Summer Of Fear (8 page)

At five-thirty I had just gotten out of the bathtub for what must have been the eighth time and was fastening my robe when there was a rap at the bedroom door and Pete’s voice said, “Hey, Rae, can I talk to you a minute?”

“I guess so,” I said without enthusiasm. The fewer people I saw at this point the happier I was.

I went over to the door and opened it a crack, and he shoved it the rest of the way open and came on in.

“Wow!” he said, doing a double take. “You really do look bad! I thought Bobby was exaggerating.”

“Thanks a heap,” I said, not inviting him to sit down. “What is it you want?”

“Well, look.” He seated himself on the end of one of the beds anyway. “I wanted to ask you—say, can we shut the door?”

“Why?” I asked curiously.

“I just want to talk privately a minute, that’s all.”

I pushed the door closed and turned back to him. He was staring at the rug and drumming his fingers on his kneecaps, the way he did when he was feeling embarrassed.

“Look,” he said finally. “Look, the whole thing I wanted to ask you was—well, couldn’t Julia go to the dance tonight even if you can’t?”

“Mother suggested that,” I said, “and I told Julia I’d call Carolyn and see about Julia’s going with her and Rick. She didn’t want me to. She said she’d never even met Rick and it would make her feel funny.”

“Do you suppose Mike would take her?” Peter asked hesitantly. “I mean, he’s probably already got tickets and it’s too late for him to have made any other plans. I could sit with them at intermission, and then afterwards I could bring Julia home.”

“He would probably do it if I asked him,” I said, “but I hate to put him on the line like that. Julia’s our cousin, not his. It would be one thing if I were along too, but she’s really not all that easy to talk to, and with nobody there to take up the slack he could feel pretty stuck.”

“Nobody could feel stuck with Julia,” Peter said firmly. “Girls don’t have to jabber all the time to be good company. Besides, like I said, I’ll sit with them at intermission and give Mike a chance to wander around and talk to people. And he won’t have to drive her home or anything.”

“Well—” I said slowly. I didn’t like the idea, but I didn’t want to be horrid about it either. Mike was always a good sport about things that pertained to the family. We had often taken Bobby with us to movies, and once when Dad was out of town on business, he had even suggested taking my mother.

“Please,” Peter said quietly. It wasn’t a word that Peter used very often.

The tone of his voice startled me, and I glanced at him sharply. He was still staring down at the rug, and his face was flushed.

“Look, Sis,” he said awkwardly, “this thing really matters to me. I—I want Julia there tonight. I want her to hear me play. I mean, it’s one thing I can do, you know—blow a horn. I want her to see me up there on the bandstand doing my thing, and people applauding and—well—you know.”

I did know. Quite suddenly I knew a lot more about Peter than he had meant to tell me. With an effort I restrained myself from reaching over to tousle the awful orange hair, so like my own, which he must hate just as much as I did. I wanted to hug his skinny shoulders and say, “You don’t have to be a superman. A girl can love you just because you’re Peter.”

Instead I said, “Okay.”

“You mean, you’ll ask Mike?”

“I said ‘okay,’ didn’t I?”

“Gee, Rae, thanks.” He let his breath out in a deep sigh and for the first time since the conversation started he looked up and met my eyes. “A first cousin isn’t all that close, do you think, Rae? I mean, it’s hardly any blood kin at all.”

“In some states they’re not allowed to marry,” I told him.

“Marry! Who’s talking about marriage? At least—well, if something like that came up it would be pretty far in the future, after college and everything. You don’t worry about that sort of thing until you’re right to it.”

He got up and crammed his hands into his pockets and squared his shoulders. In his mind he was already at the dance, standing on the bandstand, raising the clarinet to his lips. Across the dance floor Julia was seated at a table, her gaze glued upon him, those huge dark eyes shining and wide.

“Pete?” I said as he reached the door. He turned back to me. “Do I really look as bad as—as—I think I do?”

Peter stood silent a moment, deciding whether to be kind or to be honest. Honesty won.

“Yep. I’m sorry, but it’s pretty bad. Like you’ve dyed your face red and have lumps of chewing gum under your skin.”

