Becoming My Sister

V.C. Andrews

• Publisher: Gallery Books
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN: 9781982156329
• eBook ISBN: 9781982156336

Two sisters face love, rivalry, and a shocking disappearance amidst the luxury of Palm Springs from the #1 New York Times bestselling author of the Flowers in the Attic series and Landry series—now popular Lifetime movie events.

Like everyone else in Palm Springs, Gish idolizes her smart, beautiful, kind older sister. Even their parents compare Gish unfavorably to Gloria—threatening to send her to boarding school once the more perfect sister leaves for college.

But Gloria has an unwavering love for Gish, even if that connection belies a weariness with her own accomplishments. Wanting a better life for her overlooked sibling, Gloria teaches Gish how to talk to boys, embrace her femininity, and finally develop a life of her own. And just as life is looking up for Gish, Gloria meets a handsome, mysterious boy. Obsessed with the stranger, Gloria closes off her life to her sister—then disappears without a trace.

A police search yields nothing. Their father’s manic investigation proves fruitless. And their already starstruck mother becomes increasingly lost in daydreams of the celebrities who threw glamorous parties in their historic house decades ago when the town was a Hollywood getaway.

Untethered from the weight of her sister’s presence—but also missing her sister’s love—what will Gish do with this new terrible freedom, with this sense she could become anything?

chapter one

For me more than for my sister, Gloria, our house was always full of echoes, and not because our house was vast and cavernous with high ceilings and long hallways. It was bigger than most homes, but it wasn’t a castle. These were the echoes of voices from the past speaking softly. I remember playing alone in my room with a hand-me-down doll that originally had been given to Gloria, and hearing whispering outside my door, sometimes so loud I finally had to get up to peek down the hallway. If I looked, the whispering always stopped. I’d wait and wait and then rush back to the doll and hug her, patting its almost human hair.

“Don’t be afraid,” I’d assure her with my eyes on the doorway. “These aren’t bad ghosts.”

Our house had once been the home of a famous silent-movie star who frequently threw glamorous parties right up to and through most of the 1960s. According to Mother, anyone who was anyone during the golden age of Hollywood and right after had come here, slept here, and partied into the “wee hours” in our living and dining rooms. Chefs and servants ran back and forth from the long, restaurant-sized kitchen with trays of hors d’oeuvres. Champagne bottles were popped so quickly that they “sounded like a tune.” Often the guests reveled outside on our beautiful grounds, sitting and dancing on the patios. Musicians played under large umbrellas. There were dramatic lights. There always had to be lights. These were movie stars.

As if she had been there at the time, Mother described in great detail how the house had been filled with laughter, music, and the clinking of champagne glasses, all of it being more significant because of the overlay of fame.

“These weren’t just any parties,” she bragged. “They were parties that were written up in the newspapers, reported on the radio and on television. These were parties with pictures of our house and grounds in magazines! Sometimes a producer would premiere a movie here.”

Many times I heard my mother claim that the spirits of cinema as well as stage theater greats still walked the halls, which explained the ghosts she claimed inhabited our house. Although she had redone most of the floors, replacing all the wood with rich marble tiles that didn’t creak, she would swear to her friends that she still heard their footsteps late at night. She claimed that she often woke, opened her eyes, and listened to the voices, the laughter, the singing, and the applause. “As if it was happening in the here and now.”

Of course, my father had slept through it and simply smiled and nodded when she described it all to us in the morning. Our nanny, who was with us both since birth, Mrs. Broadchurch, smiled, too, but took my hand and Gloria’s for a quick, reassuring squeeze. Mother insisted nobody should be frightened by it, but sometimes I thought Mrs. Broadchurch was frightened as much and as often as I was.

Gloria never seemed afraid. In fact, now that I think about her more, I don’t recall her ever having a nightmare. But she was at my side whenever I did. Our bedrooms were next to each other’s, and our parents’ was to the right at the end of the hall. I started to believe Gloria had her ear to the wall anticipating my sobs. She was always there before Mother, who took one look at us lying together and went back to bed, content that Gloria had done what had to be done with me. She had little patience for me. My fears annoyed her. “How could these ghosts frighten anyone? They were stars!”

