Read Online Tea Cups & Tiger Claws by Timothy Patrick - Free Book Online Page A

nobody had come out onto the back porch, and then darted across the gravel driveway, across a strip of lawn, and down the garden path. When she felt sufficiently covered by the trimmed canopy of the willow trees, and clear from any eyes that might happen to look out a window from up at the house, she ducked behind a tree trunk. She looked back and still saw part of the pointy roof of the house through the branches, but not the truck. She hadn’t yet gone all that far, she assured herself, and had no intention of going much farther at all. She turned her attention back to the voices, which now sounded louder, and heard more laughing, and made out some words, but also something else: a boy’s voice, which she found interesting, because Judith and Abigail didn’t have any brothers.
    She pushed off from the tree and headed down the path, her sixteen-year-old brain eagerly considering the devilish possibilities that accompanied boys and girls her age alone in nature. Cautiously, she followed the voices, like a trapper, slowing at every bend, ready to catch sight of her prey at any second, but each time finding nothing but an empty path surrounded by trees and shrubbery, which increasingly looked less manicured, and more rustic; the trimmed willow trees and shaped bushes had given way to scraggily oaks and untamed deer bush. But the voices, which she now felt certain belonged to a single girl and boy, grew ever louder and clearer, so she pushed forward until she came upon a small stream, where the trail turned to the right and followed the stream down the hill.
    Once again she stepped off the path, hid behind a tree, and looked ahead. Nothing. Just voices. She looked up the path from where she had come and thought about turning back. That’s when she heard the girl say the name “Billy.” At first she doubted herself, but then the girl said it again, and Dorthea completely understood the meaning of it.
    Every town in America had plenty of Billys. Billy boys, Billie girls, Billys old and young, not to mention all the dignified Williams and Bills who answered to Billy whether they liked it or not. You couldn’t get more common than Billy…unless you lived in Prospect Park and your name happened to be Billy Newfield, only child of Archibald and Agnes Newfield, and the prince of the city. In that case there was nothing common about you at all.
    Dorthea knew her shortcomings intimately, but knowledge of her most troubling defects didn’t come to her naturally, parceled out in normal fashion as she grew and learned, succeeded and failed, and witnessed one childlike notion after another settle with a dusty thud into unpleasant adult reality; they came unnaturally, abnormally, shoved into her face and pressed onto her conscience every day by people, both good and bad, who saw the splendor of her wonderful sisters and then took it upon themselves to compare them to her. Judith and Abbey were as perfectly identical to her as nature allowed, but as perfectly superior as could only be allowed by providential judgment. And a harsh judgment it had been. Just a look at them, even fleeting, or even the mention of their names, and Dorthea, by comparison, instantly looked like dog shit on the doormat. She knew it and so did everyone else.
    A strong personality provided a degree of shelter against this assault, but so did a carefully constructed fantasy world . Sunny Slope Manor and the Newfield family occupied the chief cornerstone of this world. Judith and Abbey might fancy themselves something special, but someday, with the help of the Newfields, she’d put them in their place and show the world some real splendor. Depending on the mood and current wretchedness of her life, this turn of events came about in a number of ways, but always featured the Newfields’ dramatic recognition of her true superiority, and her moving into Sunny Slope Manor where she ruled over and looked down upon the humiliated Judith and Abbey forevermore. It never