It’s been almost two decades since I read the books.

All I remember is he was a ballet dancer and he killed himself by cutting his oxygen cord with scissors? I’m not sure if that is correct but that was one of the deaths within the series where I was like

“Whoa that was wild.”

I heard this theory on VC's Pieces Podcast (ITBT episode "SDB and Joraldine.") What do you think?

Turning Arden into the villain worked, I absolutely was glad to see him murked at the end. HOWEVER.
It only being Audrina and Sylvia was a SLOG. All of the characters died in MSA so there were none left to keep any kind of story going.
Gimme the tea

The worst - Dawn hands down. Those books feel like torture porn

The best - Melody. Jacob was a dick but left her alone for the most part. And Olivia was pretty awful to her, but didn't physically harm her like Grandma Cutler or Olivia foxworth.

Which characters do you think had it the best and worst?

So found the movies and I started to read the book series I got to Christopher’s diary but now I’m confused. And the other books when they got older, Kathy writing books about her life and publishing them and if so, how are people confused about what was going on with the family history if she was writing books about it? I’m not sure if I miss something or what the cases but I was very confused starting the book and People said that they were spreading gossip about the family.

So, we’re moving on to the third book in the Dollanganger family saga, If There Be Thorns by V.C. Andrews. Cathy and Chris are “married” and raising her two sons.  Emma, their housekeeper, is in the background, hearing the secrets and keeping her mouth shut. She’s like Verbena in The Parent Trap (1961).

Then an old woman and her butler move in next door . . .

Let’s begin by discussing the chapters “Jory,” Bart, “Introductions” and “Gone Hunting.”

Designs created using content and tools available on Canva.  Synopsis from my WordPress blog.

 Aw Heck! Gosh Darn it All! – Tuesday Teatimes

Bart Really Needs a Sassy Friend Who’s Not Just His Brother – Tuesday Teatimes

Spying on the Neighbors – Tuesday Teatimes

Befriending a Weird Recluse in 1983 – Tuesday Teatimes

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The book opens with a prologue narrated by Cathy, in which she hands over the mic to sons, Bart and Jory.  She expects that they will give to her and Chris “either the best or the worst of what is yet to be.”  Thanks for that parting thought, Cathy. I’m sure that’s the very thing all mothers think upon first gazing into the big, innocent eyes of their newborn baby –that this new child either signals a bright future ahead or the very real possibility that your precious little boy will one day plot with an old man to kill you.

***

Jory is fourteen.  He lives in Fairfax, CA, in a house in the middle of nowhere, about forty minutes away from Danny Tanner, Uncle Jesse and Joey. His parents don’t care much for having neighbors.  It would just be more people sticking their noses into the family’s private business.

Jory goes on to give his backstory, in case you didn’t read the prior two books and need to know all the details from the mouth of a young boy who has been deceived for half his life into thinking his uncle Chris is merely his mother’s third husband.

Jory has a paternal grandmother, Madame Marisha, who is ashamed to have her grandson refer to her as his grandma.  She says to call her “Mother” instead, but Jory thinks that’s a little weird, so he’s not gonna do that.

In an attic alcove, Jory’s mother has presumably erected two beds.  At least, she doesn’t deny it. She says she doesn’t remember doing it either. As if a 37-year-old woman would just forget doing that. Remember, this was a woman who had to call on Chris and Paul to remove a nightstand and push two beds together when she slept in the same bedroom as Carrie as a teen. And she’s able to just completely assemble two beds in her sleep with no one in the house knowing?

Jory doesn’t understand what’s going on here and why his stepfather is freaking out over beds and picnic baskets in the attic.  Chris seems to think Mom is plotting to one day remarry and lock the boys up in a place where no one will ever be able to hear them scream! 

***

Jory is the golden boy in the family who hears the “music of colors,” whereas 9-year-old Bart only wishes he could be like his brother.

Bart’s constantly getting dirty. He’s constantly dropping dishes, breaking toys, scuffing his shoes (he blames that last one on the manufacturers though). 

The two brothers spend their free time playing at the abandoned mansion next door.  Spiders and mice have taken over the place.  Occasionally, they even find bird corpses, if they don’t show up in time to open a window and set the birds free.  

