her that I had a horrible reputation at school. I think the time we started not getting along was when I refused to take ballet with my youngest sister. Ballet! Yes, yes, I know you don't have to be a homosexual to appreciate the dance, but I was not going to wear tights. No. That was all there was to it. I had already been made fun of mercilessly at my private school for knowing how to embroider and knit.
God, if only I'd known I would have rebelled before the boys at school would have had a clue. And of course, they all knew. My mother chatted with their mothers, and word gets around quite easily when your parents have nothing better to do than ruin your lives.
I walked with Emily to the study after getting my own books to finish up a paper that was due in two days. I was halfway done with it, and wanted to finish it off so I could have some time to work on other things in class.
"What was the gardener doing outside? It's winter," I asked, shutting the door.
"Oh, I don't know, he cleans the sidewalks after it snows now. He does all the maintenance around here, you know, making sure all the windows - and I mean all the windows - are clean, the sidewalks are cleared off, just whatever things I guess need to be done in the winter. Does he have to trim the maze I wonder?" She got a confused look then shook her head. "You know."
Emily was one year older than I was. We were nearing the end of the year, her junior year, and my sophomore year. Elisabeth was just a year older than Emily, and she would be finishing up her last year of high school this spring. And, following Mother's strange little pattern, Amelia was nineteen and a freshman in college. Again, I was the only problem there was. I was supposed to be a girl.
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