by Lois Duncan
“You don’t understand how important this is,” she said carefully. “It’s not just some random old club I’ve been asked to join. It’s Daughters of Eve, a national organization. There are chapters all over the country, not just here in Modesta. Wherever I go for the rest of my life, I’ll have sisters.”
“What are you looking for, Sis, quantity or quality?” Niles asked impishly. “If that tub of lard you brought home from school with you this afternoon is an example of the ‘daughters,’ I’d say Mother Eve should have stopped a while ago.”
“Laura Snow is one of the nicest girls ever,” Kristy said defensively. “She can’t help being overweight. It runs in the family.”
“I bet that’s the only thing that ‘runs,’ ” Niles said. “Laura looks like she can hardly waddle.”
“Oh, come off it, Niles,” Peter said lightly, zeroing in on the conversation for the first time. “Laura’s not so bad if you like them well-padded. She’s got a couple of good points in her favor.”
“Good points!” Niles burst into laughter. “Nice one!”
“Boys, stop that,” their mother scolded. “That’s not the kind of language I want to hear at the dinner table. Kristy, I’m sure this is a fine club. That’s not the issue. The problem is that you’re needed at home in the afternoons.”
“That’s right,” Mr. Grange said firmly. “Your mother’s only human. She can’t hold down a full-time job, do all the housework, and get dinner on the table at a decent hour without some help. Besides that, we can’t have Eric coming home to an empty house. He’s only nine, and he needs some supervision.”
“It’s only one afternoon a week,” Kristy protested.
“That’s one afternoon too many if last Monday was any indication,” her dad said. “When we got home, this place was a disaster—breakfast dishes not even rinsed and put in the dishwasher, dinner not started—and Eric and his friends had burst one of the sofa cushions jumping on it in the living room. Your mom and I don’t need to face that sort of mess at the end of a long, hard day.”
“Besides, it wouldn’t be just ‘one afternoon a week,’ ” Mrs. Grange said. “I know what school clubs are like. There’ll be after-school projects and parties, bake sales and poster-making and decorating the gym for dances and lord knows what all else. Please don’t pressure us, Kristy. It just can’t be managed.”
“That’s not fair!” Kristy cried. “Why can’t the boys do some of the work around this place? All they do is mess it up, and I’m stuck with all the—”
“Sis, suck it up,” Peter said briskly. “Niles and I aren’t about to go into training to become housewives. We’re getting ready for college, and I need to save all my energy for when I’m on the court. Coach said so.”
“There’ll be no more discussion, Kristy. Your family is the priority. The subject is closed.” Mr. Grange laid his knife and fork side by side on his plate and wiped his mouth with his napkin. “What’s for dessert?”
Laura Snow lay back in the bathtub, letting the water grow tepid around her as she relived the events of the day. It had been, without doubt, one of the happiest days of Laura’s life. Actually, since the arrival of the magical invitation two weeks before, all of her days had been happy, but this particular day had been filled with one sparkling moment after another.
First there had been the invitation to Holly Underwood’s seventeenth birthday party a week from Saturday. It was the first party Laura had been invited to since she started high school. Then, between first and second period, Ann Whitten had beckoned to her in the hall and drawn her aside for a whispered disclosure.
“Dave and I are engaged!” she told her ecstatically. “We haven’t told anybody yet except our parents, but I wanted my sisters in Daughters of Eve to know about it. Laura, I’m so happy!” She gave Laura a quick hug and ran off down the hall, calling, “Ms. Stark? Can you wait a minute? There’s something I want to tell you!” and Laura carried the glow of the wonderful secret around with her for the rest of the day, incredulous that she had been among the ones chosen to share in it.
At noon she carried her lunch to the cafeteria and found herself at a table with Erika Schneider and Paula Brummell. They laughed and chattered and included Laura in their conversation as though she were truly one of them, a friend and a sister, and on her way back to class, Paula asked her if she’d like to be on the Community Services committee to investigate the needs at a Modesta nursing home.