One day, Jory and Bart see a couple of trucks pull into the driveway of the mansion, and the brothers realize they won’t have the place to themselves much longer. 

Jory sure is Mr. “Sassy” Pants when he’s in a mood. The “construction boss” next door says so when the boys refuse to get down from the wall. Clearly, the older brother gets his sense of entitlement from his daddy Chris.

***

Meanwhile, a young woman in Cathy’s dance class got into a bad wreck.  Wtf should V.C. Andrews call this girl?  How about Nicole Nickols?  Any day now, Nikki Nickerson will be knocking on the doors of Heaven. Cathy wants to adopt her 2-year-old daughter, Cindy.  Chris thinks they should just let the foster care system deal with it.   The child is a precious blond.  If you’ve gotta be an orphan, she’s the orphan to be.

Chris announces that the family will be going to Disneyland for Bart’s 10^th birthday. Immediately afterward, they’ll travel East to visit Jory’s grandmother.  Apparently, it’s been two years since Marisha has seen her grandson.  I’m surprised she let them get away with skipping a summer. 

Bart wants to know why his stepfather looks so much like Momma’s father.

Awkward silence . . .

Much like Homer Simpson in that “Treehouse of Horrors” parody of The Shining, Bart’s homicidal urges are getting stronger. He gets enjoyment out of squishing bugs that are just minding their own business in the open air. When Jory tells him not to squish any bugs that aren’t messing with the roses, Bart wonders if that’s tacit permission to slaughter all the insects he wants within a certain kill zone.

Later on, Jory climbs a tree and peeps on the old woman who’s just moved in next door. Underneath her veil, her face is covered with scars.  This freaks him out. 

***

Who knows how much time has passed?  Long enough for Bart to make the acquaintance of the lady next door. 

Daddy once warned his younger son that he could get badly hurt and not realize it because of his inability to feel pain.  And yet Bart doesn’t seem to worry about it as he struts over to the neighbor’s house, carrying his pretend rifle and shooting pretend tigers.  At least, I hope no one is stupid enough to have given this kid a real gun.

The old lady wants to know all his business, like if his life is good and, you know, probably also whether or not his parents beat him. The usual.

He does say that his parents don’t know he’s over here. This was the ’80s. It was perfectly acceptable to fraternize with the weird recluse next door, but you couldn’t tell anyone you were doing it.

He pretends to smoke as she tells him she’s been peeping over the wall, listening in on the two brothers talking.  When he says he doesn’t like the sound of that, she claims she’s actually been using the ladder to prune her roses, but that’s not how she originally phrased it, so she’s clearly backpedaling.  Bart sees right through her act. 

Poor Bart has no friends.  Even the pet dog is wary of him.  Apparently, Bart has stepped on Clover one too many times. He blames the poodle for constantly being “underfoot.”  It should be noted that Chris gives his sons a word of the day so that they can grow up to be pompous jerks like their stepfather. That’s probably how this 9-yo kid learned how to use “underfoot” in a sentence.

So now Bart’s formed a ritual of going to the neighbor’s house and sitting on the neighbor lady’s lap.  She requests to be called Grandmother.  She’s hoping to replace one of the two sons she lost. She doesn’t tell him how she lost these sons. For example, did she misplace them at the grocery store? (I’m being facetious. Clearly, she killed one of them and drove the other one away.)

John, the butler, gives the little boy a book to study. It’s the late Malcolm Foxworth’s diary.  He wants to teach the boy how to be “respected and feared” so that he can become god-like. (Or Bart could just grow up to be tanned and wear tennis whites. That seemed to work well enough for Grandaddy Chris).

By the way, I’m wondering if this is really Malcolm’s journal.  It opens with the late Foxworth patriarch talking about the day his mother left him, when he was only five.  This doesn’t sound like the way a grown man would start a diary. And I find it hard to believe someone like Malcolm would even own a diary in the first place.  Knowing Malcolm, he’d probably believe diaries aren’t manly.

One can only wonder if the entries were forged by John. It’s not like Bart Jr. is well-adjusted enough to wonder wth this John guy is doing with another man’s most private writings.

Now that several of us reread PotW recently, what are your thoughts on the movie? Were there changes you liked? Things you wish had been added?

