Little Sister (12 page)

“Take your time,” said a voice familiar to Beth. Beth turned and saw Cindy McNeill approaching the counter, carrying a container of yogurt and a diet soda.

“Hi, Beth,” said Cindy.

“Hey, Cindy. How are you?”

“I’m fine. Just picking up some lunch.”

Beth nodded, recognizing the calorie counter’s special. “I guess it is lunchtime. I’ve been so busy all day.”

“How’s Francie feeling?” Cindy asked.

Beth shook her head. “I don’t know. All right, I guess. She was gone before I got up.”

“Oh,” said Cindy, “she’s not sick then.”

“Oh, I get it,” said Beth. “She’s not in school.”

Cindy made a face and shook her head.

“Well, she’s having a kind of rough time lately.”

Cindy frowned. “I know she is.”

“I’ll mention it to her tonight. I’m sure she’ll be in tomorrow.”

Mr. Temple, the store manager, came back with four cartons, one inside the other. Beth thanked him.

“Let me know if you need more,” he said gallantly.

“I’m packing up the house,” Beth explained to Cindy as Mr. Temple made change for her purchases.

The two women started for the door of the store.

“Beth,” said Cindy, “remember I said I wanted to talk to you about Francie? Have you got a few minutes?”

Beth felt herself squirming slightly and started to say that she had a lot of work left to do in the house, but she realized immediately that it would sound terribly callous. She pictured again the disapproving look on the lawyer’s face and felt her face redden.

“Well, okay,” said Beth. “Do you want to come over to the house and have your lunch?”

“Actually,” said Cindy, opening the door to a little red compact car in the parking lot, “I’m on my way over to my mother’s to have lunch with my little girl. Why don’t you come along? You haven’t seen my mom in ages. I told her you were here, and she’d love to see you.”

“Your little girl?” Beth exclaimed. “You have a baby?”

Cindy nodded happily. “Yep. Dana. She’s eighteen months old. My mom keeps her during the day so I can work. These days you need both salaries.”

Beth opened the car door and slid in beside Cindy, tossing her boxes into the back seat. “I can’t believe it. How long have you and Billy been married?”

On the short drive to Cindy’s mother’s house the two old friends caught up on the course of their lives, and Beth continued to marvel at the news of the baby, much to Cindy’s delight. They pulled into the driveway of the old Ballard house, and Beth felt a little surge of pleasure to be back at that familiar place.

Cindy’s mother met them at the front door, holding a strawberry blond toddler who shrieked at the sight of Cindy and pitched forward into her laughing mother’s arms.

“Look who’s here,” Cindy said to her mom, and Beth exchanged a brief hug with the older woman.

“Beth, I was so sorry to hear about Dad,” she said.

“Thanks.”

“Come in, come in.”

They all trooped into the warm house, and Beth took a turn twirling the baby around the living-room floor and burying her face in the fragrant baby skin.

“Do you want lunch?” Mrs. Ballard asked. “I can’t get this one to eat anything,” she said, frowning at her grown daughter.

Cindy, who was feeding tiny bits of yogurt to baby Dana, just smiled. Dana alternately made faces and clamored for more.

“She already ate,” Mrs. Ballard said, but Cindy nodded and continued the game.

Beth refused lunch, and Mrs. Ballard had begun to settle herself in a nearby chair when Cindy looked up at her mother and said, “Mom, I want to talk to Beth about something. Do you mind?”

Beth expected some resistance and was surprised when Mrs. Ballard nodded knowingly and immediately got up. “Do you want me to take the baby?” she asked.

“Oh, leave her here,” Beth pleaded. Dana had hold of one of Beth’s fingers and was trying to poke Beth with it.

Cindy and her mother exchanged sober glances, and then Cindy said, “She’s all right here. Thanks, Mom.”

The older woman withdrew, and there was a silence in the room. Dana gurgled questioningly.

“Well,” said Beth, “about Francie. The little truant.”

“Francie. Yes, and a few other things.”

“Cindy, before you start, I have to tell you that I don’t have too much to do with her comings and goings. But I know that she’s pretty upset with all this about my father, and maybe, I don’t know, maybe she just needed another day off.”

“Your father.” Cindy sighed. “That’s another thing.”

