Tangled Webb (13 page)

“Juniper, baby,” he said. “You're all shook up. You've just got yourself in a state, honey. I wish you'd told me before that you were worrying your head off about all this—this nothing. It's
nothing
. Just fantasy. Kelsey's true-blue all through, the way we used to say. . . .”

Margo used to say it. It only made me feel worse.

“Daddy, I don't think Kelsey's
bad
. Or not true-blue, or anything. I think she's
scared
. And hiding things. And she ought to tell us. Tell
you
. Because then you'd
help.”

“Of course I'd help. If she needed it. She'll tell me if and when she does.”

I raised my head and looked straight at him and tried one more time. “Why don't you
ask
her, Daddy? Just ask her straight out what's the matter?”

“Honey bun, I don't think anything
is
the matter. If there is, I know she'll tell me, because we trust each other. Until she does, I'm not going to pry. There may be things she doesn't want to share with me, with anybody. That's her affair. People need a little emotional space to call their own.”

And that was it.

I did say, “Will you let me show you, when we get home? Will you hold Preston still and
look
at his hair?”

“Of course, if it'll make you feel better,” he answered.

Well, he did it. But the first thing I noticed when Preston ran over to hug me—he always does that now—was that his left eye was all red-looking. I said, “What's wrong, has he been crying?” and Kelsey said, “No, he's fine—I just got a little soap in his eye when I washed his hair.”

Washed his hair. While we were gone. So of course when
Daddy kept his word, and looked, there was nothing to see. Dark brown clear to the scalp.

I suppose there never was any rusty-gold line. It was the sun or something, and I
have
just got myself into a state. It wouldn't be the first time. And Pete and Alison right along with me. We've probably been making up—
-fantasies
—all summer. I feel stupid now, telling all that stuff to Daddy, and crying, and acting so dumb. He probably thinks I'm just jealous of Kelsey. I probably am.

Well, maybe now I
have
dumped the whole thing onto him, I'll be rid of it. It's not going to worry
him
, that's for sure.

MONDAY, AUGUST 5

My hair's all bleached streaky, the way it gets in summer. Daddy's is, too. In summer we're blond. In winter, mouse.

I'm going down to the pool for a while, later, with Pete and Alison. Unless I decide to stay home.

This morning Preston and I—

Oh, this is dumb. I can't write in this book anymore. It doesn't help. It doesn't help a bit.

TUESDAY, AUGUST 6

Nothing else helps either, so I'm going to try again.

Alison leaves day after tomorrow to go to Minneapolis. I went over there this morning to help her decide what to pack. We laid everything out on her bed, in piles, real neat. She'll change her mind about most of them, she always does, and end by just grabbing whatever comes handy and stuffing it into her suitcase.

Maybe it's just as well she's leaving. I can't talk about Kelsey and all that anymore, I just can't. To her or Pete, either one.
It's all got too serious and miserable. But they don't know that, so they ask me how things are, and all I can do is pretend nothing new has happened, or try to laugh it off, the way I did at the pool yesterday, and just say I'm tired of that game. They didn't believe me, just looked at me kind of funny and dropped the subject. I guess I'm not a good actress, any more than Kelsey. Well, I know I'm not.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 8

Alison's gone. I went along when her mom took her to the airport, first thing this morning. We promised to write each other. She acted like she wanted to say a lot more—or wanted
me
to say something, but how could I? Without blabbing out
everything
, the baby and Preston's hair and feeling all wrong and far away from Daddy, and I'm not supposed to talk about some of that and anyway I can't. So I just had to shut Alison out the way Kelsey shuts me out, and I
hate
that.

She left me all her Elizabeth Kenilworth books to read—or reread—while she's away. I took them, because I didn't want to hurt her feelings, but I don't think I want to read any mysteries. Maybe not ever again. I guess I'll walk down to the library this afternoon, though. I have to read
something
, since I can't talk to anybody. Or have any fun or enjoy anything, because I'm just not in the mood. I suppose I could get ahead on some outside reading for social studies or something. Maybe I'll get some kind of big, thick biography of somebody dull. I might as well. Whatever I get I won't like it.

Later

Wouldn't you know. I ran right into Pete on the library steps. He had a couple of books and was just leaving, so I said, “Oh. Hi,” and kept right on going toward the doors, only that seemed so rude, and
mean
, because he'd stopped dead and was looking all sorts of questions at me; so I sort of hesitated and then turned back around.

He said, “You don't have to talk about anything you don't want to. But I'm sorry if it's something I did. Or said.”

“No. Of course it isn't,” I told him; then I ruined it by adding, “I mean, there isn't anything. What makes you think—”

“Don't bother,” he said patiently. “But don't go off and be a hermit. There's about a million other things we can yak about. Why don't we walk over to the park and try some of them?”

I said okay, not really knowing whether it was a good idea or not, and came back down the steps to where he was, and stopped, sort of not looking anywhere in particular. I guess he could tell I was undecided. I guess anybody could have told, from a mile away. He didn't try to rush me, just waited.

“Were you going to get some books?” he asked me. “I don't mind hanging around.”

“Oh—no—it doesn't matter. I mean, I was going to maybe get a head start on social studies. A biography of George Washington or something.”

He just looked at me a minute. No comment. But I could feel myself beginning to grin, because I could hear how sorry for myself I sounded. As if I was homeless, and cross-eyed,
and broke. I mean, hunting up a biography of George Washington
on purpose
, in
vacation time
, is about like saying you're going out in the garden and eat worms. I said, “Now I think of it, I'd rather walk over to the park.”

