The Summer of Mrs. MacGregor

by Betty R. Wright

  Caroline looked down at the letters in her lap.

  “She even used my best stationery to write those silly things,” Mrs. Reston said, following her glance. “She even stole that! I never saw a girl so determined to become something she’s not and never will be.”

  “But—” Caroline didn’t know what to say. Lillina and New York belonged together.

  “It’s disgusting!” Mrs. Reston spoke with an intensity that made Caroline flinch. “All that child thinks about is being famous. She can’t just take snapshots—not her! She has to be a big, important portrait artist. And glamorous! I swear, she thinks she’s gorgeous! She actually believes she’s going to take this whole world by storm, and all of us ordinary folks are going to tell her how wonderful she is. You’ve seen that, Caroline. You know it for a fact.”

  Caroline cleared her throat, but before she could think of a calm, understanding reply, Mrs. Reston was talking again.

  “She’s smart as a whip, I don’t deny that. But I bet she didn’t tell you she’s failing every single class in high school. Her teachers gave her homework to do all summer, so she could catch up, and I’ve done my best to make her study, but I don’t think she’s accomplished a thing. She just sits and dreams, or reads those fashion magazines. She’s a—a collector, that’s what she is! Picks up ideas and pretends all the time. Makes a fairy-tale kind of life for herself! And now this I” She pointed at the letters. “Last night she sneaked out of the house, so I went to her room and found these and read them. When she came home, I told her just what I thought. And then this morning I caught her taking money from my purse. When she realized she’d been caught, she ran right out of the house.… Where would she go, Caroline? You don’t have to worry about getting her into more trouble than she’s already in. All I want is to find her and pack her up and send her back to Graham, as fast as I can.”

  Caroline struggled with this torrent of new information. “Do you mean,” she said slowly, “that Lillina is still in high school?”

  “Of course she’s in high school. She’ll be a sophomore this year. If she makes up her work. Didn’t she even tell you the truth about that, for heaven’s sake?”

  “I never asked her about school,” Caroline said. “When she said she was married, I just thought …” She hesitated. Mrs. Reston looked about to choke. “His name is Frederick—”

  “Married!” The word was like a small explosion. “She’s not married. Just exactly how old did she say she is?”

  “Seventeen,” Caroline whispered.

  “Fifteen is more like it. Married, indeed! A gawky fifteen, if you want the truth. My girls had some meat on their bones. The idea of that child imagining herself glamorous!”

  Caroline thought of the afternoon she and Lillina had spent at the mall. She remembered Lillina in the black dress and later in the yellow one, her mane of red hair flung back, radiant in a way that had taken Caroline’s breath away. Lillina really is beautiful, Mrs. Reston, she wanted to say. Then she thought about how that afternoon had ended, with a flash of green that might have been a stolen bracelet.

  “Why did she come to Grand River?”

  Mrs. Reston sniffed. “Because I offered to see what I could do with her. Her dear mama was my best friend in school. She works, and Lillian was on her own most of the time. The father’s dead long ago, and they’re dirt-poor—live in a house that’s hardly more than a shack, near Lake Superior.

  “Her mama’s been trying to get Lillian to think about a business course so she can get a job and help out as soon as she’s out of school. But she hasn’t been doing any schoolwork at all. Just talked big and chased after boys, till finally her mama decided maybe if she got away to a different place for a while …” Mrs. Reston leaned her bulk against the sofa cushions. “She knew my girls never had a bit of nonsense about them, and so she thought maybe I could do something with Lillian. But I can’t work miracles. And if Lillian was stealing at home and I wasn’t told, well, I call that a dirty trick.”

  Caroline stood up shakily. She didn’t want to hear any more. “I don’t know where she is, Mrs. Reston,” she said. “I’m sorry—I promised my stepfather I’d come right home, so—”

  Tears welled again in Mrs. Reston’s eyes. Her expression softened, and suddenly Caroline realized that she was frightened as well as angry. “The thing is, dear, I believe I might have hurt the girl’s feelings.” She looked at Caroline pleadingly. “She made me so mad—the stealing and all that silliness about going to New York. I told her right out—”

  Caroline looked away. She didn’t want to hear this, but she couldn’t move.