“Kelly and I are going out there next Tuesday,” Paula said. “Then we’ll make up a list of suggestions for things the club can do to help out, and we’ll present it at the next meeting. Do you think you could go with us?”
“Yeah, I’d really like to,” Laura said, and Paula exclaimed, “Oh, great!” with real enthusiasm in her voice, and said, “I’ll call you tonight about the details.”
But the crowning event of the day, the one she’d saved in her mind until last to savor at the end of her reverie, had occurred when she walked home from school with Kristy Grange. It was strange, when she stopped to think about it, that they hadn’t walked home together before, because they lived within two blocks of each other, but somehow this had never happened, and today when Kristy had called, “Hey, wait for me!” Laura had thought at first that she had meant somebody else.
But a moment later Kristy caught up with her and fell into step beside her as though they made this walk together all the time. Within minutes, they were chatting easily and naturally, just like old friends.
When they reached her gate, Laura said impulsively, “Do you want to come in for a while?” and felt her heart sink as Kristy shook her head.
But then she realized she wasn’t really being rejected.
“I’ve got to get home to babysit my kid brother,” Kristy told her. “Why don’t you come to my place? You can keep me company while I shovel a path through the kitchen.”
“Shovel a path?” Laura repeated in bewilderment.
“Have you ever seen the mess three boys can leave in the mornings?” Kristy grimaced. “If you haven’t, I’ve got quite an experience in store for you. Come on.”
So they walked the short distance from the Snow home to the Granges’. Peter was sitting at the kitchen table, eating a bowl of chocolate ice cream.
As the girls came in, he glanced up and said, “Hi.”
“Hi, yourself,” Kristy said. “Laura, this is my brother Peter. The one with his head in the refrigerator is my second brother, Niles. And my third brother, Eric, will be charging in here pretty soon now, and at that point you’ll probably decide you want to go home.”
“I know Laura from algebra class,” Niles said without turning around. “Hi, Laura.”
“Hi,” Laura said, but she couldn’t tear her eyes off of Peter. In all the daydreams she’d had about him, she’d missed this scene—Peter in his own home kitchen, greeting her casually with the wave of a sticky spoon.
The empty ice-cream carton lay on the counter, oozing brown liquid from its open end. Kristy picked it up and put it into the garbage can.
“It looks like the human disposal here has managed to put away what was left of the ice cream, but we have some Coke, and I hope we’ve still got some cookies. Sit down, Laura, and I’ll see what snacks I can dig up for us.”
“That’s all right,” Laura said. “I really don’t want anything.”
“Of course you do,” Peter said pleasantly. “You haven’t lived till you’ve had some of my sister’s cookies, fresh from the package. She opens the cellophane with a flick of her nimble wrist. So sit down and tell me all about yourself. What’s a nice girl like you doing with a nerd like Kristy?”
And for the next few minutes, until he’d finished his ice cream, she’d sat at the table across from Peter Grange, and they’d talked. Now, in the rapidly cooling water of the bath, Laura tried to recall exactly what they’d said to each other, but no words came back to her—only Peter’s face: that handsome, movie-star face, with the dark hair curling ov
er the forehead and the brown eyes smiling out at her from beneath the heavy lashes. He had freckles on his nose. She hadn’t realized that before. They didn’t show up at a distance, but when you sat directly in front of him, you could see them spattered lightly under his summer tan.
Then, too quickly, it was over. Niles said, “Hey, Pete, we told the guys we’d meet them back at the gym to shoot some baskets,” and Peter said, “Okay, okay, don’t pee your pants.”
He’d shoved the bowl into the center of the table and gotten lazily to his feet.
“Great ice cream, Kristy. You cook better every day. So long, Laura. See you around.”
“See you around.” Laura repeated the words softly to herself, trying to remember the exact inflection of Peter’s voice. Was it as casual as it seemed, or maybe it could’ve been a question? “See you around?” Could it have been meant that way—“Will I see you, Laura?” If so, she should’ve answered in some encouraging manner. “I hope so,” she should’ve said, or, “That would be great.” What had she said? She couldn’t remember. Something nothingish. Maybe she hadn’t answered at all, since he’d said it when he was already halfway to the door.
