October 1, 2011
Good Morning, Dear Readers,
With this writing I begin with a series about three young girls – Lisa, Claudia and Olivia – orphaned at an early age in Quebec, Canada, they are chestnut-haired, hazel-eyed, French-Canadians, and all very pretty – they would be soon adopted after the accident that killed their parents by a young couple who were barren, Yvette, and Richard Oakley, each established writers, living in an affluent suburb of Long Island, they would move the sisters to their home in Garden City where they would grow and play and live their lives as any normal pre-teen girl, but when each girl’s sexuality peaks, together they question the path to take as they come to the crossroad of their lives.
I hope you will enjoy their journey.
My best,
Terry Rachel
The Oakley Girls of Garden City
The Introduction
Lisa is the youngest of the sisters, at age 10, she plays with boys, preferring their company over girls. She is smart in school but takes advantage of not doing homework, a little bit of a know-it-all, she’s keenly aware how pretty she is. Today, Saturday, she’s hogging the bathroom more than usual, not having to be rushed out by her sisters, she stares long in the mirror, examining her face. She pretends to put on mascara, as her mouth gently drops open, she purses her lips to throw a kiss, and thinks that her lips are too big. Taking out her barrette she shakes her head to loosen her hair, flipping the ends, she bends her head to her knees, sweeping her hair in a downward direction, she snaps up straight and shakes again her magnificence she is most proud of. She can do styles now. Her older sister, Olivia, taught her how to use a curling iron – but she doesn’t always get to use it, because Olivia and Claudia use it the most, and she feels like she gets what’s left over. She knows she has to be very sweet with her sisters.
Claudia is the middle child, at twelve, she has green-hazel eyes, and sunburned features, freckles across her nose and some to her cheeks, she has long, thick lashes the color of caramel, her hair is naturally two-tones of chestnut and dark blonde. On the swim team from 6th through 9th grades, Claudia is slender and elegant, some would say she is the most beautiful of the Oakley sisters – but as the good Lord gives the human mind or, at least those willing to accept it, the gift of modesty, Claudia prefers to concentrate on doing good for others, volunteering takes up most of her time when she is not with her swim team.
In her marmalade-colored room, one sunny window shines its morning light, as Olivia sits writing an e-mail to a school chum she met in her sophomore year. School begins next week, right after Labor Day, and Olivia, thirteen, has been thinking about her girlfriend for weeks. Ever since Cathy left for a family vacation to spend the summer in Michigan, Olivia has texted her nearly every day. The light pours onto her flawless olive skin, her dark eyes read again what she is about to send to her friend. Her hair is never in her face, unusually confident for her age, her ballet instructor expressed to Mrs. Oakley that Olivia has the potential to go far as a dancer.
Yvette Boulanger-Oakley was raised on Long Island, but spent summer vacations with her parents’ family in Quebec City, Canada, where she held a soft spot for her faraway cousins she rarely got to see. With her love of travel and her natural affinity for uncovering a secret, Yvette went onto Syracuse University – a difficult school to gain entry to for its quality journalism studies, and after graduating interned for Newsday where she would eventually write a daily column, taking over for Erma Bombeck, her editor saw how good she was at telling a story in less than 1000 words that pulled on the heartstring of her readers. Yvette has auburn hair, her glasses sit on the bridge of her nose, or on top of her head, she wears turtlenecks tucked inside a belted skirt, knowing not too many women can pull it off; she dresses always to show off her flat stomach.
When she was thirty-two and married to Richard six years, herself having been to several fertility clinic trails, and Richard, having gone through countless sperm tests, both of them unable to have children of their own – rather than getting completely down over it, and being the type of woman to see her way through any obstacle, she was an optimist at best, and so she and Richard considered the next best thing would be to adopt. On an early morning on December 24th, at her office, Yvette was the first to pick up the AP wire that a family in Canada endured a terrible accident, where the driver of the car was killed along with his wife, but that the children, three young girls, were alive, having survived being hit by a semi-trailer while on their way to a Christmas event reported by the mother’s side of the family.
Richard Oakley is meeting today with his editor at Random House, he is on his third book for them and the advance of $10 million that he received took him well into his fourth year to complete the novel. It should be a good one; he thinks it’s got a market. The novel is based on a family of prosperous dairy farmers who lived in Hungary during World War II but were forced to leave from the Nazi advance, buying their way to America being guests of a family living in Minnesota. In the cab ride from Grand Central up Park Avenue, he is dressed in a pair of linen slacks and denim shirt, his blonde hair sweeps down, in Robert Redford fashion, just above his blue eyes; he adjusts his sunglasses to take in the other yellow cabs lining the busy street. The manuscript sits on his lap as it is boxed; his editor prefers to read on paper. Richard didn’t mind printing it out, even though printing out over 150,000 words took a lot of paper, he poured his heart into this effort, not counting the rewrites, he hopes to receive the remaining $12 million by the time it goes to print. Under his breath, come the words, “Right in the bank for my girls,” and then to the driver, “This will be fine here, thanks!”
End Part 1
© Terry Rachel, 2011
A Hardscrabble Daughter 