Hidden Hearts by Ann Roberts

Author:Ann Roberts [Roberts, Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: Gay & Lesbian, Fiction, Lesbian
ISBN: 9781594932878
Google: 7fZKXwAACAAJ
Amazon: 1594932875
Publisher: Bella Books
Published: 2012-03-20T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Nine

October, 1954

“Vivian Battle, you will wear a dress for your class picture tomorrow and that’s final.”

“I will not!”

“Yes, you will, or you won’t have your sketchbook for a month.”

She held up the dress in one hand and the sketchbook in the other. Art and my friendship with Kiah were all I had. I violently grabbed the dress but unfortunately it didn’t tear in half. She watched as I changed into it then she pushed me into a chair and brushed my hair.

“This rat’s nest is the worst I’ve ever seen it. Why can’t you keep yours nice like Kiah? I thought you idolized her to no end.”

“Not her hair,” I snorted, and that got me a whack on the head with the brush.

“Don’t sass me when I’m holding a weapon,” she hissed. “You make it too easy.”

She pulled and yanked until she was satisfied. I went to the mirror and scowled.

“Get that expression off your face or you’ll never have any friends.” She fluffed my hair and smoothed the skirt and said, “Appearance is important in a friendship and so is compromise. Look at me and the sewing circle. We don’t always see eye-to-eye, but they’re my friends.”

“They’re not your friends,” I said.

She smacked me across the face, and we both froze in horror. She’d never hit me. I ran upstairs and collapsed on my window seat waiting for Kiah to come home from church. I longed to talk to Will, but he spent his time hanging out with a bunch of no-goods. He’d greased his hair back into a ducktail, and he reminded me of Billy Smith. And then one day I’d actually seen them together after school behind the mini-market. Both of them were smoking and taunting a black boy with the hot tip of their cigarettes. I couldn’t believe it. Mama would’ve killed him if she knew, but they never talked either.

****

In the eight months that had passed, all of the trees had been destroyed except for the ones that would sit in the homeowners’ yards, and little cement foundations laid in neat rows went on for a mile. I missed the orange trees terribly, but Kiah was living outside my front door so it seemed like a good trade.

But at school I couldn’t find anyone to like me. So I spent my lunch hours hanging around the art room. Miss Noyce, the art teacher, thought I was incredibly talented. She let me make my own projects and even gave me some art supplies to take home, but only if I kept my grades up.

Tall with long brown hair that she wore in a bun, she was pretty, I thought. She stood perfectly straight, like she was pressed against a board, and when she talked about a piece of art or famous artists it was as if she knew them personally and had invited them over for dinner. She was the one who introduced me to Monet and Renoir and told me I could be as good as they were.

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