B004XTKFZ4 EBOK Page 4

  “C’mon,” she called, “dance with me!”

  I grinned up at her but shook my head.

  “Aw, you’re so lame, Fran!”

  I watched her for a moment, then asked, “What does your dad do, Lucy?”

  “Oh, we don’t live with him,” she said, turning away, shaking her shoulders with the beat. “I haven’t seen him in a long time.”

  I looked at her. Halfway through the song she collapsed onto her bed, breathing hard, and picked up one of her stuffed animals, a dog. “This one’s name is Big Sam,” she said. “He’s one of my favorites.” She kissed it several times and then tossed it to me.

  “He’s nice,” I said honestly, stroking him.

  “And this is Moochie-Mooch,” she said, grabbing another one. “She’s temperamental. And here’s Boo-Boo and Rag-Bag and Gilbert and Uncle Grumpus…” She tossed each one at me, the soft animals bouncing off my shoulders and head. I giggled.

  “Where did you get them all?”

  “My mom, mostly,” she said. “Some of them I get out of dumpsters and garbage cans in town.”

  “Ewww!”

  “Hey, you can get nice things in dumpsters sometimes. That’s why I look in ’em. Anyway, I wash ’em in the washing machine, you know. I’m not dirty.”

  In truth, the animals were clean. “Do you have names for all of them?” I asked.

  “Every single one,” she acknowledged. “And I love ’em all. I love this one,” she said, hurling it at me, “and this one, and this one…!”

  I shrieked and began throwing them back at her. We laughed hysterically, pelting each other with the little fuzzy animals until one careened off Lucy’s shoulder, bounced against the wall, and hit the arm of the record player, creating a terrible scratching sound and stopping the song.

  She looked at it, her face deadly serious, then looked at me, her eyes narrow. For a moment I couldn’t breathe.

  “You ruined it,” she said. “You ruined my record.”

  My heart beat wildly. “I—I didn’t mean to, Lucy, it just—it just bounced wrong—”

  “You ruined my record!” she cried, leaping at me suddenly, throwing stuffed animal after stuffed animal in my direction. She jumped on me, trying to pin my wrists, and we wrestled across the floor. I was terrified until I realized that she was laughing. Then I laughed too. We both did, hysterically, breathlessly.

  Finally we parted, giggles slowly subsiding within each of us.

  “That was funny,” she said.

  “Yeah.”

  “You were scared,” she said, looking over at me, “weren’t you?”

  “I wasn’t scared.”

  “Yeah, you were. I bet you pooped your panties.”

  “I didn’t poop my panties, Lucy.”

  “Panty pooper!” The phrase sent us off on another torrent of shrieking laughter.

  We heard a car in the driveway then, and Lucy sprang up. “My mom,” she explained. “She’s cool. C’mon.”

  I followed her out into the main room, where Ms. Sparrow was just opening the front door. She was an attractive woman with black hair, long and perfectly straight, parted in the middle, as was fashionable then. Big sunglasses hid her eyes. She wore cowboy boots, blue jeans, and a denim jacket with fringes on it like those I associated with country-western singers.

  “Mom!” Lucy cried, wrapping her arms around the woman and grinning.

  “Hi, Punk!” Ms. Sparrow said, smiling. “How was school today?”

  “It sucked.”

  “Yeah, well, what else is new?” She moved into the room, dropping her car keys on the table. Just then she noticed me. She pulled off her sunglasses, revealing big silver-gray eyes that immediately reminded me of Lucy’s. “Hi there,” she said tentatively.

  “Mom, this is Franny-Fran,” Lucy informed her, skipping over to me and wrapping her arm around my neck.

  I giggled again, slipped out of her grasp. “My name is Frances,” I said.

  “Well, hello, Frances,” Ms. Sparrow said. “You’re from across the street, aren’t you?”

  I nodded.

  “You’ve got such a pretty smile,” she said. “Look at those dimples. Jeez, Punk, don’t tell me you’ve made a friend,” she said teasingly to her daughter, crossing into the living room and dropping onto the sofa, pulling off her boots. “Lucy hates all the girls in that school. Can’t say I blame her.”

  “They’re bitches!” Lucy cried mincingly, in a startlingly perfect impersonation of me.

