Sense of Rumor (Mount Faith Series: Book 6) Read online

  She forced herself to get out of the shower. She was not the type to cry about these things, even though she was cringing inside at the thought of them and her together. She closed her eyes, willing the hazy thoughts to go away. She opened her eyes again and stared at the cream finish of the tiles. It was as if her eyes were fixated on the thing. She couldn't make her body move.

  She was devastated. She tried to shovel her feeling of being unclean back into that deep vacant hole where all her fears and pain lurked, but it was proving to be quite a task.

  She wouldn't show how much this had hurt her. As usual, she would put on her Arnella veneer and act as if it didn't trouble her and move on.

  She went back into the shower to give herself a last wash to try to get the unclean feeling to leave her body. She wondered briefly, as she sloughed the water over her head, why it happened to her, as if her life wasn't hard enough as it was.

  She quickly finished her shower and pulled on her clothes after she dried herself. The Carr's bathroom was luxurious. They had plush guest towels, perfumes, and all manner of cosmetics to make a person feel special. She rubbed one of the lotions on her skin and thought, where was Tracy in all of this? It was her party. Hadn't she suspected what the guys had done?

  Arnella swiftly looked in the mirror. She was not one to dwell on her looks, but she checked to see that all her parts were in place. She feverishly scanned her face. She looked fine: no damage to her big brown eyes and arched eyebrows, though her lips looked a little bruised and her nose looked slightly red to her.

  She needed to go see a doctor after this and take all the relevant STI tests. She shuddered to think what she might have caught from these guys. She didn't know them that well, nor what their lifestyles were like. She left the room in a hurry, trying to leave her thoughts behind in there as well, and went downstairs to the Carr's vast breakfast room.

  Mr. Carr had his head buried in one of the daily newspapers. Tracy was on the phone giggling. She waved to Arnella, and Mrs. Carr was looking at her, concerned.

  "Morning all," Arnella said, forcing herself to sound breezy and unaffected.

  "Are you feeling all right dear?" Mrs. Carr was sipping her tea and looked at Arnella quizzically, like she wanted to say something more but was feeling her out first.

  "Fine," Arnella nodded and sat around the circular table across from Mr. Carr. He was a big man with a huge head and thick curly hair that formed in a peak on his head. He did not have much of a neck, and his extremely light skin had swaths of red all over, like he was permanently flushed. He had two diamond rings on his pinky finger and they twitched when she sat across from him.

  Arnella imagined that he was biding his time to address her. He had never liked her, so she would only visit Tracy when he wasn't home. Whenever they happened to meet, he would always have a slight sneer on his lips. Arnella could conclude that he had heard some of the rumors about her and didn't want his precious only daughter to become ensnared with her.

  Their helper wheeled in a trolley and started putting items on the middle of the table. She smiled shyly with Arnella, and Arnella grinned back. She had fun times sneaking out of the house through the kitchen in years past when Mr. Carr had arrived home.

  The food items included freshly baked bread, and when the scent hit her, Arnella realized how famished she felt. Her belly was rumbling and empty.

  Mr. Carr lowered the newspaper. His light skin was freckled, and his left eye was ticking. It was the first time in years that Arnella was actually staring him in the face.

  "Are you related to the Bancrofts in the hills?" he asked without preamble.

  Arnella nodded slowly, "Yes, why?"

  "It says here that Marcus Bancroft has tied the knot with Senator Durkheim's daughter, Deidra, in a surprise twilight ceremony in Kingston. Were you invited?"

  Arnella shook her head. "No, I wasn't."

  "Oh, so they are distant relatives," Mr. Carr said disappointed. "You know, if I were you, I would claim whatever relation I had with them and attend the university at a reduced cost. I mean, look at you; what do you do?"

  "Nothing," Arnella answered him saucily.