  “—I told her she was too plain and too lazy to be a big, glamorous success at anything. I told her she’d better stop hurting her mama and think about making herself useful in the world.” The wad of tissue appeared again. “I don’t usually talk like that. I was mean! But she made me wild!”

  The stinging words echoed in Caroline’s ears, drowning out Mrs. Reston’s soft sobs. Poor Lillina! No wonder she’d run away!

  “Caroline, dear, she’s such a strange girl. You don’t think she’d—she’d hurt herself, do you?”

  “—I don’t know.” Caroline gulped as Mrs. Reston’s broad face crumpled. “No—no, I’m sure Lillina wouldn’t do anything like that.”

  But would she? Caroline felt as if she were going to be sick.

  “You’ll call me if you hear from her?”

  “Yes, I will. But I have to go now. I really have to.…”

  Outside at last, she threw back her head and let the mist cool her hot face. I don’t have to do anything except go home, she told herself. After last night Lillina doesn’t want to see me again, and I don’t want to see her. I don’t! Even if I knew where she was …”

  There was one possibility. Caroline knew where Lillina had seemed happiest—where she just might go to get back the dream Mrs. Reston had tried to banish. But it was only a possibility, and Joe was waiting at home. By tomorrow, with her mother and Linda back in Grand River, Lillina could be just a painful memory.

  Go home, she told herself. Why bother with someone who’s been lying to you all summer?

  It was raining harder now as she stood there trying to make up her mind. Her feet were wet, her bangs were flattened across her forehead, and she felt very much like the old beginning-of-the-summer Caroline. Eventually, though, the question presented itself in a familiar way.

  What would Eleanor do?

  Chapter 17

  “Oh, yes, she was here.”

  The saleswoman at Margo’s Fashions was not the same one who had helped them the day Caroline and Lillina had come to the mall together. This woman was small and dark, her face set in resentful lines. She looked as if she might have missed her bus that morning or spilled her coffee or broken a fingernail. Maybe all three.

  “Is she—” Caroline glanced toward the dressing rooms.

  “I said she was here. She picked out at least five dresses she wanted to try on, and then while I was finding the last one in her size, she just disappeared. Walked out without a word.” The woman narrowed her eyes at the mall entrance, as if Lillina might still be lingering there. “I should have known better. When she walked in, I was afraid she was just one of those brassy kids who didn’t have any intention of buying, but you can never be sure.…” She transferred the glare to Caroline. “A friend of yours, I suppose. How old is she, anyway?”

  Caroline backed up a step. “I—I’m not sure. I have to find her—”

  “Well, she’s not here.” The woman turned away. “And when you find her, you tell her this is a store for adults. We don’t appreciate children coming in to play games.”

  Back in the noisy, brightly lit mall, Caroline wondered what to do next. Margo’s Fashions had been the one place she could think of where Lillina might go. And it had been a good guess. But Lillina had left without trying on any of the beautiful dresses—without becoming, for a few minutes, the model of her fantasies.

&n
bsp; Bradens’ Department Store was a short way down the mall. There were only one or two shoppers at the jewelry counter, both of them white-haired. Caroline hadn’t really expected to find Lillina there. If she’d actually stolen a bracelet, she wouldn’t return to the scene of the crime, would she?

  Caroline went out the south door of the mall and started back toward the bus stop. By this time, Joe had probably called Mrs. Reston to say Caroline must come home at once. He’d be furious when he discovered she wasn’t there. Maybe he’d even think she’d been kidnapped as she walked along Barker Road. Or maybe—she giggled a little hysterically—he would decide the Kramers’ dog had eaten her up. Or maybe he wasn’t concerned at all! He didn’t like the new Caroline as well as the old one—he’d practically said so. Perhaps with Linda coming home tomorrow, he would feel that one daughter—the perfect one—was enough.

