Diary of a Heretic

Overexposed

kathleenmaher — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 13:09:24 -0500

Matthew King had sent all the help away, privacy being the only security that mattered here. He arranged for their meals to arrive prepared, and he, Brooke, and Tara took turns serving and cleaning up. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] At eight, Monday morning, he was watching the girls riding their bicycles toward the farmhouse when his agent Jeffrey phoned. “The meeting’s tomorrow in midtown.” Matthew nodded. “Three-thirty.” “It’s Barbara from Eon who really wants you, Matthew. She usually doesn’t attend these things. But she’s in town. And she’s the one...

The Half Shell

kathleenmaher — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:29:40 -0500

Tara pushed Ivy in a bucket swing. Dexter swung from the hanging rings. Brooke in her French hat and Matthew in sopping wet jeans rose from the hillside. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Earlier, while the children were preoccupied, Tara had learned that “the age of consent” in New York was seventeen. Any man older than twenty-one who had sex with a girl younger than seventeen committed a felony. Brooke wouldn’t be seventeen until Halloween. Tara watched Brooke and Matthew King approach, keeping their distance yet moving as one. Matthew King...

The Third Degree

kathleenmaher — Fri, 20 Nov 2009 20:26:51 -0500

Matthew King had won three Emmys playing a psychiatric pediatric intern who figured out kids’ secret, disabling torments and what to do about them. The show “Children’s Minds” was still number one in reruns. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] If his agent, in fact if anyone saw him stretched beneath Brooke’s gaze, or suspected a fraction of how infatuated he was by this well-adjusted wild child, he’d be in trouble. Presumably, nobody saw him touch Brooke’s cheek and deliberately not lower her face to his. Or saw her counter-move thwarted when...

Forget Me Nots

kathleenmaher — Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:52:49 -0500

While Tara grinned at Matthew, recalling his movie dialogue, he observed that she was slightly bigger than Brooke with brown hair that was probably very blonde until recently. Her blue eyes were startling and her features more refined. In giddy innocence, she told Matthew King she knew all his lines by heart. And he believed her. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] He held her gaze until his assessment felt certain. Tara was thrilled by romance on the screen. A skillful presentation fulfilled her. Brooke, however, demanded real-life passion. Her avidness was...

Le Chapeau d'Été

kathleenmaher — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 11:38:15 -0500

Brooke had phoned Tara before noon and said, “Come right now. I’ll meet you at the turn-off.” The path between Matthew King’s property and the highway was half a mile long and wide enough for both bicycles. Tara could scarcely believe Matthew King had hired her to babysit too. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] She wanted the job. She wanted to meet Matthew King, whose movies she knew by heart. But as they bicycled toward the farmhouse, she had to ask Brooke: “Is it an emergency?” “Don’t be ridiculous, Tara. I...

Better to Die than Try

kathleenmaher — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 15:49:42 -0500

After Brooke’s unspoken, stifling, six-month love affair with the senior from Boiceville (whose name shall never be mentioned), she regarded sex as the ultimate danger. Other risks only went so far and then you died. (She was still blithe about death because it hadn’t affected her yet.) [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] But sex? If it rose inside you, demanding abandon, and if you were a sixteen-year-old girl, you needed to act the opposite of how you felt. You needed to act like you never wanted anything or anyone or people...

Double the Fun

kathleenmaher — Wed, 11 Nov 2009 14:53:45 -0500

In the gallery’s workroom Tara was stringing metallic beads for a complicated necklace her mother had designed and wondering if Brooke ever realized how connected they were. Not just as sisters. But in how Brooke’s reckless persona made Tara appear sensible and calm. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Brooke took wild risks, got smacked around, and criticized. Book-smarts saved her from being entirely written off. But thanks to Brooke, Tara watched from the wings, safe from the line of fire. They protected each other—their parents being too self-absorbed and dull-witted to...

Fantasyland

kathleenmaher — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:28:14 -0500

Brooke hated that Tara had called out her ex-boyfriend in front of his friends. Because Brooke was the senior boy’s secret. And especially because, Brooke tried to explain, he had used her. Gotten bored and forgotten her. Or pretended to. So when Tara rose to his bait, the pathetic−but over and done−situation only got sorrier. “Figure it out, Tara; now everybody knows.” [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Tara apologized and begged for details, which Brooke was anxious to unload. So Tara had crawled beside Brooke on the floor, the TV casting...

No Cold Fish

kathleenmaher — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 20:34:43 -0500

Brooke and their mother Connie overheard Tara on the phone. “I’m not going anywhere with you, Pop. Come over if you want. But you won’t change my mind.” “About what?” Connie asked when Tara hung up. “About God. He can’t force me into church.” Brooke said, “See ya.” She wasn’t hanging around for this. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] Connie knew, however, that she better hang around, and called a friend to work at the Trinity Gallery, which sold arts and crafts made by local artists and crafters. When Jim, who...

Never No More

kathleenmaher — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:36:50 -0400

Tara considered wearing a few little braids by her face. Jazz up her colorless hair that refused to grow long. But if she got into that—how she looked—she’d miss the bus. Halfway down the stairs, she heard Brooke singing in the kitchen, “Never no more will I cry for him…” Their father liked Patsy Cline. Brooke, however, couldn’t sing. Really. She could not sing at all. [Click here to read the first episode, or here to read the previous one.] After practically dying last night from drinking half a bottle of whisky, she was wearing a red t-shirt with the...