Not that it mattered, because, of course, it hadn’t been a question. Everybody knew that Peter dated Madison Ellis, and no boy who went out with Madison could possibly be interested in a fat nobody like Laura Snow.
There was a rap at the bathroom door, and her mother’s voice called in to her, “Laura? You haven’t drowned in there, have you, honey?”
“No,” Laura said. “I’m just about ready to get out.”
“That’s good, because you had a phone call. I took the number and said you’d call back when you were out of the tub.”
“Who was it?” Laura was surprised to hear her voice emerging in a hoarse whisper. It wouldn’t carry through the door. She drew a long breath and tried again. “Who was it, Mom?”
For a moment her heart stopped beating.
“It was somebody named Paula,” her mother told her. “She wanted to talk about going to the nursing home.”
Laura let her breath out in a sigh.
The living room was dark except for the muted glow of the lamp on the end table. At the edge of this circle of light there lay a shattered ashtray. The coffee table had been overturned; the shelves of the bookcase by the door had been swept clean, and books lay scattered about in the shadows like bodies on a deserted battlefield.
“Is it over?” Jane asked.
The figure stretched on the sofa raised her head.
“It’s over,” Ellen Rheardon said. “What are you doing down here? I thought you were sleeping.”
“I was,” Jane said from her position in the doorway. She glanced nervously around the quiet room. “Where is he?”
“I don’t know. Gone out somewhere to cool off, I guess.”
“Are you all right?” Jane came into the room and crossed over to stand looking down at her mother. “Your mouth is bleeding. Do you want me to get some ice?”
“I’ve got some in this towel,” her mother told her. “It’ll keep down the swelling. I’ll look all right by Sunday.”
“What’s Sunday?”
“You know—the church potluck.”
“That’s right. I forgot.” For a moment Jane continued to stand there beside her; then she drew away and sat down in her father’s armchair. She leaned back against the headrest and caught the faint odor of lemon-scented hair tonic and pipe tobacco, and for an instant she thought she was going to throw up.
She drew a deep breath.
“Mom,” she said quietly, “when are you going to leave him?”
“I don’t know,” her mother said in a flat, emotionless voice. “I’ve asked myself that a lot of times, and I never have an answer. Next week? Next month? Ten years from now? And then what happens? Where would I go? What would I have without your dad?”
“You’d have—yourself.”
“Myself? What’s that?” Mrs. Rheardon said wearily. “Face it, Jane, I don’t have any self except what your dad’s given me. I married him when I was eighteen years old, and I thought I’d hit the jackpot. A handsome man—a college graduate—a lawyer, for heaven’s sake—what more could any girl ask for? I was so much in love my head was swimming. We settled here in my own hometown, and he took the job with the bank. We built this house, and it was all so wonderful, and somehow it got out of hand. I started irritating him. He should have married somebody smarter, somebody more like himself, and then he’d be happier.”
“Mom, don’t,” Jane said. “It’s not your fault. There’s something wrong with Dad. Normal people don’t act this way. What set him off tonight? Your watching TV? Some book he couldn’t find when he wanted it? I’ll bet you can’t even remember, it was so minor.”
“What does it matter what it was?” her mother asked her. “So it’s one thing—so it’s another—it’s Friday night and he’s tired. He works hard all week, Jane, and he’s under a lot of pressure. He comes home, and he feels he has to let off steam, get it out of his system—”
“You’re defending him,” Jane said incredulously. “My god, Mom, how can you lie there with blood smeared all over your chin and defend somebody who hit you in the face?!”
“He didn’t mean to,” her mother said.
“Of course he meant to!”
“In his heart, he didn’t. It was his temper that got away from him. He’ll be sorry tomorrow, just see if he isn’t—the way he was sorry a couple of weeks ago about how he acted about Daughters of Eve. He apologized for that, didn’t he, and he said you could join? He begged you to join. He had tears in his eyes, and he said, ‘Janie, I’m sorry. You go out and buy yourself a new outfit for that initiation, and I don’t care how much it costs.’ ”
“And he brought you flowers.”