  A mean thought! She peered down the road, but the bus wasn’t in sight. She ought to call Joe and tell him where she was. He’d be angry with her, but at least he could stop worrying. She looked around for a public telephone, and her eyes fell on the big neon sign beyond the highway.

  The Talbott Inn.

  Halfway across the parking lot, Caroline began to run. Suddenly she felt as if she were inside Lillina’s head and knew what she was feeling. Lillina had been too upset to try on the dresses at Margo’s Fashions, and besides, it wouldn’t have been as satisfying if there had been no one but a suspicious saleswoman to watch and admire her. Better to find someplace else where she could be the glamorous person she wanted to be.

  Caroline hurried across the lobby of the Inn, with only a quick glance through the door of the coffee shop. At the archway leading into the dining room, she stopped. Dim, recessed lights made it hard to see across the restaurant, and at first she thought the room was empty except for a couple of tables of businessmen lingering over late-breakfast coffee. Then, her eyes becoming accustomed to the soft light, she saw that a diner sat alone at a table near the center of the room, studying a menu. As Caroline watched, the menu was laid aside, revealing red hair, slanting eyes, and a haughty expression.

  “I’m meeting my friend over there,” Caroline said to the hostess behind the stand-up desk. The hostess nodded coolly. She probably wasn’t used to having kids come in without their parents.

  As she made her way across the room, Caroline half expected Lillina to get up and run away from her, the way she’d been running ever since last night. But Lillina’s smile was brilliant and welcoming. “Caroline dear,” she said kindly, as if there had been no furious exchange in Mr. Jameson’s hallway. Or as if she’d decided to forgive Caroline for believing the worst. “Whatever are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you,” Caroline said bluntly. She pulled out a red velvet chair and sat down. “I can’t order anything. I only have enough money for the bus fare home.”

  Lillina leaned toward her. The brown eyes glittered unnaturally, and her cheeks were flushed a bright pink under their freckles. “Don’t worry about that, dear,” she said. “Order anything you want. Absolutely anything! My treat, of course. I’m going to have a marvelous early lunch myself, to celebrate my going home. Frederick sent me far more money than necessary again this week—”

  “There isn’t any Frederick,” Caroline said. “You’ve been taking Mr. Reston’s lodge money, haven’t you?”

  Lillina shivered. The bright smile slipped away for a second and then returned. “What are you talking about, Caroline? Frederick is my husband. He’s the most wonderful—”

  “You’re fifteen years old,” Caroline gritted. “You’re going to be a terrific model someday, but right now you’re a sophomore in high school. There isn’t any novel either, is there? You’ve been doing make-up homework when you said you were writing a book.”

  A waitress, trim in black and white, appeared between them. Lillina snatched up the menu and studied it. “The lobster salad sounds divine,” she said. “And maybe—yes, the cold consomme first. And a carafe of white wine would be nice. Chablis, please.”

  The waitress appeared uneasy as she tried to decide whether Lillina was as old as she sounded.

  “I’d like a glass of milk, please,” Caroline said, and blushed. Maybe they didn’t even serve milk in a sophisticated restaurant like this one.

  The waitress still hesitated. “Thank you,” she said finally, and retreated.

  Caroline turned back to Lillina. “You don’t live in New York, you live in Michigan,” she said. “In a little town near Lake Superior. You’ve never been to New York in your whole life.”

  Lillina’s long fingers twisted knots in her linen napkin. “Caroline, how can you say things like that? Such terrible things!” Head high, eyes brighter than ever, she was, no matter what Mrs. Reston said, beautiful.

  “I’m not mad at you,” Caroline said. “You’re my friend.” And that was true, too. All the way to the mall she’d stared out the bus window and tried to see the world as Lillina saw it. She had tried hard to understand. “I think you have to make things up,” she said. “You don’t like who you are and so you pretend to be someone else you like better.”

  The light drained from Lillina’s eyes. She leaned back in the velvet chair. “I thought you liked me,” she said slowly. “Somebody’s been telling you lies.”