“Thanks,” I said flatly, and wondered how I could ever have thought of hugging him.

I caught Mike at his home. He had gotten the message I had left for him at the pool office but hadn’t taken it seriously. Now I told him I definitely wasn’t going but that Julia would still like to.

He was regretful but cooperative.

“I don’t mind taking you with lumps,” he said, “but if you don’t want to make the scene, that’s okay too. As long as Pete will take over at the end of the evening, I don’t mind doing the escort bit for your cousin.”

“The doctor says I’ll probably be okay by tomorrow,” I told him. “We can plan to do something then.” I tried not to sound as forlorn as I felt. Rachel, you good sport, I told myself, you’re really one outstandingly unselfish girl!

Later, at the dinner table, that sportsmanship was really put to the test. Julia asked if she could borrow my new dress for the evening.

“I thought you were going to wear your yellow,” I said. “The one you wore your first night here.”

Julia wrinkled her nose. It was an expression she had picked up from Carolyn.

“That thing?” she said with a note of disgust in her voice.

“It’s a pretty dress.”

“Not on me, it isn’t.” She shook her head decidedly. “It’s not my type and it doesn’t fit right. The color’s wrong too; it makes me look greenish.”

I felt like saying, “Why did you buy it then?” I felt like slamming the water glass down on the table and shouting, “No! No, you certainly may not wear my new dress! I haven’t even worn it yet myself!” I felt like doing a lot of things, all of them loud and rude and awful, but I sat and listened to Mother saying, “Why, I’m sure Rae won’t mind lending it to you, dear, since she won’t be wearing it. Do you think it will fit?”

“I think it will,” Julia said. “Rachel, may I?”

They were all looking at me, waiting expectantly—Mother, Dad, Peter, even Bobby who was waiting for the question to be settled so he could ask for more potatoes. There was nothing I could say except what they wanted me to say.

“Yes,” I told her.

When I saw her, however, actually wearing the dress, it was almost more than I could bear. It did fit Julia as though it had been made for her. The loose-fitting bodice was not loose on her but fit perfectly across the soft curve of her breasts. The shoulder seams fell at the right places and the short swirled skirt showed her long, shapely legs to marvelous advantage. And the color—the color was Julia; the pink reflected in her cheeks and made her eyes glow like two deep, dark, mysterious ponds.

Her lips curved slightly and she asked, “How do I look?”

“Beautiful,” Mother said softly. “You look just beautiful. I can remember your mother at your age, dressed for a summer dance. She was beautiful too, but so very different—”

“Leslie,” Dad interrupted gently, “do you really think this is the time?” and Mother said, “No. No, of course it isn’t. Julia, darling, I’m sorry. How thoughtless of me! This is to be a happy evening for you and here I am, reminding you—”

“That’s all right,” Julia told her.

It was all right. I looked into her eyes, and it was there, the look I had seen that first morning when I had wakened and glanced across and she had been lying on her back, gazing up at the ceiling. It was a quiet look, peaceful, pleased. A look of self-confidence that left no room for grief.

She doesn’t care! Terrible—incredible—the knowledge swept upon me. Her parents are dead, and we’re all so sorry for her—but to Julia, Julia herself, it doesn’t matter! We think she’s so brave, but she isn’t brave—she just doesn’t care!

When Mike arrived I did not stay to see him. Instead I went through to the kitchen and slipped out the back door into the yard. The moon hung huge and yellow about halfway up the curve of the sky, and by its light I could clearly see the tree to which Trickle was tied and his water bowl and the sad little heap that was Trickle himself. He had crept over to the edge of the hydrangea bush, but the rope wasn’t quite long enough for him to get underneath it, and so he lay half in moonlight, half in the bush’s shadow.

I said, “Trick?”

He lifted his tail politely and let it fall, but made no attempt to get up.

I went over to him and sank down beside him in the cool grass and stroked his back. His hair felt strange to my hand, lifeless and dry, and when I reached to scratch him behind his ears he raised his head and turned it to lick my hand. His nose felt warm and rough.

“You’re sick,” I whispered. “Poor little thing, I should have guessed it sooner. If you were feeling good you wouldn’t have bitten anybody, even Julia. I’ll take you to the vet tomorrow and get you dosed up with medicine. Then you’ll be your old self again and you can come in the house and everything will be like it always was.”

