Perhaps Helen saw my strength, or maybe it was my pain, or perhaps even my dark side. Whatever the case, she decided not to mess with me. Unlike most adults I’d met so far, she didn’t treat me as if she pitied me. Instead she treated me with respect—the total opposite of how she treated her daughter.
In my previous encounters with Helen, I had disliked her intensely for the way she treated Cherie. And I was afraid of her. I’d seen her blow up in anger many times and I knew what she was capable of. But Helen’s sexuality was very attractive to me. She seemed to own it and to be comfortable in her own body. I’d always been ashamed of my body and my sexual feelings, so watching her gave me a whole new perspective on female sexuality.
Helen certainly flaunted her sexuality—but even if she hadn’t, it would have just oozed out of her. She was so different from my mother, who didn’t seem to exude any sensuality at all. Even though my mother was a beautiful woman—more so than Helen, in spite of being at least fifteen years her senior—she seemed almost asexual. Mom reminded me of Deborah Kerr, with her regal manners and her porcelain doll skin. Helen was more like Ava Gardner—all earthy and sensuous and raw, even animalistic at times. I adored Ava Gardner.
What at first seemed like friendliness and acceptance toward me soon revealed itself to be manipulation. In fact, the word that comes to mind when I think of Helen is “conniving.” And even though I grew to like her, and I liked the fact that she liked me, I didn’t trust her. I didn’t trust that the attention and approval she lavished on me had anything to do with me. I suspected it had far more to do with Cherie—specifically, making Cherie feel bad. When she paid attention to me or complimented me, Cherie was usually there to witness it, and although the comparisons she made between us were usually subtle, sometimes they were blatant.
“You’re so gregarious and fun,” she’d tell me. “I wish Cherie was more like you. She’s always so withdrawn and glum. Sometimes I wonder if I brought home the wrong baby from the hospital. You’re more like me than she is.”
The look on Cherie’s face when her mother said these things was difficult to witness. She looked absolutely devastated. Her whole face seemed to fall, her eyes cast down, her lips formed into an upside-down smile.
I was deeply conflicted about my feelings for Helen. I loved the compliments, especially since I never received any from my own mother, but I hated seeing Cherie look so dejected. I also knew Helen was right: we were alike. I felt good about meeting a kindred spirit, but at the same time I felt shame about what I saw in this mirror being put up in front of me. And I felt horribly guilty for going along with her devious game. I wanted to stand up for Cherie, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it—partly because I was too afraid of Helen’s reaction, but also because I didn’t want to put an end to the compliments.
Helen was cunning when it came to my mother as well. There was a deliberateness in the way she plied her with drinks. Momma could usually handle her beer, but she never drank hard liquor, so when Helen gave it to her she got drunk right away. Helen always had a self-satisfied look on her face when my mother started to slur her words, and occasionally she’d shoot me a look of triumph when my mother stumbled to the bathroom.
I suspected it made Helen feel superior to see Mom tumble off her pedestal like that. My mother was far more sophisticated, beautiful, intelligent, and likeable than Helen; in fact, she probably wouldn’t have even associated with Helen in her younger days. No matter how much money Helen had, she couldn’t match my mother for class, and she knew it—and resented her for it. I, in turn, resented Helen for using my mother’s weakness to make herself feel better.
As time went on, Helen began inviting us to her house for holiday parties. She would pick us up around noon, and as soon as we got to her house the drinking and the show would begin. We all had to perform for Helen in some way. My mother and the other guests—Helen’s grown nephew, Danny, and his friends Hugh and Rex—had to listen to Helen’s stories. Danny had the job of refilling everyone’s drinks. Cherie and I had to work in the kitchen and dining room, preparing the food and setting the table just right.
At these holiday parties, Helen was over-the-top seductive with everyone—me, my mother, Rex, Hugh, and even Danny. After some conversation, in which Danny and his friends would literally sit at Helen’s feet as she talked in detail about the sexual escapades she’d had with men over the course of her life, Helen would put on sexy music, usually a tango, and take turns dancing with each of the young men, who were all in their early twenties.
It was clear that she had the men mesmerized. As they danced with her, each young man looked down at her as if she were the most beautiful, desirable woman in the world. And she, in turn, looked up to him as if he were her knight in shining armor, her eyes full of admiration and longing. Then she would move closer, making sure there was no space between her body and theirs as she slithered her hips back and forth against their pelvis. Then, having gotten all three of them hot and bothered, she insisted that they