He just said, “I should hope so,” and we went on down the steps and across the street. We did walk to the park, and talked about things like teachers in eighth grade and a weirdo caterpillar with bright red fur that we found on the sidewalk, and all the new trees that were going to sprout up in the grass from those little propeller things that fall from the maples this time of year. We sat down on the little kids' swings for a while until some little kids came and stared at us; then we went over to Hill Road for frozen yogurt, and finally went home. And I feel lots better, more
comfortable
somehow, though we never said a word about the stuff that's bothering me.

Well, we nearly did once. I said, “Do you ever get at outs with your dad? I mean, feel like he isn't
listening?”

“All the time,” Pete said.

Well, that sounded sort of awful. I looked at him, really worried for a minute, but he smiled and said, “Not
all
the time,” so I guess he just meant
It's normal. So what else is new?
I don't know why that should make me feel a little bit better, but it does.

It doesn't keep me from thinking, though. If you can call what I'm doing
thinking
. I just keep going over and over that half-minute on the escalator, first with Blanche staring,
certain
she had seen her nephew, then calmly on her way to the top, certain that she hadn't.
Why?
What in the world could have changed in those few seconds?

I'd better quit this and go to bed.

SATURDAY, AUGUST 10

I think I know what happened in that few seconds on the escalator. I woke up, remembering.

I'm going to phone Blanche again, no matter how mad she gets.

Later

Not home. After all my artistic excuses to get out of the house and up to the 7-Eleven to use their phone. I
wish
Alison was still around so I could use hers. Well, I'll just have to do the whole thing again this afternoon.

Later

Still no luck!!!! I tried twice, with more than a half-hour in between. Even when I do get her, she'll probably take my head off for invading her privacy. I don't care.

Evening

After dinner I sort of hinted and offered to baby-sit, and Daddy and Kelsey took me up on it and went down to the Arts Cinema to some antique movie. All for nothing. I dialed Blanche four more times, then it got so late I didn't dare. Oh,
please
don't let her be out of town for the whole weekend!

SUNDAY, AUGUST 11

Something awful's happened. Kelsey's started campaigning to
move
. Out of our
house
. Clear out in the
boonies
somewhere.

I know she never meant for me to get wind of it so soon. But I slept kind of late this morning, so I made a piece of toast and just started eating it in my hand while I went to see where everybody was. Well, they were out back of the living room on that little terrace Daddy built when we got the barbecue, sitting in yard chairs and drinking coffee and watching Preston drag his little pull-toy duck around in the grass. I was about to slide open the screen door and go out too, but then I heard Kelsey saying, “It's Margo's house, really. I don't mean I dislike it, Charley. I
like
how colorful it is and everything. It's just that it's so much
her
, and I—well, I can't help but—”

Daddy said, real warm and supportive, “Of course you can't! Listen, sweet, it's my fault. I should've said, right at the beginning, ‘Do the place over, new curtains, new paint'—”

“Oh—but so expensive! I've been thinking—how would you feel about  . . .” Kelsey hesitated, and I could see her swallow. I was standing there, frozen, on the other side of the screen door, thinking
But I don't
want
Margo's house changed, I don't
want
new curtains and new paint and everything different
; then she went on, real fast. “I just wondered how you'd feel about a different location. Maybe quite a ways out—away from traffic, and noise and all—like even the—the country. Not a farm, of course. Maybe an acre? We could have fruit trees, and room for a vegetable garden—”

I couldn't believe I was hearing straight. Traffic? Us and the neighbors, mooching up and down our little dead-end block to work and school and the store. Noise? In summer, lawn mowers and the Woodson boys dribbling a basketball out by their garage and once in a while a skateboard rattling down the slope. In winter, the blue jays are the noisiest things around. And we
do
have fruit trees—our Gravenstein apple and that wild yellow plum down in the woods beyond our
yard, both about to get ripe about now, in case she hadn't noticed.

Well, she went on. About how handy it was that Daddy's office was in his hat and he could work from anywhere. About how great it would be for Preston to live in the country. He could have pets. A real duck. Maybe Juni could have a horse! The country was great for kids.

What
kids? Preston, maybe. But what about
me?
I didn't
want
a horse. What about my
school
, and all the kids I grew up with, and
Alison
, and Pete, and everybody?

I know I should've let them know I was there. I knew I wasn't supposed to be in on this. But I just stood there, with my toast leaking jam into my hand, breathing hard, and feeling more and more helpless and frantic.

Daddy was looking down at his coffee cup, with that tired, worried, I-wish-this-wasn't-happening expression, and I knew he wanted to move about as bad as he wanted pellagra, but didn't know how to say so. I knew he
wouldn't
say no. He never has been the type to just put his big foot down and say
We're gonna do it my way
. He figures he's just one person in the family and he's got one vote.

And sure enough, he was nodding and trying to smile at her, and saying, “We'll have to think.”

Before I knew I was going to, I shoved the screen open so hard it banged, and was out there with them, crying,
“Why
do we have to think?
I
don't have to think! I vote
no
, N, O! I don't
want
to move! Why should I have to leave my friends, and my school, and—”

“Juni! Cool it!” Daddy was on his feet, Kelsey wide-eyed, both of them staring at me as if I'd sprung from the moon. Daddy started toward me. “Honey child. We didn't know you were anywhere around.”

“Well, it's a good thing I was! First thing I knew I'd have been yanked out of my own school—and right in the middle, too, in eighth grade!—and put into some country school with a lot of new kids I don't even
know
—and then I'd have to go to some other
high school
; have you thought of that? Well, I won't, I can't! I want to go to
Hillridge High
like I've always planned, because it just happens to be one of the best high schools in the Portland
area
, and. . . .” And so on.