Dana had wandered off and picked up a ball with a bell in it. She began to shake it and listen intently. Beth watched as Cindy hopped up and took the ball away from Dana, giving her a doll instead to circumvent tears. A serious expression on her face, Cindy resumed her seat. She was quiet for a moment, watching her baby. Then she asked, “Do you know Andrew?”

Beth was a little surprised at the question, but she nodded. “Sure,” she said. “The teen heartthrob. Oh, wait. Let me guess. Andrew is not in school today either.”

Cindy gave her a curious look. “In school? No.”

“And you think that they are up to something together.”

“This is not the first time,” said Cindy.

“Well, if they are up to something, I hope she knows what she’s doing. God, I didn’t know anything at fourteen. Although kids do seem to grow up faster these days.”

“Beth, I think you should know your father was very distressed about the two of them.”

“Oh, I’ll bet he was,” said Beth, rolling her eyeballs.

Cindy’s eyes clouded over as she absently picked at Dana’s curls. “Francie’s a good kid. And a pleasure to teach. I didn’t want to get her into trouble. Maybe I shouldn’t have butted in, but I felt he ought to know about it. It’s hard, being a teacher, to know what the right thing to do is. Anyway, I worried about it a lot before I decided to tell him. I knew he was strict with Francie. She meant the world to him.”

“I know,” said Beth stiffly.

“Now, well, sometimes I feel as if I made a terrible mistake.”

“Oh, I’m sure he yelled and hollered,” Beth said, “although it doesn’t seemed to have affected the lovebirds.”

“That’s just it. He was so worked up when I told him. He was— beside himself really. I tried to get him to calm down, but he was in a rage.”

Beth could picture her father’s wrath as Cindy spoke, and she felt sorry that Cindy had been subjected to it. “He was like that,” she said.

“And then—that was it,” Cindy said in a choked voice.

“What was it?”

“That was the last I saw of him. Not two days later he had the heart attack. And he died.” Cindy looked at Beth with wide, anxious eyes. Dana, alert to her mother’s distress, began to wail in sympathy.

Beth took some Kleenex from a box on the sofa and handed them to Cindy, who began to wipe Dana’s tears. “It’s all right,” said Beth. “It certainly wasn’t your fault.”

“I’m glad I told you,” said Cindy. “It’s really been on my conscience.”

“It was just a coincidence, I’m sure,” said Beth. “Look, I’ll bet if you told Andrew’s parents that he was missing school, they wouldn’t up and die over it, would they?”

Cindy frowned. “What do you mean, ‘in school’? You said that before.”

“Andrew,” said Beth.

“Andrew’s not in school, Beth. He doesn’t go to school. He has a job at the Seven-Eleven. He wasn’t there today when I went to get my yogurt, and that’s how I’m pretty sure they are together.”

“What did he do? Drop out?”

“Beth, Andrew is nearly twenty-one years old. He hasn’t been in school for years.”

“What?” said Beth.

“Didn’t you know that?” Cindy asked.

Beth shook her head.

“That’s why I’ve been so worried about Francie. Andrew is, well, there’s something not quite right about that boy. Apparently he was always a little different. The kids made fun of him even when he was very young. I had him in my class one time. He never had any friends, his grades were bad, and he got into all kinds of fights. He’s had one job after another since he got out. He can’t hold on to anything for long. He’s just—I don’t know. I think he’s a troubled young man.”

“Young man, my eye,” said Beth. “Twenty-one years old. Goddammit.”

“I didn’t want to upset you, but this is what I mean. Francie’s kind of a lonely kid. And she’s vulnerable right now. I think that the sooner you get her away from him, the better. Are you taking her back to Philadelphia with you?”

Beth was immediately guarded. “No, no, I’m not. I think she’s better off here, with her aunt and uncle.”

Cindy shook her head. “I was afraid of that.”

“Well,” said Beth, “I’m just going to have to talk to her about it,” although as she said it, she realized that it was unlikely that Francie would listen to anything she had to say.

“I think you should,” said Cindy.

“I can’t believe this,” said Beth. “He looks like a kid to me.”

Cindy smiled ruefully. “Compared to us, he is.”

“But not to Francie. Well, listen, Cindy, I’m glad you told me. Really. You did the right thing.”

“I’ve got to get back to school,” said Cindy. “Can I drop you at your house?”