If only this adaptation had been made in the '90s, I have a whole cast picked out!

For example, Julian will always look like a young Joaquin Phoenix to me. I did not like how one-dimensional he was in the movie.

I recently had this thought that Jonathan Brandis would have been great as Chris, if only the movie was made 30 years ago (RIP).

I understand why they left Paul out. But I do feel the movie is missing some context without him. It's awkward to just pick up ten years later. Btw, in the '90s, I would have had Paul played by Michael Douglas, Tom Selleck or Joseph Bologna.

I read the first five books when I was a teenager. I know the ghost writer has written all the newer ones, but are they worth the read?

Should we start If There Be Thorns next week for our book talk? Or, as they call it in the VC's Pieces Podcast, If There Be Bowl Cuts and If There Be Jories.

I call it Alas Poor Jorick because it does kinda read like Hamlet in parts lol.

The trope of each of our heroines being extremely talented at one thing has always been something that I enjoyed about the VCA universe.
Of all of the talents, which are your favorites or which ones made you eye roll?

I always loved thinking about Ruby painting, and I had a hard time taking Dawn’s singing seriously. How many times does one want to imagine her singing “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”?

Instead of committing suicide, Carrie runs away after her tragic encounter with Corinne and after several days, she finds herself in the Willie's. That could make a great starting point.

You're welcome for the alliteration.

Would they truly have been happy together had Leigh lived, or would Luke have just cheated on her like he did with Sarah and then kept her barefoot and pregnant?

Some of VC Andrews characters had really over-the-top names. And sometimes, particularly with AN, they'd get redundant (for example, I think Millie was a common generic name in the gw books., like for a maid or a cashier).

What are some names that stand out for you?

Here's My List

Heaven Leigh Casteel

Leigh Diane VanVoreen

Audrina Adele Adare

Trevor Mainstream Majors

Lance Spalding

Simon Chillingworth

Pru Carraway

Theodore Alexander Rockingham

Faith Morgantile

Also, what are some of your favorite fictional town/location names?

So we've made it to the last chapter of PotW -- “Reaping the Harvest."

What are your thoughts on this final chapter and the book as a whole? Should we start If There Be Thorns next week?

Designs created using content and tools available on Canva.  Synopsis from my WordPress blog.

A Tale of Two Daddies – Tuesday Teatimes

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Now that Cathy has succeeded in killing off both her first husband and her lover, she figures it’s time to settle down with Paul because he’s in his 50s by this point, and the grim reaper awaits.  He’s got a bad heart, apparently, but given how many characters die in their 50s in these books, we know that’s just code for being too freaking old.

Bart’s child was a boy.  Cathy named him Bartholomew Scott Winslow Sheffield.  He was named after his dead father, of course, and given the middle name Scott after his stepfather, Paul Scott Sheffield.  I feel that Cathy missed an opportunity to nickname him Barrie (the B for Bart and the rest for Carrie.)  Instead, he shares a first name with an adulterous r ap ist and a middle name with some doctor who took in his mother and began taking advantage of her when she was fifteen.  Yes, good call, Cathy.   Those two sound like much better people to name your kid after than some dead aunt nobody cared enough about when she was still living, let alone now that she’s three years in the grave.

Paul is sickly. He figures Cathy and Chris should forget about him and do what’s right by the kids.  In Dr. Paul speak, that means Uncle Chris ought to take over the role of Stepdaddy and raise his nephews as his sons.  It’s OK because Cathy is no longer fertile, having had a hard time of it with Bart’s birth.  So no hooved children in her future.  And Paul hates to think of Cathy missing out on her prime years.  He compares it to those attic days because apparently being married to Paul is no different than being locked up in a secluded room, whipped, starved and regularly tormented by an evil old woman and then slowly poisoned by an indifferent mother while you wait for a man in his 50s or 60s to die.

Seriously, I’m getting déjà vu here just thinking about it.

In the meantime, Jory loves having “two daddies.” If it weren’t for all the rampant i n c e s t and other adult material, this book might have actually been a good way to introduce children to different kinds of families!  If you cut out 99% of the novel, this could have been retitled Jory and Bart Have Two Daddies!