  “Well, I don’t know about bitches,” her mom said. “But their parents have sure got some rods stuck up their asses. So what’s for dinner, Frances? What have you made for us?”

  I giggled. “I didn’t make dinner.”

  “No? Goddamn it. And here I was, really hoping. Lucy, what’s in the fridge?”

  But Lucy didn’t even have to look. “Totino’s Pizza,” she whispered, her eyes bright.

  “Oh my God,” Ms. Sparrow laughed. “Frozen pizza again?”

  “It’s good!” Lucy cried.

  She sighed. “I’m a bad mother. Okay. Totino’s it is. Frances, are you staying with us for dinner?”

  I looked at them. Ms. Sparrow had splayed herself out on the sofa, while Lucy had dropped down to the chair beside her. Lucy began methodically massaging her mother’s bare feet, which were atop the arm rest.

  “Mom’s feet hurt sometimes after work,” Lucy explained.

  I stood there, curiously moved at what I saw. I couldn’t imagine touching my own mother’s feet, let alone those of Aunt Louise.

  “I—I have to check,” I said. “May I use your phone?”

  “In the kitchen,” Ms. Sparrow smiled, pointing with her thumb.

  I ran into the kitchen, picked up the phone, dialed the number. I was sure they would say no, so when Louise picked up I simply said in a rush, “Hi it’s Frances I’m having dinner at the Sparrows’ across the street okay bye!” and hung up.

  “It’s okay with them,” I said calmly, as I stepped back into the living room.

  The dinner, pizza with various items from the refrigerator thrown on top—cheese slices, onion, strips of bologna—was delicious. What’s more, it was consumed in an atmosphere of celebration: we all sat in the living room, laughing uproariously, eating off paper plates (“At least we don’t have to clean them,” Ms. Sparrow said with a wink) and drinking soda out of Dixie cups while the TV played Hollywood Squares. This was so different from the somber, tasteless dinners across the street as to seem to belong to another world. In my real home, of course, hundreds of miles away, Alba would eat with me while my parents…but I didn’t want to think about that here, in this delightful company.

  “Thank you, Ms. Sparrow,” I said as I finished the last of my pizza.

  “Oh, call me Mush,” she said. “Everybody does.”

  “Mush?”

  “Her name’s Michelle,” Lucy explained, stuffing pizza into her mouth.

  “Oh…Okay.” I could hardly imagine calling an adult just by her first name—even with my relatives across the street I always carefully preceded their names with the title Aunt or Uncle—let alone calling a grown-up a name like “Mush.”

  “Well,” she said finally, “this has been lovely, but I’ve got to get back.”

  “You’re going back to work?” I asked, surprised. It was nearly eight o’clock; Hollywood Squares was finishing up with a few final witticisms from Wayland Flowers and Madam.

  “Split shift,” she said, sighing.

  “My mom works a lot,” Lucy added.

  Soon enough Ms. Sparrow (Mush, I corrected myself) had slipped on her boots again, run a brush through her hair, and kissed Lucy goodnight. “I’ll be back, Punk,” she said, “around two. Lock the door behind me. Okay?”

  “’Kay.” Lucy saw her mother to the door, accepted a kiss on the top of her head.

  “Goodnight, Frances,” the woman said. “Be seeing you. Nice to meet you.”

  I nodded, smiling. “Tha
nk you again.”

  Once the door was closed and her car had pulled away I looked at Lucy again.

  “Lucy,” I said, “are we really alone here?”

  She shrugged, looked at me with annoyance. “Sure,” she said. “What’s the big deal? My mom does it all the time. She has to. She’s gotta work.”

  “I—” The idea was sad, somehow, yet thrilling too. I was certain that Frank and Louise wouldn’t approve of my staying alone with a girl my age well into the night, but I wasn’t about to check.

  “What do you want to do?” I asked. “Watch TV?”

  “Nah, TV’s pretty boring,” she said, switching it off. “I mean, I like some shows. Welcome Back, Kotter is good. And Starsky and Hutch.”

  “I like Little House on the Prairie,” I said, realizing as soon as it came out of my mouth that it was a mistake.

