Getting Rid of Marjorie Read online

  Sally put an arm around her. “Please don’t,” she said. “There’s lots of fun things you can do this summer. We’ll do them together. I’m not going to work on my book all the time.” She paused. “Are you thinking about your grandfather? Is that it? Because if it is, I’m sure you’ll feel better tomorrow. After all, he’s still your grandfather. Nothing’s really changed.”

  Emily gave her a look. This time Sally did not understand. “I don’t want to talk about it,” Emily said. “I’m okay.” But she wasn’t. Sally had hair like yellow silk and two perfectly healthy, conveniently located sets of grandparents. Her mother wasn’t busy all the time taking care of two small babies. Sally could write and draw, and when she said something, people listened. She was going to be famous. What did she know about trouble?

  Pumpkin wrapped himself around Emily’s ankles, and she bent to pick him up. “I wish—” she said softly. “I just wish—”

  “—that you could write a book, too?” Sally offered.

  “—that it was this morning,” Emily said. “That this day hadn’t happened at all.”

  Emily’s father took twice as long as usual to drink his before-dinner highball. Usually when he dawdled, her mother fretted about keeping the dinner warm, but tonight she gave Tony his meal in the kitchen and didn’t say a word.

  “I’m hungry,” Emily said, when it became clear that no one else was going to complain. “I want to eat.”

  Her father put down his newspaper and looked at her. “Your mother says she told you about Grandpa’s marriage,” he said. “She tells me you weren’t exactly thrilled.”

  Emily twisted in her chair. Her father always sounded sarcastic, even when he didn’t mean to be. She wondered if he meant to be now.

  “Well, how do you feel about it?” he asked.

  “I don’t care.”

  Her father raised his eyebrows and Emily sighed, noting that his glass was still almost half full. More questions, she thought. It was what happened if your father was an attorney. Sally’s father was an accountant, and he hardly ever asked her anything.

  “Your mother seemed to think you were upset. Angry. Hurt. Is that how you feel?”

  Emily curled her feet under her and wrapped her arms around her stomach. “I just think it’s stupid, that’s all. He doesn’t need a wife. He had Grandma Ellen for years and years, and now he’s forgotten all about her. I should think you’d feel bad, too.” She knew her anger was getting out of control, but she couldn’t stop. “I should think you wouldn’t like it one bit, having him pick out a new mother for you when you didn’t even ask for one.”

  Her father’s face reddened. “She’s hardly a mother-substitute, since she’s only about fifteen years older than I am. And, as you so sweetly point out, I really don’t want or need another mother. The one I had was more than satisfactory. But your grandfather deserves a life of his own, and he has the right to make his own decisions. Remember that.”

  “You don’t like it either,” Emily said. “I can tell.”

  “Whether I like it or not is hardly the point. I’ll agree that the marriage came as a surprise, but it’s happened, and when they get here tomorrow we’re all going to make Marjorie welcome. Do you understand?”

  Marjorie. It was the first time Emily had heard you-know-who’s name. Marjorie. She stared at her father and saw that his face was stiff with anger and something else. Was it sadness? For a moment she felt sorry for him. Was he thinking about a stranger handling his mother’s dishes, rearranging the furniture, reading her books? Maybe he felt like crying, too. Then Emily reminded herself that he was going to go along with the marriage and was ordering her to accept it. Nobody cared as much as she did.

  “Emily, do you hear me?”

  “I hear you,” Emily said.

  Her mother called from the dining room with phony cheerfulness, “Come on, you two. The pork chops are going to turn to leather if we wait much longer.”

  Her father stood up and motioned Emily to lead the way.

  “Let’s not forget this little talk,” he said. “I think we understand each other.”

  But we don’t, Emily thought. We never do. Our little talks always end up nowhere. And she felt like crying all over again at the thought of her grandfather who always understood, even when she found it hard to say what she was thinking, and who was coming home tomorrow with Marjorie, his new companion.

  3 • The Homecoming

  “But I don’t wanna go with you,” Tony protested. “I wanna stay here in front of the house and watch for Grandpa.”

  Emily, hands on hips, glared at him. “This is a very private conversation we’re going to have,” she growled. “I have to talk to you for just a couple of minutes.” When Tony ignored her, she tried bribery. “Half a Milky Way bar, and tomorrow I’ll hold you on my bike so you can pretend you’re riding. Okay?”

  Tony stared down the road a moment or two longer, then gave in. “You’ll have to hurry up,” he said. “I wanna be here when they come home.”

  They cut across the yard and into the woods, following the narrow path that led to Christophers’ house and the next road west. The sun-dappled ground was dotted with columbine and wild geraniums, and overhead a woodpecker rapped out his familiar code. Ordinarily Emily would have walked slowly, enjoying the fresh loveliness of the day, but this afternoon she thought only of what she wanted to say to her little brother.