“Thanks,” said Beth, pulling on her jacket thoughtfully and heading for the door. Then, remembering the baby, she stopped and doubled back. Cindy was hugging the baby, reluctant to put her down. Beth leaned over and kissed the child on the cheek.

“Be a good girl,” she said.

“She’s always a good girl,” said her mother proudly.

Beth smiled indulgently at them as Cindy bounced Dana in her arms.

“You know,” said Cindy, “I remember when Francie was this size. Remember that? We were just about the age she is now.”

“Yeah, I remember,” Beth said in a dull voice.

“I was so envious of you, having a little baby around the house to play with. She was a cute little thing.”

“I guess she was,” said Beth. “It seems like a long time ago.”

“YOU PROBABLY DON’T RECOGNIZE WHERE WE ARE,”
said Andrew, leaning back in the seat and pressing his hands against the steering wheel.

Francie, who was looking out worriedly at the snow, shook her head. In fact, she knew exactly where they were, near a state park several miles from town, but she could tell that he wanted her not to know.

“I thought so,” said Andrew with a satisfied smile, and pressed down harder on the gas. “Figured I’d surprise you.”

“Not so fast, Andrew, please.”

Andrew turned on her. “I’m doing the driving,” he said.

Francie sat huddled in the seat, squeezing her hands tightly together. “The snow. It’s dangerous.”

“I went to a lot of trouble to get off today,” he said, “to get the car. After you called last night, I had to go through a whole thing with my mother. I had to tell her it was my boss, and I needed the car for work today and all that, just so I could take you here today. Now all of a sudden you’re complaining on me.”

“I’m not complaining,” Francie said hurriedly. “How come your mother never lets you have the car?”

Andrew flicked on the wipers, and the snow flew off the clouded windshield. “Because she’s a pig,” he said.

He accelerated again, and Francie stifled a cry with her hand as the car swerved and then righted itself on the lonely highway. Andrew jerked the wheel around and then hit the brake. The car screeched and then skidded to a halt in a little clearing between the woods on their right and the road.

He turned and smiled at her. “We’re here,” he said.

Francie nodded, her face white above her pale blue parka.

Andrew slid over toward her in the seat and began to finger her hair, crooning to her. “What’s so scary to the little girl?”

“I told you,” said Francie. “I don’t like icy highways. I told you what happened.”

“Oh, yeah,” he said, sitting up, “you and your mother. The car flipped out or something.”

“I told you,” said Francie petulantly.

“Well, the little girl is safe now,” he said.

Francie stared out the window, past the bare black trees toward the cottony gray skies. “You can’t even see the lake for the snow,” she said.

“How do you know there’s a lake? I thought you said you were never here.”

Francie bit her lip and then, after a second’s hesitation, said, “Well, you can tell. There are no trees back there. It has to be water.”

“Aren’t we smart?” he said.

“What’s the secret place?” Francie pleaded. “You said there was a secret place.”

“There is,” he said, getting out of the car. “Let’s go.” He made his way importantly toward a path through the trees, and Francie followed behind him, carrying the brown bag of sandwiches she had made for them.

Andrew took his time, picking his way down the path, avoiding the stones and branches that were partly concealed by the falling snow. The woods surrounding the lake in a wide apron were sloped down to the water’s edge, and the whiteness of the snow made them appear deceptively light. There was not another soul to be seen as they emerged from the woods and looked out across the vast frozen surface in front of them. A few feet to their right was an arched wooden bridge with a few slats missing. The bridge spanned the fifty feet to a small island, on which stood an old stone skating house.

“It’s beautiful,” said Francie, clinging to the arm of his coat.

“Well, come on,” he said, “I’ll show you our hideout.”

He clumped down to the foot of the bridge and then started across, the sounds of his footsteps muffled by the falling snow. The bridge looked rickety, but it was sturdy enough. He reached the door of the skating house and looked down, expecting the padlock which he had put on it to have been removed, but it was still there. “Look at that,”

he said. “No one ever comes here.” He turned around to show Francie, but she was not behind him, where she was supposed to be.

“Francie,” he called out, “where are you?”

His voice echoed across the lake, but Francie did not answer. Her silence annoyed him, but he did not call out again. If this was some stupid game she was playing, he would not fall for it. Reaching down under the wooden step to the door of the house, Andrew pulled out the key, awkwardly thrust it into the keyhole, jerked the padlock down, and roughly pulled the latch forward when it was freed.