  She looked at me and laughed, her big throaty bark. “Franny, you are such a spaz!” But she didn’t mock me beyond that; instead she grabbed my hand and pulled me back into her bedroom again. “C’mere,” she said. “We’ll play something good.”

  I thought that perhaps she was going to bring out a board game, but to my surprise she turned on her radio. She adjusted the station and after a moment I heard the sound of a creaking door, followed by music that sounded like it was from a scary movie. Lucy jumped to the lights and switched them off. The dull greenish glow of the radio dial provided the sole illumination in the room.

  “Sit on the bed!” she whispered, as she leapt onto it herself.

  I did. On the radio a man began to speak: he bade us to come in and welcomed us.

  “What is this, Lucy?” I whispered.

  “Shhh!”

  The man was talking about fearful things that happen in small towns. After that he said the title of our mystery drama, then read some credits and said that he would be back shortly with Act One. Commercials came on.

  “Is this a story?” I asked.

  “It’s the Mystery Theater,” she said, hugging a pillow to her belly. “I listen to it every night.”

  “It’s like a TV show?”

  She shook her head. “Better than TV,” she said.

  And it was. We sat there in the darkness for the next hour, listening to a story unfold about a young couple driving on some back roads who got lost in a sudden storm. They came to a creepy little town they’d never heard of and soon discovered that they couldn’t leave it, no matter how they tried. The pictures played vividly in my head exactly because I had to manufacture them myself: by the end I was literally trembling with fright, pressing my shoulder against Lucy’s for comfort. I didn’t feel released until the host wished us Pleasant dreams and slowly shut his creaking door again.

  “That was good!” Lucy grinned, her eyes sparkling in the darkness.

  I nodded enthusiastically. But something happened then: the day, so long, so packed with emotion and event, began to catch up with me. My eyelids grew heavy. It seemed weeks since I’d stood at the bus stop that morning, seeing Lucy for the first time as she came crashing forth from this house. Soon enough I’d dropped off to sleep.

  When I woke Lucy was softly snoring beside me and for a moment I was completely disoriented. The clock on Lucy’s radio indicated that it was nearly midnight.

  “Lucy?” I whispered, shaking her. “Lucy!”

  “What?” She came awake quickly, scowled at me. “What d’you want?”

  “It’s midnight!”

  “So?”

  “I’m supposed to be home, Lucy!”

  She turned over on the bed, away from me. “So go home, then.”

  “Lucy…! I—I’ll be in trouble.”

  “That’s your problem,” she mumbled sleepily into the pillow.

  “Lucy, please.”

  She looked at me again. “What’s the trouble? Just go home, Fran.”

  “I—” I couldn’t say it.

  “What?”

  “Lucy, I’m…I’m afraid of the dark.”

  “What do you mean, you’re afraid of the dark? It’s dark now. Are you afraid?”

  “No. Because you’re with me.”

  “You just live across the street, Fran.”

  My breath came fast as I thought about it. “I can’t—I can’t go out there.”

  “Why not?”

  “I—Please, Lucy.”

  “Please what?”

  I swallowed. “Would you walk with me? To my house?”

  “Aw, crap, Fran. You’re stupid.”

  “I know I am.”

  “I mean it. You’re really a spaz.”

  “I know.”

  She sighed, stretched, pushed her mop of hair out of her eyes. “All right, fine,” she said at last, and pushed herself off the bed.

  We made it out the door and across her rutted and pitted front yard. Everything looked different at this hour: giant shapes and shades, everything looming black and gray everywhere. I could see that lights were still on in my aunt and uncle’s house, but that only seemed to make the house look evil somehow, as if it had glowing, malevolent eyes.

  “I’m sorry I’m a spaz,” I whispered, as we crossed the silent street.

  By then she’d awakened completely and recovered some of herself. “Aw, it’s okay,” she said, punching me gently on the arm. “Anyway, we can’t have you being a panty-pooper again.”

  I giggled. “I’m not a panty-pooper!”

  “I’ll bet you’re pooping in ’em right now. I think can smell it.”

  “You’re gross!” I laughed, shoving her playfully.

  She saw me to my front door and we said goodnight. I watched her move back across the street, hands in her pockets.

