Heavenstone 01 - The Heavenstone Secrets

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 tanning 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 Ihad 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.
    We both went downstairs to join him, Daddy, and Mother. He had come for lunch but had also brought a portfolio of new fashion ideas for teenage girls and wanted our opinions. The three of them were in the living room, and Uncle Perry had his portfolio opened on the large glass coffee table. Mother was looking down at it, and Daddy was sitting in his favorite easy chair, puffing on his meerschaum pipe, which had been his father’s.
    Uncle Perry was wearing a bright blue blazerand light blue slacks with blue boat shoes. He wore a cravat and looked as if he had just stepped off the cover of a fashion magazine himself. The moment we entered, he brightened, but I felt he was looking mainly at me.
    “Ah, the infamous Heavenstone sisters,” he declared. Mother laughed. “Just in time, girls. I’d love for you to peruse my new creations. Your father has yet to groan or moan, which usually means I’m right on track or, as he would say, still in the black.”
    “Lucky is all you are,” Daddy