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was wrong, then what they hated should be better--so I chose
Steve."
And Steve chose Diane.
Within months, they were sleeping together regularly. She
was sixteen. She confided then in Steve; finally, she had someone
to tell the secret of what her father had done to her. Steve had no
idea how to respond, so he mumbled something and changed the
subject.
"She told me when we were dating," Downs recalls. "She
never got into graphic details, but she told me her dad was
responsible."
Diane's intense physical affair with Steve Downs did not
blunt her pursuit of excellence at Moon Valley High. Her intelligence
was part of her armor against the world. Her name on the
honor roll bolstered her still-fragile ego.
When Diane was seventeen, sudden, violent death threatened
,to snatch away everything she loved most. Wes's mother was
SMALL SACRIFICES 103
sixty, his father seventy-four, when they died together in a head-on
collision caused by a drunk driver.
Next, Eric, Diane's beloved cocker spaniel, was crushed
beneath a tractor Steve was driving. Diane blamed Wes, not
Steve, because her father had called the dog. Eric was paralyzed,
and Wes dispatched it quickly with his shotgun while Diane
K--amed.
"We had a nanny goat and her baby--Nanny and Betty. My
er killed the baby and had the nanny goat slaughtered."
Diane's pet cats contracted ringworm. Wes said the kids
would catch it. Diane begged him not to dispose of them, but one
night as she was washing the dishes, she heard the shotgun's roar again. For
the first time, her blanking out drew her in completely, [leaving no seam in
the curtain.
"I blacked out. I remember the sound of the gun, and the
next thing I knew I was in my room putting on a clean blouse. I
guess I ran out when I heard the gun--they found me later,
walking down the road. My foot was bleeding as if I'd kicked
something. I had complete amnesia for an hour."
Diane lost Steve for a time too when she was seventeen; he
joined the Navy in June of 1972.
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Wes continued his lecturing. Diane had enjoyed playing the
flute, but Wes didn't think she practiced enough.
"He lectured me on it for two hours. You'd get backed into a'
corner. He'd say, 'Look at me. Don't look at the table. Don't
look at the ceiling.' He'd pressure me into scratching my own
face ... I'd been rebelling since I was twelve, and all I could do
was scratch my face."
Diane's face-scratching was the outward manifestation of her
profound frustration and helplessness in her father's home, al- ^ys under her
father's will. Her rage toward him turned inward, and she raked her nails down
her own face, leaving angry red
furrows. But it wasn't herself she wanted to hurt; it was Wes--if
|nly she had the power to do it.
"My father said that I was possessed when I was spaced-out tor the first time.
I was shouting at him. He usually hit me with a "^It, but not this time. I
looked at him. I told him to leave me one- Maybe it surprised him. I guess my
first anger backed him
The daughter of an obeisant wife had never realized that a oian might control
a male; the best she had ever hoped for was
104 ANN RULE
to align herself with a strong male. Her father's confusion felt
good.
It did not last. Diane still believed that a man was the only
salvation for a woman. She wanted out other parents' home, and
she vowed to grab the first chance that presented itself.
When she graduated from Moon Valley a semester early
Diane found a gap in the fence around her. She was offered the
chance to go to college--Bible College. She was to study to be a
Christian missionary. From there, she thought she could switch to
premed.
Diane lasted only two semesters at the Pacific Coast Baptist
Bible College. But it was a revelation.
"I was popular for the first time in my life. In the first two
weeks, I had a date with a strict student. He took me to a
Valentine's Dance and kissed me. Well, he just went wild after
that. He said it was my kiss that drove him wild. Other boys flocked around.
Stories grew, and I finally did with a guy what
they said I did. Then another girl got in trouble. To save herself,
she told on me. I was kicked out of school for promiscuity."
Diane relates the story with a mocking smile.
Another version of her expulsion says that Diane and a male
student desecrated the church altar itself by having sexual intercourse
there--either as a lark or in a moment of unrestraine4
passion.
By August, Diane was home again in North Phoenix. She
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