He turned the paper over, and she saw that it was, indeed, a photograph, although he flashed it too quickly for her to absorb anything more than the vague impression of a beautiful woman's face.
'I found it stuck in the back of Mom's junk drawer,' he said, taking an impatient swipe at the thick, dark bangs hanging in jags to his eyebrows.
Her legs felt weak, and she knew she had never wanted anything in her life as much as she wanted that photograph. 'How do you know it's her?'
'I asked my mom.' He cupped it in his hand so Phoebe couldn't see it and looked at it. 'It's a real good picture, Flea Belly.'
Phoebe's heart was pounding so hard she was afraid he would see it. She wanted to snatch the photograph from his hand, but she kept still because she knew from painful experience that he would simply hold it out of her reach if she tried.
She only had one picture of her mother, and it had been taken from so far away that Phoebe couldn't see her face. Her father never said anything much about her except that she was a dumb blonde who'd looked great in a G-string, and it was too goddamn bad Phoebe hadn't inherited her body instead of his brains. Phoebe's ex-stepmother, Cooki, whom her father had divorced last year after she'd had another miscarriage, said that Phoebe's mom probably wasn't as bad as Bert made out, but that Bert was a hard man to live with. Phoebe had loved Cooki. She had painted Phoebe's toenails Pink Parfait and read her exciting stories about real life out of True Confessions magazine.
'What'll you give me for it,' Reed said.
She knew she couldn't let Reed see how precious the photograph was or he would do something awful to keep her from having it. 'I already have lots of pictures of her,' she lied, 'so why should I give you anything?'
He held it up in front of him. 'All right. I'll just tear it up.'
'No!' She leapt forward, the protest slipping through her lips before she could stop it.
His dark eyes narrowed in sly triumph, and she felt as if the sharp jaws of a steel trap had just closed around her.
'How much do you want it?'
She had begun to tremble. 'Just give it to me.'
'Pull down your pants and I will.'
'No!'
'Then I'm going to tear it up.' He clasped the top between his fingers as if he were getting ready to tear it.
'Don't!' Her voice was shaking. She bit the inside of her cheek, but she couldn't stop her eyes from filling with tears. 'You don't want it, Reed. Please give it to me.'
'I already told you what you have to do, Lard Ass.'
'No. I'll tell my dad.'
'And I'll tell him you're a stuck-up little liar. Which one of us do you think he'll believe?'
Both of them knew the answer to that question. Bert always took Reed's side.
A tear dripped off her jaw onto her cotton top, making an amoeba-shaped smear on the leaf of the strawberry. 'Please.'
'Pull down your pants, or I'll tear it up.'
'No!'
He made a small tear at the top, and she couldn't hold back a sob of distress.
'Pull 'em down!'
'Please, don't! Please!'
'Are you going to do it, crybaby?' He lengthened the tear.
'Yes! Stop! Stop and I'll do it.'
He lowered the photograph. Through her tears she saw that he had made a jagged rip through the top inch.
His eyes slithered down over her and settled on the point where her legs came together, that mysterious place where a few strands of golden hair had begun to grow. 'Hurry up before somebody comes.'
An awful vomit taste rose in her throat. She worked the button at the side of her shorts. Tears stung her eyes as she struggled with the zipper.
'Don't make me do this,' she whispered. The words had a wavery sound, as if her throat were full of water. 'Please. Just give me the picture.'
'I told you to hurry.' He wasn't even looking at her face, just staring at the place between her legs.
The bad taste in her mouth got worse as she slowly worked her shorts down over her tummy and thighs and then let them fall. They circled her ankles in a crooked figure eight. She was cold with shame as she stood in front of him in her blue cotton underpants with tiny yellow roses all over them.
'Give it to me now, ' she begged.
'Pull down your panties first.'
She tried not to think about it. She tried just to take her panties down so she could have the picture of her mother, but her hands wouldn't move. She stood in front of him with tears running down her cheeks and her shorts snagged around her chubby ankles and she knew she couldn't let him see her there.
'I can't,' she whispered.
'Do it!' His small eyes darkened with fury.
Sobbing, she shook her head.
With an ugly twist to his mouth, he ripped the precious photograph in half, then in half again before letting the pieces float to the ground. He ground them beneath the sole of his sneaker and ran toward the house.
Tripping on her shorts, she stumbled blindly toward the ruined photograph. As she fell to her knees, she saw a set of widely spaced eyes tilted up at the ends just like her own. She gave a little shuddering gasp and told herself it would be all right. She would smooth everything out and tape it all back together again.
Her hands shook as she arranged the four crumpled pieces in their proper order, the top corners first and then the bottom ones. Only after the photograph was reassembled did she see Reed's final act of malice. A thick, black mustache had been inked in just above her mother's soft upper lip.
That had been twenty-three years ago, but Phoebe could still feel an ache in her chest as she stood at the window staring out over the grounds. All the material luxuries of her childhood had never been able to compensate for growing up under the shadow of Reed's cruel bullying and her father's scorn.
Something brushed against her leg, and she looked down to see Pooh gazing up at her with adoring eyes. She knelt to pick her up, then gathered her close and carried her over to the sofa, where she sat and stroked her soft white coat. The grandfather clock ticked in the corner. When she was eighteen, that clock had stood in her father's study. She buried her pink-lacquered fingernails in Pooh's topknot and remembered that awful August night when her world had come to an end.
Her stepmother Lara had taken two-month-old Molly to visit her mother in Cleveland. Phoebe, eighteen at the time, was home packing for her freshman year at Mount Holyoke. Normally she wouldn't have been invited to the Northwest Illinois State football team party, but Bert was hosting it at the house so she had been included. At that time Bert hadn't yet bought the Stars' franchise, and Northwest football had been his obsession. Reed played on the team, and Bert's generous contributions to the athletic fund had made him a highly influential alumnus.
She had spent the day both anticipating and dreading that night's party. Although much of her baby fat had melted away, she was still self-conscious about her figure and wore baggy, shapeless clothing to conceal her full breasts. Her experiences with Reed and her father had left her leery of men, but at the same time, she couldn't help