  She couldn't tell him that her uncle, Ryan Bancroft, president of the university, had insisted, just last year, that she attend the university like her brother Vanley and that he would take care of her fees; neither could she tell him that she is an artist. He wouldn't be interested in that. People like Mr. Carr thought that formal schooling was the only vehicle to success. He reminded her of her uncle in that regard.

  "You will amount to nothing, if that's the attitude you have," Mr. Carr raised his eyebrows at her nonchalant attitude. He picked up an English muffin from the pile of food in the middle of the table and then put it back. "How will you feel when all your peers are moving on with their high powered jobs and you are stuck in some dead end job somewhere?"

  Mrs. Carr cleared her throat, trying to give her husband the 'cease and desist' look, though she seemed to agree with him.

  "What will you do," Mr. Carr was warming up in his diatribe, "when people like my Tracy has to be the one who bails you or your brats out of jail later on in life. Do you want to continue living off your parents?"

  Arnella rolled her eyes. "I could always model." She bit into a small cinnamon roll, then grabbed six more and put on her plate; they were good.

  Mr. Carr almost snapped. "Do you think that your pretty looks, which you are slowly damaging with all those piercings," he looked at the clip on her nose and the one on her eyebrow, "will last forever?"

  Arnella was glad she removed the one on her tongue. She won't put it back on either. She had done it to shock the people around her. Since she had succeeded, she could move on.

  "You look ridiculous," he ranted. "As a matter of fact, you look unemployable. Now tell me, which employer in his right mind will want to hire somebody looking like you?"

  Arnella continued nibbling her rolls and watched as the vein on the side of Mr. Carr's head got bigger and bigger. "Maybe a mechanic or a construction site wouldn't care much," she said contemplatively, deliberately irking Mr. Carr, who obviously had been building up for years to give her this lecture. His disregard for her was finally finding an outlet.

  "I have told Tracy, time and time again, to have nothing to do with you," he raged. His light complexion looked flushed. His neck had bands of dark red across it, despite the central cooling in the house. He looked back at Tracy, who was still on the phone. "I told her to cancel all ties with you. You know why?"

  Arnella spooned out some stewed chicken onto her plate and shook her head solemnly. She had some muffin in her mouth so she mumbled a garbled sounding, "no."

  "Because you are little more than the scum of society! You contribute nothing! You add nothing! Can you even speak properly?"

  Arnella grinned. Obviously, he wanted tears and she was not going to oblige. His wife looked as if she was on the verge of tears on her behalf. The insults were trickling down her back like rain on a smooth surface.

  "I would speak, but I have nothing worthwhile to say. At least I don't go around shouting at people I barely know."

  "Argh." Mr. Carr growled. "I know you, and I know your type. It's sickening."

  "Calm down, dear," Mrs. Carr jumped in quickly to pacify him. She had been listening to her husband berate Arnella, hoping that she could at least be spurred to action, but now she thought her husband had gone too far. He looked as if he was about to jump across the table and choke the life out of Arnella. It didn't help that Arnella was looking at him, unaffected by what he had intended to be a lecture.

  Tracy had come off the phone and was looking at her father with a stunned look on her face. "Dad, please," she squealed. "She is our guest. What has she done to you? Why are you attacking her like this?"

  "It's not her; it's what she represents," Mr. Carr said with a huff. "She's a worthless piece of trash. Only thing she knows how to do is wear skimpy clothes and sleep around with men for money.
I've said it before; I'll say it again. She's a bad influence, Tracy."

  Arnella finished off her cinnamon rolls and picked up her orange juice. She might as well have enough to eat and drink now because she was not sure that there was anything in her house.

  Her mother had gone to the States for the summer, and her brother was working at Mount Faith as an intern pastor. The house would be empty; it had been empty of food when she left there for Tracy's party.

  Mr. Carr's heated recriminations were not new to her. Since she was a little girl, she had been hearing that she was worthless. She already felt worthless; he was right to a point. So far, she had contributed nothing to society, but she intended to at some point. What was he contributing? she thought resentfully. He was a banker. What do they contribute?

