Frenzy Read Free Page B

again. But the girl saw none of this as her unfocused eyes welled up with tears.
    She paid little attention to the splendor of her surroundings as she sat perched on a love seat in her expensively furnished bedroom. Her parents' house was a fine home, and their exclusive residential area was beautifully maintained, free of any offensive ugliness, a haven for the local wildlife, almost a miniature park. But having known nothing but the finest, she had little frame of reference with which to appreciate the elegance of her environment. Nor would she have cared.
    Her eyes filled with tears and overflowed in a salty trickle blurring her vision and dripping down her tanned cheek, and she wiped at the little flood with the back of her hand and snuffled into a tissue. She wept in sadness and hurt and anger at her mother, who had abandoned them, and wept for her father, who was so devastated by what had happened and who, grief-stricken, had closed out everything else in his life-including his daughter. And yes, she wept for herself, at the shame and the bitter unfairness of it all. And as she sobbed she thought how ridiculous she must appear right now, curled up on the love seat wallowing in self-pity.
    Outwardly she was a lithe, tanned, attractive teenager with long legs and the soft, lovely curves of womanhood beginning to flower and envelop the angular planes, and a stranger would believe her to be sixteen perhaps, and not fourteen. But she was a troubled fourteen-year-old, Spain's daughter. And as she sat oblivious to her richly decorated room, not seeing the courting dance of the hummingbirds, she felt an ancient fourteen. Ancient and lonely.
    She snuffled and wiped her eyes and blew her reddened nose again and uncurled the long, tan legs from the cushions, got up, walked out of her bedroom, and went downstairs. Her dad's office door was not completely shut, and she pushed the door open soundlessly and peered in at him sitting at his desk, unmoving. She nearly jumped out of her skin at the sound of the phone ringing upstairs, and she ran back up and snatched it off the hook on the fourth ring.
    "Hello." 
    "Tiff."
    "Oh, hi." It was Greg. She'd been hoping he'd phone her all day. She felt her breath catch a little as she said, "I've missed you."
    "Same here. I wish I could see you right now."
    "Me too."
    "Touch you. Just hold you. I could cuddle you for hours and never get tired of just holding you. You know that?" She loved his voice.
    "Greg. I wish we were together right now too."
    "Well, why can't you meet me somewhere? Can't you get out of the house?"
    "Dad doesn't want me going out anywhere, you know, with boys. He says not till I'm fifteen."
    "Oh, wow. Well, can I come over there?"
    "Um. I guess you'd better not. He just doesn't understand that I'm grown up. I can't do anything. It's like being in prison since Mom . . . left. I miss you so much."
    "Go over to Amber's and I'll pick you up over there. I got Roger's car, man, come on. He'll never find out. No way." Roger was an older boy who let Greg drive sometimes.
    "Well, I guess I could get Amber to go with us and we could let her out at Herman's."
    "Yeah, okay, let's go. Okay?"
    "I'm so lonesome for you. I . . . Oh, all right. I'll be over there about three."
    "See ya."
    " 'Bye." She hung up and realized there was a thin sheen of perspiration under her hairline. She got all hot and flustered talking to Greg. He was so beautiful, like a movie star, with all that unruly hair and those eyes like two little blue pools. He belonged in Hollywood. Greg always reminded her of the one on that soap she used to watch. What was his name — the one with the unruly, curly hair? Except Greg was a whole lot better-looking.
    She wished she could talk to her dad about him, but when she tried, he got furious with her. And Greg was so great. He was gentle. Soft-spoken. A well-educated boy from a nice home. Everything you could ask for.
    She was not pretty in the conventional sense but was the