Paul eventually dies.  How fitting that Cathy should stumble across his dead body in the same way she first met him in 1960. She calls 911, but it’s too late. 

Cathy feels that, with her romantic history, her full name should be Catherine Tramell or something.  She keeps referring to her life being some script she wrote.  Is this Basic Instinct?  Was she stupid, or else incredibly brilliant and cunning, enough to write about a bunch of dead lovers and then act it all out in her own life?

Cathy and Chris move to California and build a home in the middle of nowhere.  I’m sure sibling love is the least shocking thing going on out west. Housekeeper Emma comes along with them because, apparently, this woman has no life outside of theirs, and she’s great at keeping her mouth shut! 

They go back east annually so that Madame Marisha and Madame Zolta can fawn over Jory. 

Cathy and Chris also visit their mother in the mental institution where she feigns insanity in an attempt to avoid the electric chair.  However, Cathy also says that she and her brother have retracted their statements regarding Cory’s existence, so how is the death penalty even still on the table?  Every time Cathy visits, Corrine vacillates between trying to scalp her daughter and trying to scratch off her own face.

Chris goes on to have a successful – but not too successful – medical practice.  Sounds like he’s a man who believes in moderation! Except when it comes to private time with his sibling! When he waltzes through the front door at the end of a productive workday, he does as Daddy used to do.  He emotionally blackmails his little family into showing him lots of physical affection. And I feel that it’s healthy for the two of them to recall a time when they were happy and innocent.  Their parents were related by blood, but hey, Cathy and Chris didn’t know it at the time.  And they probably figure, since that kind of thing was fine in ancient Greece, and also on Mount Olympus, where Daddy presumably now resides, who cares, right?

The surviving Dollangangers are doing well and living their best lives.

But not all that glitters is gold.  Cathy’s got some unresolved trauma left over from childhood.  You think? 

The book ends with a cliffhanger, and I guess you’ll have to read it for yourself to find out what that dangling plot thread is. And then you’ll have to read the next book to find out if this plot thread goes anywhere.

SPOILER ALERT!!!  It doesn’t.

I'm rereading Web of Dreams. Is there a general consensus on how old Jillian actually was? It's so confusing to me, because her telling Tony that she's 28, while he's 23 and Leigh is 12, makes sense with the story that she got pregnant by Chester Godwin and her mother married her off to Cleave quickly. But even her mother says she's nearly twice Tony's age. If we say she's 40, then she was pregnant with Leigh at 28. That's not really that young. Her sisters are said to be older, and her mom is trying to marry them all off still? I know the younger age is supposed to be a lie, but it feels like it makes more sense than the older one, I don't know. What do you think?

I’ve read that both Kristy Swanson and Louise Fletcher received scripts for a “Petals on the Wind” adaptation. Apparently they said it was “all sex” (source: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093036/trivia/)

If they had went ahead with this movie how do you think they would work around Corrine dying at the end of the first movie?

Here are my theories:

1. They would have the grandmother step and merge her and Corrine’s character.

2. Victoria Tennant would be back and they would either not address her death or say she somehow survived.

Of course with this being the 80s or 90s they likely would have to cut out a lot of stuff from the second book due to sensors at the time.

I honestly don’t have any idea how they would have been able to adapt the book with everything they changed in the first. Besides Corrine’s death they also left out the incest which is a big part of the second book so they would have to start that relationship from scratch basically.

Let me know your thoughts.

Just out of curiosity, if it's ok for you to share this: how old are you, or on which stage of your life you discovered VC Andrews?

I'm 31 now, but I read my very first book of hers when I was 16 I think! And I can't stop thinking about her from time to time until now.

So I'm kinda curious what's the age scope so to say that for VC Andrews readers.

Let’s discuss “Stacking the Deck” and “Revelations.” 

Designs created using content and tools available on Canva.  Synopsis from my blog.

Ho Ho Ho – Tuesday Teatimes

Bringing Down the House – Tuesday Teatimes

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Bart is shocked to find out that Cathy is pregnant with his baby.  He tells her he can’t leave his wife, now that she’s nice again.   He rhapsodizes on about how he loves Cathy so much and feels like she’s his Vindictive Witchy Dream Girl, or whatever.  But then, on the other hand, there’s his wife who depends on him. He can’t abandon his wife, now that she’s gone to the trouble of losing some weight and getting a face lift.

