“Kent Pearson has been paying a lot of attention to me lately,” I confessed. Just as she said, it was impossible for me to hide things from her.
“Kent Pearson,” she repeated, chewing over her knowledge of him. “Yes, I know who he is. He has an older brother a year ahead of me, Brody. He’s a very poor student. I heard he might not even graduate. As I recall, the Pearsons aren’t very well off, either, so there’s no money for tutors.”
“Kent’s very smart,” I said. “He won’t need a tutor.”
“Um … be careful,” she said. “Don’t give him the impression that you like him too much.”
“Why not?”
“You might as well get used to the idea, Semantha. There will be many boys after you, hoping to get into this family and this wealth. That means you have to be extra, extra cautious.”
“Is that why you don’t have a boyfriend?” I asked, maybe too quickly.
“I haven’t seen or heard anyone worthy of my interest yet,” she replied without skipping a beat.
I wanted to ask her more about the boys in her class and the classes above hers. How could there be absolutely no one worth her interest? There were many boys from well-to-do families, families as respectable as ours, but before we could continue the discussion, we heard Mother calling on the intercom to tell us Uncle Perry had arrived.
“Great,” Cassie said, dropping the corners of her lips. “He’s here.”
She was not nearly as fond of Uncle Perry as I was, and he knew it. I knew he was flamboyant and quite different from Daddy, but I enjoyed him, enjoyed what Mother called his joie de vivre. I couldn’t remember a time when he had been unhappy or depressed. He always dressed in bright colors and wore glittering gold rings, bracelets, and necklaces. He often teased Daddy about his stuffy clothing, calling him too conservative, boring. Daddy merely shook his head, as if any comments Uncle Perry made were simply full of air.
I had to agree that he took after their mother more in his looks than he did their father. He was good-looking but in a pretty-boy sort of way, concerned about his complexion (he went to tan
ning salons), his hair (never out of style), and his nails (always manicured). He had eyelashes any woman would envy, a nose a little too small and dainty for a man, and thinner lips than Daddy’s. Cassie and I had visited him in his townhouse in Lexington only twice, but both times, we were impressed with how neat and organized everything was. He paid great attention to the slightest detail. When Cassie looked at something such as a vase or a small statue and put it down just a few inches from where it had been, he immediately returned it to that place.
The second visit had occurred only a little more than a year ago, but when we left, Cassie leaned over in the limousine hired to take us and whispered, “I don’t think he lives alone.”
“What does that mean?”
“When I was in his bathroom, I looked in the cabinet and saw two different toothbrushes and different men’s colognes. There were other clues,” she added.
“Men’s colognes? Don’t you mean perfume if it’s someone else?”
She smirked. “Hardly. Uncle Perry is gay, Semantha.”
My face was surely awash in astonishment. That had never occurred to me, and I had never heard either Daddy or Mother say such a thing, even suggest it.
“But …”
“Why do you think he has never brought a girlfriend to our house or even mentioned someone? Why is he still unmarried?”
“I thought he was simply a bachelor.”
“Christmas trees, Semantha, you’re so naive for your age, especially nowadays. Sometimes I wonder if Mother faked your birth and you were left on the doorstep. I suppose you’ve never noticed his pierced ear.”
“What? No.”
“He doesn’t always wear it when he comes to our house, but next time we see him somewhere else, look at his right ear. The left is not pierced. Duh.”
I shook my head, still amazed. “Wouldn’t Daddy be upset?”
“Who says he isn’t? He has simply chosen to ignore it, and Uncle Perry has the sense not to flaunt his homosexuality in Daddy’s presence. It’s a forbidden topic in our house, so don’t dare mention it. You’d only upset Daddy.”
“No, I would never …”
I remember thinking how slow I really was in comparison to Cassie. Was it simply her two additional years of age? Maybe I really had been left on the doorstep.
Regardless of what she had told me, I couldn’t be any less warm to Uncle Perry. I thought he was truly a very creative man. He was in charge of the Heavenstone Department Stores’ publicity and promotion as well as designing an entire line of Heavenstone fashions for both men and women and, lately, even children. The line was very successful.