  When I opened the door it was simultaneously a relief and a new source of dread. Aunt Louise was sitting in the living room, a drink in her hand, an old movie playing softly on the television. A single lamp was on; otherwise the room was dark.

  “Do you know what time it is, Frances?”

  Aunt Louise wasn’t an attractive woman. Her hair was a washed-out ash-white, her skin sagged around her jaws, and there were black bags under her eyes. She was heavyset and tended to wear loose dresses to try to cover the fact; they only succeeded, however, in making her look as if she wore gunny sacks. Her voice was cigarette-raspy and as far as I could see she did nothing all day other than watch TV. I hated her.

  “I’m sorry, Aunt Louise,” I said. “We fell asleep.”

  “Oh, crap.”

  “It’s the truth,” I said quietly, my hands clasped demurely before me. I could feel my usual self taking over again: no more hilarious laughter, no more throwing toys, no more excited whisperings in the dark. Just Frances again, shy, dull, obedient Frances, of no possible interest to anybody. “We really did,” I insisted. “We were listening to the radio and we fell asleep.”

  “Don’t ever stay out that late again, Frances. We’re responsible for you, you know.”

  “I know. I’m sorry. Really.”

  “I think,” she said, taking a drag on her cigarette and studying me with her sharp bird-like eyes, “you could do better for a friend than that girl, too.”

  “I like her, Aunt Frances.”

  “Mm. Good-for-nothing butch tomboy is what she is. Those people are slobs, Frances. Look at their front yard.”

  “I like her.”

  “Well, we’ll talk about it later. Go to bed.”

  Without meeting her eyes I turned and moved toward my room. Once there I used the bathroom, took off my clothes, placed them with the dirty laundry, and slipped into my perfectly-ironed nightgown. Then I got into bed and lay there, my eyes wide in the darkness. My Donald Duck nightlight helped dispel some of my fear, but I felt suddenly like a prisoner. I could make my own room the way I wanted it, but couldn’t control anything else. I didn’t want to be here, I wanted to be home…But then I realized suddenly that I didn’t want that, either…I wanted my mom to be well, I wanted my dad to…I wanted…

  I wanted to be
at the Sparrows’. That was what I wanted. I wanted to be with Lucy.

  I lay there, a lonely ache deep in my stomach. I felt like crying, but I didn’t. Instead I thought about this house, Uncle Frank, my Aunt Louise, my stupid, broken-up life.

  “She didn’t even ask me how my day was at school,” I whispered, to no one.

  —Five—

  MUMFORD IS THIRTY-FIVE miles north of Quiet along the Pacific Coast Highway, a famous drive with steep rock cliffs jutting down to the ocean on one side and endless pine forests on the other. Lovely small towns with quaint old inns and gift shops pass by the traveler’s window; fishing boats crawl slowly through the waters. The road can be treacherous, with surprising serpentine curves and drops. It’s easy to picture one’s car careening off a sheer rock face, bouncing over the safety rail, and sailing hundreds of feet down into the ocean.

  Mumford itself is tiny, nondescript. It’s dwarfed, certainly, by its larger neighbors up the road—Big Sur, Monterey. There are only a few streets in the whole town and it was easy for me, following the driving directions I’d located online, to find what I was looking for. Within minutes of passing the Welcome to Mumford sign I was pulling up in front of the house I sought: a Victorian-era seaside cottage, lavender and navy blue, beautifully restored, with a small but flawlessly smooth lawn in front of it.

  Ocean View Bed & Breakfast.

  As I got out the smell of the cool salt air hit me bracingly. I blinked, looked up and down the road. There was no one. I heard only the sea.

  I stepped up the walkway to the front door and pushed the doorbell, trying to slow my breathing as I waited. I’d been perfectly calm during the drive but now that I was here, actually here, my breath came fast and I felt my heart fluttering in my chest. It couldn’t be, I thought; I had the wrong house, I was in the wrong place, I should just turn and leave.

  When the door opened I took a step back. Through the screen door a handsome woman in her sixties wearing tan slacks and blouse and a good deal of jewelry looked at me through big eyeglasses.

  “Yes?” she said pleasantly.

  For a moment I couldn’t speak.

  She cocked her head. Her upswept hair was pure white, defiantly undyed. “Do you have a reservation?” she asked.