Cathy orders a green custom-made dress for the Christmas party at Foxworth Hall.

Chris wants nothing to do with Cathy’s revenge plans. She responds that she hopes the bedbugs launch a secret attack on him at night.

Jory thought Christmas would suck without Paul and Chris, but it turns out presents and cookies from Emma make up for their absence. 

On Christmas night, Emma does Cathy’s hair.  It seems this housekeeper of hers can do everything – watch her kid, cook her meals, style her hair just like her mother wore it at some party of Christmas past. 

Right before leaving, Cathy reads a sweet letter from Henny, who is apparently dying.  Cathy’s like, That’s sad.  Now on with my plan to destroy my mother! 

She can’t believe her childhood wish is about to come true!

But let’s not kid ourselves. This isn’t a Christmas miracle. It’s cold-blooded premeditation! 

***

The hour is shortly after ten when Cathy breaks into a back entrance of Foxworth Hall. 

Her plan is to announce her presence at midnight, so she’s got some time to kill.  Why not steal some of Momma’s jewelry and check out that room in the northern wing for old times’ sake!  Boy, does that prison room bring back memories. 

Apparently the Foxworths, despite all their money, were too cheap to put a bulb and a string in the attic, so Cathy has to use a candle to light her way up there.

Eventually, the wind blows out Cathy’s candle.  Or does it . . .?

So now the hour of twelve arrives, and Cathy descends the stairway in the grand foyer, which I always pictured looking like that stairway in Titanic because I first read this book circa 1998.  Cathy imagines herself as a character in a fairy tale so that she doesn’t have to think about “the blood that could be spilled.”  I’m not sure what kind of mother/daughter reunion she’s anticipating! 

Once she has everyone’s attention, she drops the bombshell.  She is Corrine and Chris Foxworth’s “firstborn daughter” (awfully presumptuous of her, given Corrine’s propensity to hide and dispose of inconvenient children). She was at that Christmas party in 1957, lurking in a cabinet with her brother Chris, while her twin siblings were locked in a secluded room.

Bart steps in to let the guests know that Cathy is a famous ballerina, and also, from the looks of it, a superior thespian.  He assures everyone that this is nothing more than a performance, and that is all. Now everyone go back to what you were doing!

Bart and Cathy dance together. He smirks, letting her know he thinks she’s full of it. He’s convinced this is all part of some scorned lover’s agenda. Only how does she know all the Corrine Foxworth minutiae that she does?  She provides him with anecdote after anecdote in order to convince him she speaks the truth, bringing up some real deep cuts from his past. 

Cathy tells him that she and her siblings were up in the attic room for three and a half years, holding onto faith in a mother who was out gallivanting around with her new husband and making very specific candy purchases that Bart remembers his wife did indeed make.  But even though everything Cathy says does line up with what he knows to be true, she still must be lying.

So Cathy starts screaming it out to the guests once again.  She tells them about the efforts to make the attic “pretty” for the little ones. As you might remember, Chris is so clearly a Sagittarius who does optimistic stuff like that.

At this point, Corrine snaps and starts yelling at Cathy to get out of here with her lies!

Bart apologizes to the guests and leads Cathy and Corrine into the library. The library is where all dramatic conversations occur in these books, by the way!

Cathy reveals to Bart and Corrine that she has four birth certificates as further evidence. She probably also has polaroids stashed away somewhere. Why doesn’t she make any mention of the polaroids?

Bart asks his wife one more time to tell him the truth because, as a lawyer, he still has his doubts.

And Corrine finally confesses. But she pleads abuse at the hands of her parents and children!  She says that she was the real victim because her children got to prance about and have a fabulous time up there in the attic while she was being terrorized by an elderly, disabled father who beat her with his cane in front of her mother and taunted her about her four demon seeds.  She’s like, Good luck outsmarting my elderly, wheelchair-bound, codicil-writing father! 

Eventually, Chris Jr. appears out of nowhere.  Corrine sees him stride through the doors, and she assumes she’s looking at the ghost of her dead husband.  After a short exchange, she flees the room.