  She didn't want to go to university to immerse herself in what she considered boring subjects. She didn't want to get a high-powered job like Mr. Carr or Mrs. Carr, who was a dentist, nor did she want to be like Tracy, who was studying to be a lawyer. She wanted to be an artist.

  She had several paintings to finish. She just needed the inspiration to finish them, or was it paint she needed? Painting was an expensive mistress. Painting was her dream, but it seemed as if she was a worthless piece of nothing, to hear Mr. Carr tell it.

  She got up from the table, her belly full. "I really hope the rant is over because I have to run. Even worthless people have things to do," she said smartly. "Thanks for the breakfast though. You have helped the poor and lowly for the day; that is a great contribution to society. No thanks for the lecture. For a lecture to be effective, the person you are lecturing must be willing to listen to you. I thought your tone was judgmental and self righteous."

  "Get out!" Mr. Carr growled. "I don't want to see you around my house again. Make sure she is only taking what she carried." He bellowed as Tracy raced after Arnella.

  Arnella hurried through the vast marble-tiled hall to the imposing wood structure with intricate carvings that was the door. Mr. Carr had ordered it from some far away place in the Middle East, and it arrived just last month. As usual, she admired the craftsmanship of the place and the tasteful sculptures dotted around, but she dared not linger.

  "Wait, Arnella," Tracy shouted.

  Arnella paused with her hands on the door.

  "I am sorry about Daddy," Tracy said earnestly. "For the life of me I can't understand why he unloaded on you like that this morning."

  "That's okay." Arnella gave her a smile. "I guess I'll not be invited to any cocktail parties hosted by him. By the way, what happened yesterday?"

  "What do you mean?" Tracy asked, looking at Arnella wide eyed.

  "I woke up in your guest room; obviously something is wrong, I can't remember being there or even spending the night," Arnella whispered, "and I am having little hints of memories. I was having sex with David and Jeff. Please tell me that did not happen; that it was a nightmare."

  Tracy frowned. "You disappeared for a while. I was busy with some of my other guests. When I started searching for you, you were fast asleep in the pool room."

  "So where were Cory, David, and Jeff?" Arnella insisted.

  "I don't know. They must have left. Come to think of it, I never saw them after that."

  Arnella huffed, "Those pigs must have drugged me, had sex with me and took off."

  "No." Tracy looked surprised. "That can't be. Are you sure you are not hallucinating? You did sleep for most of the evening."

  "I am not hallucinating," Arnella said gruffly. "I can't say what really happened but I have little snippets of memory of the three of them doing things to me."

  "Then go do a test then and find out what substance is in your body and go do a rape kit too," Tracy said flippantly, pushing her hands in her shorts pockets. "Too bad you bathed this morning, though. That would prove to be a bit of challenge for you to prove anything."

  Arnella grunted. "I was violated here. I know I was not dreaming. I woke up with bruises and pain."

  She stepped through the door onto the spacious veranda. Tracy walked behind her. "Arnella, I don't want to say you are not thinking straight, but how could that happen to you at my party? David, Cory, and Jeff are old classmates. Come on, you must have been extremely tired. You slept like a log throughout most of the party."

  Arnella inhaled angrily; this girl was implying that she did not know what she knew. She clenched her fist and walked down the steps. Don't get angry kept ringing in her head. Don't get angry. Tracy had managed to do in one sentence what her father with all his bellowing and blustering hadn't done.

  She blinked back the tears that were in her eyes and swallowed. She headed to her mother's, half-rusted Volkswagon Bug, which was parked outside of the four-car garage. It looked like it was fit for the junkyard, with its patches of green and blue; one door was yellow. Yesterday when she had driven up to the party, she had tried to park it so that it did not look too conspicuous among the SUV's and the top of the line European cars. Tracy did not have poor friends; she was the only exception, but now she was not too sure she wanted Tracy as a friend anymore. There was something not right about how she was readily supporting Cory, David, and Jeff when she told her about what happened.

