Passionate Visions

After dinner Andrea ran upstairs to the third floor of Tillman Hall, the red brick dorm at Piedmont Hills School. The Macpherson reunion had been held here every summer for the last twenty years. She pushed open the swing oak door and ran into the bathroom. She heard someone retch, then gag in another cubicle in the row of bathroom stalls. Tiptoeing slowly down the white tiled bathroom floor, she stopped instantly, recognizing her cousin's red ballet shoes beneath the closed door. Oh no. She felt her heart pound in her chest.

'Muffy, is that you?'

'Go away, Andrea. I don't want you to see me.'

'I'm not going away. I think I know what you're doing. I've seen it in the hospital. We need to talk.'

'No. Go away!'

Andrea heard her cry. She went into the next stall, bent over and put her head under the separating wall and looked up aghast. 'Open your door I can help you. Please,' she begged. 'Please!'

Muffy unlocked her door, but stood behind it. Andrea waited for her to come out.

'Andrea, no one must see me like this. Momma would die if she knew.'

'Yeah, and you'll die if you don't get some help! I thought you were awfully thin.'

Andrea held out her hand to her cousin. 'Please come out.'

'Why are you so strong?'

'I don't know,' Andrea said.

'Why?' she screamed, and stepped out.

Andrea gasped as she saw her favorite cousin. Tears slipped from her red-rimmed eyes, saliva and vomitus were about her mouth. Her heavy blond locks hung by her swollen distorted face with strings of hair turned dark, and stuck in puke on her cheeks.

'Answer me. I've got to be strong to stop this.'

Andrea stared in horror at her.

'Answer me!' Muffy's eyes wide, she screamed at her again.

Andrea shuddered. 'I don't know.'

'Answer me, for God's sake! I need what you have.' She stamped her foot.'Talk!'

'I don't know.' She frowned. 'It probably has to do with my father's death. Now, will you let me help you?' She held out her arms to Muffy, but Andrea saw her cousin step back.

'Why didn't you tell me that before?' Muffy's eyes squinted at her in distrust.

'Tell you what?'

'Why you're strong?'

'I'm not. I just answered 'cause you shrieked at me, talk! And because, I want to help you. Please Muffy,' she begged. 'I promise I won't tell Aunt Elizabeth. Why on earth would I tell your mother?'

'You've always been so happy and confident. I remember Momma cried when Uncle Paul died. They talked about your father's sudden heart attack, and how poor you and Aunt Marie would be because he had no life insurance.'

Andrea held Muffy's blue eyes. She spoke softly. 'Please just tell me about it.'

'If Momma finds out, she'll punish me in her way. I have to be very careful.'

'I promised. Come on, let's go to our secret hiding spot.' Andrea took Muffy by her arm to the row of white porcelain sinks across the large bathroom. 'Now, wash your face and hands with me.'

Andrea watched Muffy out of the edges of her eyes as she washed her own hands. Though they were both five feet eight, Andrea looked so much bigger than her cousin. Then she looked at her own reflection in the mirror. Her serious sea-green eyes stared back at her. Her dirty-blond hair looked even darker next to Muffy's golden waves.

Muffy peeked over at her above the wet paper towel still at her face. Her eyes crinkled. 'I've got a six pack of Schlitz hidden under my bed.' Muffy tossed the towel into the trash basket, bolted out the door and down the hall to their shared weekend dorm room.

Andrea dashed behind her, watching Muffy's thin legs. 'You're looking great in your red plaid peddle-pushers and matching Capezio's.'

Muffy yelled back over her shoulder. 'Hope our cousins will still be in the dining room with the others, and won't see us. I'll hide the beer in my big swim bag.'

'I have to be careful, because Momma searches and examines everything.' Muffy whispered harshly as she and Andrea ran back down stairs, and out the white double entry doors, and by the stone benches where the older family members visited after dinner. They skipped down one of the two curved stairways that led to the imposing entrance, skirted past the scrolled brick marker, Piedmont School For Boys. Established 1835, and out across the rolling green lawns. They caught hands and capered by the red brick Science Lab toward the pool set in a valley beneath spectacular wooded hills. The shining yellow sun had almost finished its long lazy slide down the blue August sky, in front of the gently swaying oaks and maples of the Piedmont forests of North Carolina.

'Away at University of Texas is easier for me, but once I caught Momma searching my dorm room, when she came earlier than she told me.' Muffy sighed. 'I walked in from class and found her reading my mail.'

Andrea stared at her wide-eyed as they passed the pool. 'Are you serious?'

They sat down on a towel behind a small thicket of blooming pink oleander bushes, nestled next to a garden marked with rows of tall, tasseled summer corn. The air smelled of freshly cut grass, and the crickets sang in the warmth of the early evening. It's where they had talked surreptitiously every summer for as long as Andrea could remember.