Bart still has more questions.  Chris corroborates his sister’s horror story. They are the children of Corrine Foxworth, and she is, officially, the worst mother of the year!  I guess Bart has no choice but to believe their story now.

Chris wishes Grandmother a very insincere “Merry Christmas.”  Then he tells Cathy they’ve got to go.  But Bart is like, No Chris, you go.  We’re good. He professes his love to Cathy, and for some reason, even though her brother has told her something awful has occurred without specifying what it is, she forgets all about Chris standing there and walks off with Bart. 

By the time they reach the grand foyer, the guests are running around like they’re on the sinking Titanic! The assumption in the end is that it was Momma who set the fire.  In the attic.  With a candlestick.  But it doesn’t seem as though enough time has passed for her to have done it.  I’ve heard a theory on YouTube (check out 411PopCulture’s video about the “Foxworth Hall Fire”) that Cathy’s lit candle from earlier caused the fire.  But I also find it funny that Chris appeared out of nowhere just before the fire occurred, trying to rush Cathy out of there.  So it makes me wonder if he was the arsonist! He always prided himself on being able to read Cathy’s mind. Maybe he felt he was fulfilling her ultimate wish!

Regardless of who did it, Chris and Cathy escape through some French doors that, apparently, nobody else knows about. For some reason, Bart thinks it’s up to him to be the hero even though he knows at this point that the grandmother tortured and falsely imprisoned helpless children. 

Bart and the grandmother don’t make it out.

Momma loses her thin grip on reality, and Chris sics some EMT workers on her.

Turns out Henny had a stroke, and Paul had a heart attack. That’s the reason Chris showed up to collect Cathy and Jory. Chris tries to get Cathy to leave, with no luck. They stick around for hours, while she cries and blames herself for killing some poor r a p ist who quite literally chose the wrong hill to die on when he went back inside the house to fetch the grandmother.

She probably didn't, but went through with it for Chris Sr's sake.

Let’s discuss “The Time for Vengeance,” Tiger by The Tail,” “The Spider and The Fly” and “The Grandmother, Revisited.”

Designs created using content and tools available on Canva.  Synopsis from my blog.

A Thrilling Game of Cat and Mouse – Tuesday Teatimes

Never Mess with the Person Who is Cooking Your Dinner! – Tuesday Teatimes

Whipped into a Frenzy – Tuesday Teatimes

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Paul wants Cathy to stay in Clairmont with him, but Cathy’s like, Not yet.  I’ve gotta mess with my mom a little bit first.

It’s September, and Carrie died in August, meaning it’s only been a month since her sister killed herself.  And this is how she’s dealing with her grief — by setting up a clever trap to seduce her mother’s second husband. Can’t slow this girl down. Not for a minute! Apparently, Matthew Wilder once wrote a song about her stride.

She eventually runs into Bart at a café in town.  He demands to know who she is and what kind of James Patterson cat and mouse game she’s playing. Meanwhile, he sits there and smokes, in direct defiance of the NO SMOKING signs plastered about.  So this is a man who clearly feels the rules don’t apply to him.  

Bart continues to pepper her with questions. And Cathy finally lies her way into a story that, if nothing else, definitely sounds like it was ripped straight out of a VC Andrews novel. By the end of this tale, she has made Henrietta Beech both her mother and her aunt, which would mean Henny is both the daughter and the secret lover of Malcolm Foxworth. Bart eats this false narrative right up even though he’s the one who attended Harvard Law School and should be able to recognize a whopper when he hears one.

On another occasion, Cathy runs into Bart while going for a jog. She races him. And is winning the race thanks to her strong ballerina legs!

Then her pesky knee has to go and announce itself. I don’t remember her ever mentioning that knee before, but it gives out on her, and she goes into the backstory of how this knee has been the bane of her whole rotten existence.

We find out that the grandmother’s name is Olivia.  In the first book, Corrine told the kids everything they could possibly want to know, and even some info they could have probably lived without, but she never thought to tell her kids what their grandmother’s first name was. And the kids never bothered to ask. Maybe because it would make her a real person, and they probably preferred to view her as a cartoon villain in case times got desperate and they had to build themselves a rifle and bayonet up there in the attic to defend themselves.

Cathy and Bart make plans to have dinner together later that evening.  Poor Jory doesn’t know it yet, but it will be an early bedtime for him!

