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Can someone be so handsome that he scares you as much as someone who's so ugly? I wondered. What frightened me was how much I wanted him to come around, and how inadequate and unprepared I felt I was for such a rendezvous. All I could think Was that I needed Karen now more than ever to give me advice and guide me through this.
She was waiting for me as soon as I got off the bus and opened the front door of my house. Wearing one of my skirts and blouses, she stood by the stairway. In her hand was the letter I had left in the book. Her hair looked as if she had been running her hands through it for hours. I was sure that after reading what I had written, she had been frustrated having to wait for me to come home.
I closed the door quickly. "Anyone driving by who glanced our way could have seen you through the doorway standing there, Karen. Why are you being so careless?"
She waved the letter at me instead of
answering. "This is just like her," she said, turned, and started up the stairway. About midway, she paused and looked down at me. "Well, don't just stand there. Come on up."
I hurried after her. She went directly up into the attic and flopped onto the sofa, her arms folded under her breasts. I glanced at my watch and entered.
"Before we start, Karen, my mother's coming home in less than an hour. Do you have everything you need for tonight? We'll be leaving early in the morning, but . ."
"Oh, forget all that. I have everything I need. When did she call your father?"
"Yesterday, I think."
I moved in slowly, set my books down on an old dresser, and looked at her.
"She's going to put on some act for you and your parents. You sure they're going, too?"
"My mother said so. I didn't write it in my note to you, but we've heard that she is not going to sell the drugstore. She has already started to advertise for a pharmacist, and she's telling people she would never want to leave here."
"Oh, don't worry about that. She's pretty smart. She's going to get the drugstore up and running again as quickly as she can before she puts it up for sale.
The money is made on the drugs, not the toys and ice cream, cards, and sundries. She was always right there when Harry did his books. She knows exactly what's what when it comes to that place."
"I guess I never realized how much you dislike her," I said. I didn't intend to, but it just slipped out because of how bitter and venomous she sounded.
She looked at me strangely for a moment and then smiled, but it was an icy smile, her eyes more like frost-covered marbles.
"You didn't? How would you like a mother who ignored all that I described happening to me? Well?" she asked before I could breathe. "How would you?"
"Of course, I wouldn't."
"You're darn right, of course, you wouldn't. I don't dislike her," she added after a moment. "I just don't like her as much as I should. Actually, I'll probably become just like her as I get older. Harry was always saying the apple doesn't fall far from the tree unless the tree is on the top of a hill, whatever that means."
"Rolls down."
"What?"
"The apple falls and then rolls down."
"Brilliant. I knew what he meant, but it was just another one of the stupid things he would say to me. He was always trying to make me think I would amount to nothing if I didn't listen to, him and obey him. He made it sound as if he provided the very air I breathed. But I've told you about all that, or most of it."
She shook herself as if to shake off a chill.
"Okay," she said, pulling her legs up and under as she often did, "let's think about it. My mother might grill you about me, about what I might have told you.
She'll probably want to see if you know the truth. She might not come right out and say it, but she'll make suggestions. She's probably worried it will get out, and people will know how she neglected me. Then she'll try to discover if you know where I am. Be careful, because she can be very tricky, very subtle. She'll seem so hurt and in so much pain, and then she'll slip in a question like that, and you'll blurt something out. S0000," she added, smiling, "what you'll do is turn the tables on her right from the start."
"How?"
"You'll be the one who is full of pain and hurt and be unable to talk, even to sit in that house. Out-act her."
"I am full of pain and hurt and unable to talk. I don't have to act."
"Good. Cry, and look down, and keep shaking your head. Your parents won't let it go on too long once they see how disturbed you're getting. Of course," she added, "by then, you'll have made the call from New York, and she'll be thrown off course, anyway. Things will settle down even more, and then I want to sneak back into the house."