“Gish has a big imagination, Mother, bigger than mine,” Gloria would tell her.

Mother would throw her right hand up in a smooth motion and dramatically dismiss me. She had seen it done that way in some silent movie. She unraveled through our house every day like a reel of film.

She was unstoppable when it came to convincing everyone that the movement of famous spirits through our house was real. I’d look at the way Mrs. Broadchurch’s eyes would widen as Mother detailed her colorful descriptions, pinpointing laughter, the tinkle of glasses, and the whispers of secret love at this corner of the house or that. She made it sound so logical and true and with such vivid detail that my four-year-old heart, so willing to accept wondrous new things, would begin to race with my own memories of voices heard just the previous night.

On one occasion, one of her more skeptical friends asked Mother how she was so sure these spirits lived on for decades.

“And here?” she added, looking like she had collapsed Mother’s house of cards with her logical question.

“The more famous you were, the longer you could haunt the settings you had enjoyed,” Mother replied, as if the answer was as clear as day. “Ordinary people evaporate instantly, but celebrities whose names linger on the lips of the living and whose voices and faces are still resurrected on television and the internet are immortal. And they are that especially in this house, our house!”

She would say all these things to all her friends and visitors as well, while brightening her beautiful amber eyes with their yellowish golden and coppery tint, hypnotizing her listeners with even more detail about this celebrity or that, some of those facts astoundingly personal. It was as if she was immortal and really had known them all. She’d sit in her favorite vintage English Victorian carved high-back armchair, looking like a monarch with her dark brown hair styled in what she called the Garbo bob, named for the actress Greta Garbo, “who most certainly had been here.”

She’d sit with her regal posture and deliver her descriptions and references with an air of authority that kept her listeners mesmerized. As if she had promised these celebrated spirits to live up to their expectations, she never greeted any guest without her makeup carefully applied, including on her long eyelashes. She had taken lessons from a movie makeup artist. Her ears and neck sparkled with her diamonds. For years, she had been collecting vintage clothing, and at times she bought something some actress was said to have owned. She’d dress in one of those when she was going to have one of her get-togethers, her famous Celebrity Talks. It was as if she was ready to go onto a movie set herself.

“Her words rang with the timbre of church bells,” Gloria recalled when as teenagers we reminisced about our childhood and Mother’s famous afternoon recitations. “Why wouldn’t her gullible friends believe her?”

We had seen it ourselves. When Gloria and I were little older than infants, we’d sit quietly with Mrs. Broadchurch and listen to our mother ramble on and on to new and older friends about the history of the house. I really would rather have not been there, would rather have been outside playing, but she told Mrs. Broadchurch she wanted us present for these gatherings so we would know how lucky we were to be living where we were living. The two of us would sit quietly with our hands in our laps, trying to look like we were proud of her and were enjoying it. I could see the birds outside, circling and inviting me to run over our carpet-like lawns with my arms out like wings, screaming to be free, to glide off and escape.

Often Mother glanced at me with something of a scowl because I couldn’t hold a smile or look grateful that I was there. I was afraid to tell her how her “hallways at night” stories slipped into my sleep and had me envision hands and arms floating along our walls, her famous faces flashing a smile at me, and sometimes, in my dreams, coming into my room to hover above me. If I woke, I wouldn’t open my eyes until the sunshine washed the ghosts away in the morning. I knew how much Mother wanted me to be thankful for and be happy about the wonder of our spiritual houseguests, but it wasn’t easy for me, as easy as it seemed to be for Gloria, and she could see that in my expression and discomfort.

“Too many young people have no appreciation for their history. A fifty-dollar video game is a far more important way to spend their time than walking through a historical site like ours,” our mother said, sounding so mournful.