  "Arnella don't be mad," Tracy said, a pacifying note in her voice, "about what Daddy said in there." Tracy was trying hard to change the subject about Arnella's hallucination.

  Arnella decided to bite. She turned around and looked at her, hoping that her face did not display any sort of mistrust. It was hard because she was feeling quite bitter about her lack of support. Arnella was not the type to lie. In fact, she was brutally honest. Why did Tracy so quickly suggest that she was hallucinating?

  "Why don't you come and do some art courses at school? I saw an advertisement for an Art certificate," Tracy continued brightly, obviously thinking that Arnella would leave the subject of her party alone. "Mount Faith has a good working student program for those who can't afford it, and I might be living in a studio apartment at Blue Palm next semester, if they accept me. The studio has a living room; you can sleep on my couch till you can afford to pay rent somewhere. I know you aren't closely related to the Bancroft's at Mount Faith, but they are really rich. They should be able to help a poor relative like you."

  Arnella opened her mouth to say something about her relatives but quickly closed it with a snap. Why hadn't she ever told Tracy that she was not that distant from the Bancroft's in Mount Faith? It never came up; that's why. Tracy obviously thought she was a charity case. Always had, it seemed.

  She did not like the way Tracy mentioned the word 'poor' in her little heart-felt statement just now. The snobbishness was literally dripping from each word. Why hadn't she noticed before how patronizing Tracy was?

  She shook her head. "Thanks for the generous offer, Tracy, but I know how to do art. I don't need someone to teach me. I should be teaching it. What I want is a studio, supplies, and time to do my thing. I have to go now." She glanced at her watch, a leather strap timepiece she had taken from her brother. The time had stopped at 2:00 pm. It was malfunctioning like everything else in her life right now. It looked like it was about seven thirty in the morning though.

  "If I ever make it up to Mount Faith, it will be because I am too broke and have to throw myself to the mercies of the wealthy Bancroft's. See ya."

  "See ya," Tracy said, watching her friend as she yanked open her car door. “By the way, what do you think about Alric?” she asked, anxious to hear Arnella's reply.

  "You've have asked me that a million times." Arnella looked back at her, juggling her car keys. "He's okay, in a stuck up sort of way. We have lived on the same street for years. He's a cool dude if you like that type. Your father would have no problem inviting him to supper."

  Tracy nodded, satisfied. "Okay then, drive safely."

  Arnella waved and got into the car. It took her five tries to start it, all the time wondering if it had something to do with the fact that the fuel gage was on “E”. Sh
e was going to have to buy gas and then go to a doctor to be checked out. She would prefer to err on the side of caution where the exchange of bodily fluids was concerned. However, that would mean that most of her money would be swallowed up in doctor's bills. She could go to a free clinic instead, but that would take her all day. Then she would head up to Mount Faith to indeed throw herself to the mercies of the wealthy Bancroft's.

  Chapter Three

  It took Arnella two weeks to make up her mind to go visit her uncle. A girl had her pride, and she was not into begging but her art supplies had run out. She had no money to buy even a small bottle of watercolor paint. Her mother had called the day before saying that she was not sure she would be coming back until November.

  Her brother had called to check up on her, and she had tried to sound breezy and light for him, but he had picked up that something was wrong and had begged her to come and stay with him at Mount Faith for the rest of the summer. The summer had two more weeks and then it would be time for the new school term.

  Arnella chewed her lip. She might just do that. She had swallowed her pride and asked Vanley for gas money. All she needed now was to grovel at her uncle's feet and find out how he could help her with her art supplies. She hated that she had to ask him, of all the people in the world. He was going to insist that she sign up for some stupid course or do some useless degree.

  She thought of her cousin, Micah. He had rebelled but had still done a degree. That was the power of her uncle. She would surely die of boredom if she were to do a degree; all her creativity would dry up, hemmed in by the rigid thoughts of people who couldn't think for themselves. To her, school was a holocaust to creative thinkers.