A Stranger in the Mirror By Sidney Sheldon

“Heavy date, huh?” Paco said.

Josephine smiled. “How did you know?”

“Because you look like Chreestmas. Your pretty face ees all lit up. You tell heem for me he’s one lucky hombre!”

Josephine smiled and said, “I will.” On an impulse, she leaned over and gave Paco a kiss on the cheek. An instant later, she heard the roar of a car engine and then the scream of rubber. She turned in time to see David’s white convertible smash the fender of another car and race away from the drive-in. She stood there, unbelievingly, watching the tail lights disappear into the night.

At three o’clock in the morning, as Josephine lay tossing in bed, she heard a car pull up outside her bedroom. She hurried to the window and looked out. David was sitting behind the wheel. He was very drunk. Quickly, Josephine put on a robe over her nightgown and went outside.

“Get in,” David commanded. Josephine opened the car door and slid in beside him. There was a long, heavy silence. When David finally spoke, his voice was thick, but it was more than the whiskey he had drunk. There was a rage in him, a savage fury that propelled the words out of him like small explosions. “I don’t own you,” David said. “You’re free to do exactly as you please. But as long as you go out with me, I expect you not to kiss any goddamned Mexicans. Y’understand?”

She looked at him, helplessly, then said, “When I kissed Paco, it was because—he said something that made me happy. He’s my friend.”

David took a deep breath, trying to control the emotions that were churning inside him. “I’m going to tell you something I’ve never told to a living soul.”

Josephine sat there waiting, wondering what was coming next.

“I have an older sister,” David said. “Beth. I—I adore her.”

Josephine had a vague recollection of Beth, a blond, fair-skinned beauty, whom Josephine used to see when she went over to play with Mary Lou. Josephine had been eight when Beth passed away. David must have been about fifteen. “I remember when Beth died,” Josephine said.

David’s next words were a shock. “Beth is alive.”

She stared at him. “But, I—everyone thought—”

“She’s in an insane asylum.” He turned to face her, his voice dead. “She was raped by one of our Mexican gardeners. Beth’s bedroom was across the hall from mine. I heard her screams and I raced into her room. He had ripped off her nightgown and he was on top of her and—” His voice broke with the memory. “I struggled with him until my mother ran in and called the police. They finally arrived and took the man to jail. He committed suicide in his cell that night. But Beth had lost her mind. She’ll never leave that place. Never. I can’t tell you how much I love her, Josie. I miss her so damned much. Ever since that night, I—I—I can’t—stand—”

She placed a hand over his and said, “I’m so sorry, David. I understand. I’m glad you told me.”

 

In some strange way, the incident served to bring them even closer together. They discussed things they had never talked about before. David smiled when Josephine told him about her mother’s religious fanaticism. “I had an uncle like that once,” he said. “He went off to some monastery in Tibet.”

“I’m going to be twenty-four next month,” David told Josephine one day. “It’s an old family tradition that the Kenyon men marry by the time they’re twenty-four,” and her heart leaped within her.

The following evening, David had tickets for a play at the Globe Theatre. When he came to pick Josephine up, he said, “Let’s forget the play. We’re going to talk about our future.”

The moment Josephine heard the words, she knew that everything she had prayed for was coming true. She could read it in David’s eyes. They were filled with love and wanting.

She said, “Let’s drive out to Dewey Lake.”

She wanted it to be the most romantic proposal ever made, so that one day it would become a tale that she would tell her children, over and over. She wanted to remember every moment of this night.