She directed those words of criticism more at me than at my sister, Gloria. When Mother spoke of her celebrities, Gloria would look like Daddy and wear that soft, amused smile of hers, as if Mother was telling some sort of fairy tale. I was still young enough to believe in fairy tales, Mother’s and the ones Mrs. Broadchurch read to us. I can’t say I ever stopped believing in Mother’s stories, even years later when fantasies and magic were supposed to have faded.

I had one particular memory that would never fade. One night when I heard whispers and laughter again, I got out of bed slowly and went to my door. Opening it just a little, I peered out and was sure I saw Mother walking through the hallway in her sheer white nightgown, the hem of it floating around her, looking like she was talking to someone. She was laughing, too. I rushed back to bed. In the morning, when I told Gloria, she said I was probably just dreaming. However, I thought Mother would be proud of me and love me more, so I told her what I had seen and heard and asked her if I had been dreaming.

“Of course not, and of course you could have seen and heard all that,” she said. “It wasn’t a dream. However, it wasn’t me you saw. It was more likely Mary Pickford. Little children have more contact with the spiritual world.”

I looked at Gloria, who simply smiled that smile of hers, looking as if she had known this for a long time, but it still frightened me a little, maybe more than a little.

“We’re so lucky,” Mother told us when we sat with her fascinated audience again. “We not only live with the rich and famous now, but we have the memories of them locked within our walls. Practically every day, I learn about another famous person who visited or partied here.”

How did she learn? Did a ghost tell her? I wondered. I was afraid to ask her, and Daddy provided no clues. He was never at these gatherings because they were only with Mother’s friends, Mrs. Broadchurch, and us. Often he was working at his office, either here at the house or downtown. He even worked on weekends. Later, at dinner, she would describe a recent meeting of her celebrities club to Daddy. Gloria and I would have to relive it, almost word for word. She was often not very nice to some of her guests. She would act so surprised, even insulted, that they knew so little about famous people. I could swear I saw Mrs. Hume’s eyes tear up and her lips quiver when Mother practically called her an idiot for not knowing who Norma Shearer was.

“She was the first person to be nominated five times for an Academy Award for acting!” she practically spit at her. “And she won for The Divorcee. Have you never seen The Divorcee?”

Mrs. Hume shook her head and looked at everyone fearfully. I thought no one there had seen the movie, but no one else dared to admit it. Mother seemed so powerful to me then, even with her soft, dainty hands and thin frame that Daddy compared to Audrey Hepburn’s. “My wife’s like the princess in Roman Holiday,” he’d say, and only those who came to Mother’s movie nights or watched TCM knew what he meant.

“You’d be shocked,” she told Daddy after one of her tea parties. “It’s one thing to forget who Norma Shearer was, but none of them knew who Rudolph Valentino, Charlie Farrell, and Janet Gaynor were.”

“Really? Well…”

Before he could offer an explanation, she said, “They’re too into themselves and their meaningless gossip. I don’t know why I bother with them.”

Daddy nodded. Maybe her friends were into themselves, but when I looked at their faces, I still saw that most were impressed and even envious that Mother was so schooled in celebrities and could somehow connect with them. Why would anyone be surprised that it made Mother special in my eyes, too?

Even though the very thought of something supernatural would frighten most of her guests, these people were continually intrigued and looked forward to Mother’s gatherings, her little parties with wine and cheese. Pictures flashed on walls, and old singers like Rudy Vallee were played on an antique Victrola to provide atmosphere for her talks. An invitation was highly cherished. In their eyes, Mother was part of the world of the rich and famous, and fame was something everyone sought. Who didn’t want to live forever, at least on the lips of future admirers?

“Mother’s sessions make her guests feel as if they’re learning things most people don’t know, could never know. They want to believe her,” Gloria told me when we were a little older, but even at six, she had explanations for practically everything that puzzled me.

I was never really sure whether or not Mrs. Broadchurch believed Mother when she told her stories. She knew most of the celebrity names. She was in her early sixties, widowed. Daddy had tempted her away from a well-to-do family in England by offering her twice the salary. She called our home “posh.” I never knew what that meant until she was gone, but it sounded good. She was almost as proud of our home and living here as Mother was, but when I asked her if she heard voices and laughter at night, too, she said no, but not to take anything from that because she was hard of hearing.