***

Cathy decides the perfect activity to follow a home-cooked meal is a game of chess.

Bart immediately loses interest in the game once he realizes the winning prize is not Cathy herself. He’s already been served his chicken dinner!

The two of them dance in the firelight.  She’s crying, and Bart can’t imagine why his dancing has brought her to tears.

Cathy waxes poetic about her “fragile shell” and her “tears” like “blood.” She’s like, Would you believe I was a lot more innocent before I grew up?

To make a long story short, the night doesn’t go as either of them planned. Cathy wants to slow things down. Bart doesn’t want to wait around. So he decides he’s gonna ra pe her instead.

After he’s finished doing just that, she orders him out of her home, threatening to either call the cops or go pew pew, whichever gets the job done. 

He promises he will be back the following night for an encore.  And please do cook up a “Beef Wellington” for dinner!  It would please him so!  Apparently, he’s never learned the important lesson that you must never mess with the woman who’s preparing your food.

Bart arrives the next night, as promised, or more accurately, as threatened.  When she serves him his dinner on a covered platter, he is disgusted to learn it’s nothing more than a hot dog and some beans! 

He tells her she was asking for it in that dress she wore the other night.  On this particular evening, she’s dressed like some celebrity caught by the paparazzi while leaving the gym. After he first insults her and accuses her of being some obnoxious feminist who treats rap ists like they’re second-class citizens, they eventually end up going to bed.  And this time, he makes it enjoyable for her. 

So all is forgiven.

Cathy has successfully pulled off “part one” of her revenge.

And she hopes the bloodthirsty mountains will be pleased.

***

Now it’s time to stop by Foxworth Hall and pay the hateful grandmother a little visit.  For someone who hasn’t been to the family dwelling in years and considering the fact that she never really got much of a chance to explore it when she was locked up in a single room as a child, Cathy sure does seem to know her way around. 

So many memories come flooding back of being young and afraid.  Though she’s not so triggered that she can’t bring herself to do a little dance on the mosaic-tiled floor. 

Cathy gets dressed in her leotards and pointes.  She makes sure to let her hair flow free just to spite a certain old woman. This isn’t merely revenge. It’s a whole choreographed production!

When Cathy peers into the grandmother’s room, the older woman has the good sense to be alarmed.  Cathy’s brought with her a willow switch and a whip made out of her dead sister’s golden hair. She has also brought along fifteen years’ worth of trauma and pent-up rage. 

She dances around the room like a fairy on acid, telling her whole life story, getting the grandmother caught up on how she’s been. Not so good, in case you were wondering. . .

She ultimately gets in a single lash with the willow switch before her conscience gets the best of her. But then she detects a challenge in the grandmother’s eyes and gets all worked up again.  She immediately races for a candelabra before realizing she’s forgotten the matches. So now she’s gotta waste some time going back for the matches. And then when she actually gets around to dripping candle wax on the old lady, it’s probably like squeezing toothpaste out of a near empty tube. Honestly, if there was ever an argument to be made for gun control, it’s this chapter of Petals on the Wind by V.C. Andrews. If Cathy had brought along a gun, that old woman would have been toast within seconds. And who knows? Maybe Cathy would have taken out some of the hired help before she was through. I’m sure she would have described the experience as being very dream-like and unreal. Her finger would have been on the trigger without her even knowing how it came to be. But since this girl was working with candle wax, which I imagine dripped as slowly as the proverbial molasses, she had enough time to really think about whether or not the vigilante life was for her. Alas, it was not. And honestly, it's a miracle she didn't burn the house down there and then!

Instead, she leaves, having achieved only minimal justice. But hey, at least the grandmother looks awful. Old age has really done a number on her.

Bart is enraged when he finds out what some psychopath did to his wife’s mother. He would like to get his hands on the mystery villain so that he can deal out a little bit of his own brand of street justice.  He’d told Cathy before that he was bored and was just sitting around hoping for life to get interesting.  Guess he got his wish!

Oh, and Cathy runs into Momma at the post office. She doesn’t whip her or drip candle wax on her hair, but she does get in a passive-aggressive jab or two before leaving in a huff. Best she can do in front of witnesses and her three-year-old son!