Their Outlawed desire

New York City

May 1980

"You're what?" Reina McCarthy lashed out at her younger sister, her jaw dropped in shock, her silk gown swirled about her legs, and she grasped the closest thing to her for balance, a faux marble half-column topped with a Vast fern In robust health.

Janis McCarthy lay on the brocaded Davenport plucking, in a moody state, a box of pralines with an irritated shake on The wrist. She disentangled the lace sleeve of her nightgown from the candies.

"Please, don't get all dramatic about it, Reina. I need some advice. If I could turn to anyone else, I would." Janis started rolling her childlike eyes. Reina watched Janis' tongue cover her lower lip as she studied the sweets.

The mannerism was cute on the chubby curly-haired child her sister once was; she thought angrily, but on the heels of the news, she'd casually drop into the conversion; it now smacked of A lewd insolence.

At Reina's protracted silence, Janis looked up. "All right, if you must have me repeat myself, I'm expecting, pregnant with a child." She enunciated the words with schoolroom precision and widened her eyes In mock horror.

"You’ve been polluted, stained, and ruined, and been made impure-" Reina winced as if the words were a physical assault. "You had sexual intercourse with a man?" knowing she sounded stupid and slow, but hoping to God that Janis would burst out in laughter, indicating that it was all a joke.

Her lips stiffened as they formed the unfamiliar words. Janis waved a pale hand. "All right, say it however you please." Reina stared at Janis.

“With whom?" Limpid eyes drifted up to Mimi's astounded glare, Janis raised a brow and her baby doll lips curved into a smile.

"Common now, Reina, did you think that I was going to tell you that easily?" The audacity of Janis' tone sent irritation running from Reina's head down to her feet.

Her sister who had always been the darling of the family, the perfect-creamy skinned downy-soft debutante of the decades, had now proved, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that she was nothing more than a spoilt, self-centered child, Reina thought within herself with a weary, fatalistic rage that this time, she had gone too far.

"Fine," Reina snapped, "Don't tell me, don't tell me anything, I don't want to know" She turned swiftly towards the door, partly hoping that her movement would force her sister to confess, while also partly hoping that Janis would let her go.

"I don't intend on telling you," Janis thundered. Reina stopped turning slowly. Janis popped another praline past her perfect lips and chewed appreciatively.

"Not that part anyway." Despite her desire to leave, Reina hesitated. It was incredible.

This nonchalance, in the face of the most monstrous confession, made Reina have combined feelings of fear and shame directed at her younger sister. Janis bubbled beneath her breast; without another thought. Reina strode to the satin-covered Davenport on which Janis lounged, grabbed the box of candies, and flung them against the wall.

Reina watched as Janis gaped at the little nuts which clattered to the floor, some bouncing like little marbles. "Listen to me, Janis McCarthy," Reina ground her teeth as they clenched against sudden nausea. "You're in a lot of trouble, and if this cretin who defiled you doesn't step up and does the right thing, you will be stigmatized in this town, we all shall be, neither Mother, not Father nor the whole family wealth can save you from punishment, no one will have you, do you understand? No one. Do you remember Madeline Dawson?" At this, Janis blanched.

She caught the first inkling of fear in her sulking eyes. "Madeline was not even with a child. She was merely caught in a..." Reina struggled for An acceptable euphemism.

"They were caught naked," Janis grumbled, saying it for Pete's sake.

"They were caught in a compromising position," Reina insisted. "Madeline, with that cruel middle-class man and now the whole family, had moved somewhere out West, they couldn't stay here in New York, not after what happened, not with everyone knowing what she had done, is that what you want for us? For people to mock us?" Reina questioned Janis furiously.

Janis watched Reina petulantly as if Reina's reaction was responsible for the scandal and not her pregnancy. Reina shook her head and closed her eyes. "Who is responsible?" Reina questioned Janis, who was busy picking on her nose. "The Pattersons? The O'Briens? The McClures? The Potter's?" Reina spouts out with curious, questioning eyes.

"Pah," Janis spat, "the Patterson's, who couldn't do without them? And their horrid dinner parties! If I never see another swan sculpted out of liver..."

"Pâté," Reina corrected sharply. "Whatever, I can live without it," Janis added.

Reina's fists clenched by Janis' sides. "What in the world are you thinking? How can you be so indifferent? Do you think you'll be able to bear this child without repercussions? For the love of God, people won't even want to walk on the same street as you!" Janis narrowed her eye.

“Then, perhaps I'll- I'll see someone, a doctor," she said, frowning. Reina gasped and stared at her as if she had grown a second head.

"You'll do no such thing! Do you know how many women die trying something like that?" Janis leaned forward with her mouth twisted in anger. "Do you know how many women die during childbirth?” Reina countered. Inexplicably, a lump grew in the back of her throat, and she had to swallow hard before speaking.

"It's worse, Janis," I insisted. "Much worse, I won't let you do it." Reina was in anguish this time.

A long moment passed before Janis shrugged and leaned back. "All right, I'll go away."

Hope sprang in Reina's heart, "Yes," Reina thought, "You can go to Winesburg! To Aunt Meredith, we can trust her, and we'll tell people you've gone to visit your aunt!" Reina's mood swept upward, "and it won't even be a lie, and the child can stay there with her"

"No!" Janis said.

"Perhaps she knows a good woman in her vill..."

"I said no!" Janis sat up straight, and her feet hit the floor with a slap which abruptly closed Reina's mouth. "I want it," Janis stated.

Reina felt rooted to the spot. "What?" It was a breath of a word.

"I won't leave it there. The baby. I want it." Into Reina's head popped an improbable image of Janis in the parlor with a baby amidst the countless admirers that always assembled around her.

"What would you do with a baby?" Reina asked but simultaneously had the reluctant thought, who would leave a baby behind?

"I don't know, but it could be fun," Janis said in a small voice, then she smiled, thinking, "Men adore babies, you know? I've seen how they turn to mush around them"

A hopeless awareness descended on Reina at that moment, a clarity that allowed her to see that Janis would never fully comprehend the magnitude of her problem, nor would she see how it could potentially ruin all of their lives.

Janis had no intention of helping herself. She would sit back and let Reina come between her and disaster again.

—

Authors note

What do you think about these characters?

Thanks for reading, don't forget to leave a vote and a comment—Pip cheerio.