“However, if your mum says she did, she did,” she added. “Mums don’t lie about such things, especially to their own children.”

I didn’t know what to believe. Aside from telling me I was dreaming when I heard voices and laughter and what I had seen Mother doing, Gloria never came right out and said that what Mother was telling her friends wasn’t true. The most she said about it back then was, “It doesn’t hurt us to believe it, too, Gish, and it makes Mother happier if we do. The least we can do is be proud of where we live. It’s what Mother wants.”

I did come to believe that our house was a piece of history, like some national monument and, as Mother said, “far more important than houses with signs that boasted ‘George Washington Slept Here.’ ” Everyone laughed, even Mrs. Broadchurch, when Mother said that, but Mother was very, very serious about our house. She didn’t laugh after she had said it. She never meant it as a joke. Her lips would tighten and her eyes would widen. Everyone would instantly stop laughing, as if she had thrown a switch.

“By buying it, we saved it from disappearing and rescued it from practically melting in the desert sun. Those of us who have the money also have the obligation to preserve what was and is important,” she told her wealthy friends—lectured them, more like it.

Daddy was a very successful investment manager. Early on, Mother told us, “Your father is one of those men whose work is their life. Never blame him for something he cannot control because it’s in our family’s interest.”

She meant he was as obsessed with his work as she was with our house and her research. She didn’t seem to mind how often he was gone. Other wives would surely have complained at how frequently their husbands missed dinner or had to be on business trips. Because of Daddy, we were as wealthy as any of the people Mother invited. Besides, she had her celebrity projects to keep her occupied whenever he wasn’t home anyway. In her mind, the buying of this house and saving it from termites, rats, and the weather was akin to winning a great battle for the country, even the world. It was as if she was challenging all her rich friends to do something nearly as significant.

“You should be proud of your mum,” Mrs. Broadchurch always told us. “I come from a place where there are many historical houses that are in great need of a woman like your mum. Look at how well she’s kept your home and, as she says, for good reason. It has history. If we don’t preserve our history, all of it, we lose a sense of who we are.”

That did make sense and made what Mother was doing very impressive. How could Gloria, I, or Daddy really ever disagree? She certainly kept our home looking elegant and important. She changed drapes, replaced windows and molding, and had some areas repainted. Every change was carefully coordinated to keep our house and grounds looking like they belonged in the golden age of Hollywood.

There was a wall that Mother hadn’t repainted or even touched, a wall that gave her claims some authenticity. It was just inside the main entryway. On it were dozens and dozens of autographs, some so faded that you had to guess at the names. No one challenged my mother’s interpretation of the scribbles or that they were genuine. This one was definitely W. C. Fields, and that one was assuredly Cary Grant.

“You know that wasn’t his real name,” she would explain when pointing out his signature to someone, and then proudly declare that his real name was Archie Leach.

“Yes, he was English, too,” Mrs. Broadchurch whispered to Gloria and me.

Mother spent much of her time researching celebrities and covered two of the walls in the den with old photographs and movie posters that featured the stars of stage and screen who “surely had dinner here.” There were even framed pictures in our formal living room where other homes would have family pictures. It was as if, to Mother, the celebrities were related to us.

She would often call Gloria and me to watch her place a new framed celebrity photograph on a shelf or table. Of course, she’d tell us all about whoever it was and warn us that she might ask us to repeat some of that later. We knew more about George Raft or Ida Lupino than we did about our grandparents, who had evaporated like raindrops...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Prologue
• Chapter One
• Chapter Two
• Chapter Three
• Chapter Four
• Chapter Five
• Chapter Six
• Chapter Seven
• Chapter Eight
• Chapter Nine
• Chapter Ten
• Chapter Eleven
• Chapter Twelve
• Chapter Thirteen
• Chapter Fourteen
• Chapter Fifteen
• Epilogue
• About the Author
• Copyright