I sat with him a long time there in the moonlight, petting him and talking to him. When at last I went back into the house it was after ten. Mother and Dad were in the den, I could hear their voices, but I didn’t stop to speak to them; I knew that if I heard either one of them comment on how pretty Julia had looked tonight and how brave and wonderful she was, I would not be able to stand it.

I went upstairs and put on my pajamas and got into bed to read. It was nice to have the room to myself again, as I had had it for so many years prior to Julia’s arrival. As I reached over to get my book from the table between the beds, I was surprised to see that the base of the reading lamp, which was shaped like a cup, was filled with burnt matches.

“For gosh sakes,” I said softly to myself. “Where could these have come from?”

I leaned over further and saw two empty match books stuck down on the far side of the lamp. They must be Julia’s, I thought, but what could she have used them for? Could it be that Julia smoked? It seemed unlikely, for I had never detected the odor of cigarette smoke on Julia’s person or in the room itself after she had been alone in it.

Still, why else would she be lighting matches?

I opened my book and tried to concentrate on the words on the page in front of me, but my mind would not focus. The question of the matches bothered me too much to let it drop. If Julia did have cigarettes she would have to keep them in the bureau, for there was nowhere else that she could store things. The bureau was, after all, mine as well as hers. Just because Julia kept her things in two of the drawers didn’t exactly make them private drawers, being as how they were part of a piece of furniture that had been mine since childhood.

Hurriedly, before I could feel any guiltier about it than I did already, I laid my book aside and got out of bed and went over to the bureau and pulled open the top drawer. All I could see at first glance was a neat pile of underthings and a pair of pajamas. Gingerly I reached in and lifted the pile of clothing to run my hand underneath it.

There were no cigarette packs.

I was beginning to feel disgusted with myself, but having started the investigation I could not stop. I ran my hand down the side of the drawer to the back, and then I did feel something. It was smooth and hard and had the same feel as a candle.

I pulled it out and looked at it. It wasn’t exactly a candle, for it had no wick, but it was a brown, waxlike substance which had evidently been melted and molded into an oblong shape with four stubby appendages forming a kind of stand for it. At one end there was another such protrusion, shaped somewhat like the head of an animal.

“What in the world!” I exclaimed, regarding the little wax figure with bewilderment. It was the sort of thing one might expect from a child modeling with clay, but the wax had melted and run together so that the shape was indistinct. As I turned it over and over in my hands I saw something else strange. Several long, white hairs were embedded in the wax.

I was still examining it when through the open window I heard the sound of a car pulling into our driveway. Guiltily I thrust the wax figure back into the spot in which I had found it and shoved the drawer closed. I was in bed with my book in my hands when footsteps sounded on the stair. One pair of footsteps.

One?

I lay still, listening, as they came opposite the door and continued on down the hall. I recognized those footsteps, and they were not Julia’s.

Shoving back the covers, I got up again and went to the bedroom door and opened it. At the far end of the hall, Peter was entering his own room.

I said, “Pete?”

He paused, but he did not turn around.

“Peter,” I said, “where’s Julia? I thought you were going to be the one to bring her home.”

“Yeah. I thought so too.” He did turn now and looked not at me but past me, as though by not meeting my eyes he could conceal the hurt in his own. “I guess my horn wasn’t cool enough to make up for the rest of me. When the dance was over I went to find her, and she wasn’t there. They took off during intermission.”

“They?”

“Julia and Mike, who else? That’s some great boyfriend you’ve got, I’ll tell you. I thought he was going to introduce her around and see she met a bunch of people. They never spoke to anybody all evening, and when I went over to the table at the first band rest they were so wrapped up in each other they acted like they didn’t even know I was there.”

“No,” I said. “I don’t believe that. Mike just took her tonight because I asked him to do it as a favor. You’re just telling me this because—because—”

But there was no ending for the sentence. There was no reason for Peter to tell me this if it was not true. Besides, the pain in his voice was equal to my own.

“I’m sorry, kid,” he said and opened his door and went into his room, and I went back into mine.