“Yellow roses. My favorites. That’s what I carried in my bridal bouquet—yellow roses.”
“So you had your flowers, but you couldn’t go anywhere because your face was so banged up you couldn’t leave the house.” Jane shook her head in bewilderment. “So you forgave him. And tonight it happened again, and tomorrow you’ll forgive him, and maybe he’ll bring you a necklace, and if the swelling goes down you’ll wear it to the potluck, and everybody will ‘oooh’ and ‘ahhh’ and say, ‘Isn’t that the most romantic thing,’ and you and Dad will be holding hands and smiling at each other, and—”
“Jane, hush.” Her mother pulled herself painfully into a sitting position. Her face looked distorted, as though it were being reflected in a carnival mirror. Staring at her, Jane saw that the lip was worse than she’d thought it was, for it had been pierced by a tooth. Her mother’s eyes were sunken hollows in the depths of her pale face, and they held no light.
“You don’t understand your father,” Ellen Rheardon said slowly. “He had a hard childhood. People raised the way he was—well, they’re a little different from the rest of us.”
“Mom,” Jane said softly, “someday he’s going to kill you. He’ll be sorry afterward, I’m sure.”
“You asked when I’m leaving. It will be before that, I promise.” Her mother lifted the wet towel and pressed it against her cheek. “After you graduate from high school. It won’t be so hard then. I’ll find an apartment—get a job of some kind. I’m just not ready yet. Right now, it’s more than I can handle. Can you understand that?”
“No,” Jane said, and she felt her left eye twitch.
Chapter 5
“So Kelly will get the raffle tickets printed for the drawing at homecoming,” Erika Schneider said. “We’ll distribute those at the next meeting so we can all get busy selling them. Now, if there’s no further old business, we do have something new to discuss. Tammy’s resigned her membership.”
“Resigned membership!” Irene Stark leaned forward in surprise. “Tammy?”
“That’s right. I got the note yesterday.” Erika held up a sheet of paper. “It says that ‘after deep consideration,’ she’s ‘decided
to drop her membership.’ She doesn’t give any reason.”
“I don’t believe it,” Irene said. “From what I’ve been told, Tammy’s sister used to be president of Daughters of Eve when she was a student here. Do any of you girls know what’s going on? Ann? Kelly? You seem to be especially close to her.”
“She got upset about something during the initiation ceremony,” Kelly Johnson said. “She wouldn’t say what it was. Ann and I both tried to talk to her.”
“She acted really strange,” Holly Underwood said. “I noticed at the end of the initiation when the lights went on, she was sitting with her eyes closed. Then, suddenly, she jumped up and left the room without even welcoming the new members.”
“I thought she looked ill,” Irene said. “In fact, she told me herself she wasn’t feeling well. I think we should table this resignation, Erika. Perhaps Tammy will change her mind.”
Kristy Grange raised her hand.
Erika acknowledged her. “Kristy?”
“I’m going to have to resign, too,” Kristy said apologetically. “It kills me to do it, but my parents are making me.”
“What is this, a mass exodus?” Irene regarded her with bewilderment. “You’re going to leave two weeks after you join us?”
“I shouldn’t have joined,” Kristy said unhappily. “It’s just that all my life I wanted to have sisters, and suddenly I had a chance for some, and I grabbed it. I should’ve known it wouldn’t work out. My parents need me at home.”
“To do what?” Holly asked.
“I’ve got a bunch of chores to do, and my kid brother would wreck the place if I wasn’t there to keep an eye on him. He basically did that last week. My parents will hit the roof tonight when they find out I came to the meeting today, but I wanted to explain it. I didn’t want you to think I wanted to quit.”
“This is incredible,” Irene said. “Do you mean that you’re expected to give up all your after-school time to be a housemaid and babysitter? Is this something you’re getting paid for?”
“No,” Kristy said. “Dad thinks I owe it because I’m the daughter in the family. The boys don’t do anything. They just wander in and out when they feel like it and mess things up. Remember how it was when you were over last week, Laura?”