  Caroline brushed her bangs back from her forehead. “I do like you. I like you the way you really are, Lillina. I just want to get things straight between us. You’ve been telling me a pack of lies all summer.”

  “I thought you liked me,” Lillina repeated. “I thought you and Eleanor and I—”

  Caroline bit her lip. This was the worst part. “There’s no Eleanor either,” she said softly. “Don’t tell me about her anymore, because she isn’t real.”

  “She is, Caroline! Eleanor is my little sister who’s just like you.”

  Caroline shook her head. “I saw your aunt Louise’s stationery—the paper you used to write those letters to the modeling agencies. It’s pale gray—the same color and the same size as Eleanor’s. You wrote those letters to me, Lillina.”

  There it was. Caroline held her breath, longing to hear something that would make Eleanor live again. She didn’t care about Frederick—she’d never been absolutely sure there was a Frederick—but Eleanor was different. Eleanor had been an important part of this summer.

  “Why did you do that?” she demanded when Lillina just stared at her. “I guess I understand about the other stuff, but why did you make up Eleanor?”

  “Because you were my friend!” Lillina said impatiently. “I wanted to give you someone. Someone to be like, do you see? You should be glad, Caroline. Eleanor’s a really special person.” She frowned, as if this ought to be enough explanation for any reasonable person.

  So that was it, Caroline thought. Eleanor was a gift. Lillina had already made up the kind of person she wanted to be herself, and then she thought up a make-believe Caroline—the kind of person I might be if I wanted to try. Perfectly logical, from Lillina’s point of view.

  She sighed. “Mrs. Reston is worried about you,” she said. “You’d better call her.”

  And Joe! What was Joe thinking by this time?

  “I don’t want to talk to her!” Lillina sounded desperate. “She doesn’t like me, Caroline. Lots of grownups don’t. Aunt Louise despises me. Why should I call her?”

  The waitress returned and set Lillina’s soup in front of her. It was clear and golden, in a delicate bowl set on a lace doily.

  “I don’t want that,” Lillina said. “You can take it away.”

  The waitress stared at her and then looked across the table at Caroline. “I’ve changed my mind, that’s all,” Lillina snapped. “I’m not hungry. You can forget the lobster salad, too.”

  “But—”

  Lillina opened her big shoulder bag and took out a roll of bills. She peeled away several dollars and threw them on the tablecloth. “That should be enough,” she said. “That’s plenty.” She hurled t
he rest of the money at Caroline. “You can take that to Aunt Louise,” she cried. “Tell her she can have it back—I don’t need it. I can get to New York by myself. I’m going to be famous, no matter what she thinks or what you think!” She was on her feet, screaming. “It’s not a lie! It’s not!”

  The waitress stood frozen. Caroline saw the hostess darting toward them.

  “Girls!” The hostess spoke in a shocked whisper. “Stop this immediately! The idea—”

  “I don’t know what’s the matter with her,” the waitress complained. “She just started in, all of a sudden. I think she’s crazy or something!”

  Lillina gave an anguished moan and leapt away from the hostess’s restraining hand. “Let me alone!” she shrieked. “Don’t you touch me! Someday you’ll all be sorry—”

  She ran across the dining room, bumping into tables and sobbing. For a moment, Caroline was too appalled to move. Then she bent down and started scooping up the bills that had fallen on the floor around her.

  “You’d better go after her,” the hostess said. “She’s hysterical. I never saw such a terrible display—”

  There was a crash in the lobby. Caroline started to run, with the hostess and the waitress right behind her. From the corner of her eye, she saw two of the businessmen get up and follow them.

  The elegant lobby was a shambles. From every doorway, people were pouring into the room. At its center, Lillina lay sprawled on the floor, long legs stretched in front of her. The pedestal that held the big metal urn had been knocked over, and the urn had rolled across the floor. Its contents—a quantity of dried flowers—had landed in Lillina’s lap, almost covering her with a prickly blanket of gold and orange and green. A long yellow blossom rose stiffly, like an Indian feather, from the mane of red hair.