Looking for Cassandra Jane (The Second Chances Novels) by Melody Carlson Page A

like them, talking like them, going home to a ranch-style house like the ones they lived in, with a patio and barbecue in the backyard, and where two parents lived—and maybe they even fought from time to time (I mean I wasn’t completely delusional) but in my fantasy my parents would always make up and then take us all out for ice cream afterwards. Sometimes I’d get really carried away with my fantasy and pick out furniture for the living room, the kind of clothes my make-believe mama would wear, and even my bedroom, which was sometimes pink with a canopy bed but more often pale blue with an eyelet bedspread and matching curtains. But like I said I would’ve rather had my eyes plucked out than to admit this to anyone.
    It was just after Halloween when my daddy fell off the wagon.
    And surprisingly, it didn’t seem all that bad—at least not at first. The next day he kind of apologized, then told me that it was no big deal. “I can control myself with alcohol,” he explained from where he sat on the sofa, bent over, holding his throbbing head between his still trembling hands. “It’s not like it used to be, Cassandra, I promise you. I’m in control now and I’ll only drink socially.”
    I think I almost believed him, and I suppose in some ways this made me feel less guilty for the way I’d been manipulating him so much. Still, I worried what would happen if he went back to his old ways and drunken rages. Because you just never can tell with a drunk. It’s best to just stay on your guard.
    So I was back to tiptoeing around so as not to upset him in any way, and I got and installed a lock on my bedroom door. Still, I never felt completely safe in my house.
    I even briefly considered the possibility of going back to Aunt Myrtle and begging her to take me in, although I suspected that she was involved with “some man” just then, since I’d noticed a large blue Buick parked out behind her house where not too many could see it, and on something of a regular basis, too. Naturally, I was well aware of her “philandering ways,” as my grandma used to say to Aunt Myrtle when she thought I was well out of earshot. (I had to look up the word but discovered it had to do with illicit love affairs.) Now why anyone would want an illicit or any other sort of love affair with my old Aunt Myrtle was one of the great mysteries of life, but having seen a number of cars parked in the back of her house over the years, I suspected my grandma had her pegged just about right.
    So, anyway, it didn’t seem that Aunt Myrtle could offer much of a haven if my daddy suddenly decided to go off the deep end and become violent again. I grew greatly troubled trying to think what I might do if this were to happen, and as a result it became somewhat difficult to concentrate at school, but I tried just the same.
    I’d heard about kids going into foster homes, and in some ways that almost seemed preferable to being beaten, but what if the foster parents were square and conservative and made me start wearing my skirts down to my knees? I’d seen girls like that in school. They walked around clutching their notebooks tightly to their chests with their shoulders slumped over, eyes cast downwards. Why, they looked downright miserable to me. And at this stage of my life I felt fairly certain they had it even worse than me. (Of course time would prove me wrong on this, as well as many other things.)
    The bottom line for me was, at that stage of life, I felt too old and too grown-up to be treated like a child again. I’d seen too much of the seamy side of life. And I was used to my own independence and didn’t particularly want anyone telling me what to do or how to do it well, that was, unless I might possibly find that perfect suburban family (the one from my fantasy) but I was smart enough to know that wasn’t a reality-based dream. Not for me, anyway.
    Finally, I came up with a plan. I decided I should try very hard to make a friend (and I