  A hundred feet along the path there was a tiny clearing where an oak tree had fallen, taking a couple of birches with it. Emily sat down on a log, and Tony crouched a couple of feet away.

  “It’s about Grandma,” she began, suddenly nervous because this was important and she wanted to do it right.

  “The old grandma or the new one?” Tony asked.

  “That’s exactly it. There is only one, Tony. Besides the grandma in Hawaii, I mean. We had a wonderful grandma—Grandma Ellen—who lived down the road. She died, and now we have to remember her and love her.”

  Tony frowned. “But I don’t remember her,” he said. “Not much, anyway.”

  Sally had been right. “Well, you must remember something about her,” Emily insisted. “Tell me every little thing you can think of.”

  Silence. Then, “She was sick in bed a lot, and she was very happy when I came to visit her.” He smiled. “That’s all.”

  “Think again.”

  He sighed. “She took us to town with her and bought coffee ice-cream cones, and mine fell on the sidewalk. I think she bought me another one.”

  “She did, she did,” Emily said eagerly. “She was always buying us things and taking us places before she got sick. To Chicago to see the Christmas tree at Fields’. To the circus and to the county fair, remember? And she baked the best chocolate cakes in the whole world, with fudge frosting and banana filling because you liked banana best. Don’t you remember that?”

  “I think so. She made cookies, too.”

  “Oh, she did! Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. Sometimes, after she got sick, you and I took our sandwiches over there at noon, and we sat on the patio and ate with her. And there were cookies or cake for dessert, no matter how sick she was. Grandma Ellen was perfect!”

  “Yes,” Tony said agreeably. “She was.”

  “And nobody can take her place. Nobody.”

  Tony began to catch the direction the conversation was taking. “Daddy says we have to be nice to the new gr—to the new person—and make her glad to be here. He says she might be lonesome at first.”

  “No one is forcing her to come,” Emily said. “She didn’t have to marry Grandpa and leave all her good friends out in Los Angeles.”

  Tony stood up and hitched his jeans around his narrow waist. “If she’s not going to be the new grandma, then what do I call her?”

  Emily pretended to consider the question, although she had an answer ready. “I think Mrs. Parker would be best,” she said. “Her first name is Marjorie, but it would sound kind of fresh for a five-year-old ch
ild to call her that.”

  Tony started down the path, apparently feeling he had earned his half-a-Milky Way. “What are you going to call her?” he asked over his shoulder. “You’re an eleven-year-old child.”

  Emily stood up. “I’m not going to call her anything,” she said. “I’m not going to have anything to do with her.” She liked the way that sounded and promptly called up another phrase that had rattled around in her head during the long restless night. “I’m going to keep Grandma Ellen’s memory alive,” she said. “That’s what I care about.”

  Emily caught up to Tony. “That’s what I care about, too,” he said. For a brief moment he clutched her hand, then let it go. Emily saw that he was beginning to worry.

  Now we’ll see, she thought. It was what she had wanted, to make him aware of the terrible thing that had happened in their lives, and she had succeeded. Oddly, she was not as pleased as she had expected to be. There was no reason to feel guilty, she told herself. Five was old enough to think. But when Tony reached for her hand again, she squeezed it and tried to call up something else, something pleasant to talk about on their way back to their house.

  It could have been just any Saturday, unless you knew the clues that showed this day was different. First of all, Emily’s father was cutting the grass for the second time in ten days and without being coaxed. That was a little miracle. He had fussed around the house all morning, moving from his desk to his workbench and back again, with frequent stops in the kitchen for coffee. When the lawn mower began its noisy belching in the garage, Emily saw her mother nod and heard her quick little sigh of relief.

  Her mother’s Saturday had been different, too. She had spent an hour or more at Grandpa’s house, opening windows, dusting, and sweeping the kitchen floor where Pumpkin had scattered cat food.

  “I could use some help over there,” her mother had announced at the breakfast table, but she didn’t argue when Emily shook her head.

  “I’ll change the beds here and put the dishes in the dishwasher. And I’ll take care of Polly and Jane.” Emily’s mother smiled at this final offer, and Emily grinned back in spite of her black mood. They both knew that she didn’t mind caring for her little sisters, even though she often complained about how much trouble they were.

  “Dress them in the pink-checked outfits,” her mother said, and Emily’s grin slipped away. The pink-checked rompers were the babies’ best—another indication that this was supposed to be a special occasion.

  Only Tony had enjoyed a typical Saturday, spending the morning and the early part of the afternoon with Jimmy Christopher. When their space vehicles finally landed, so that Jimmy could go to town for new shoes, Tony had come back to earth and the present by degrees, finally remembering that his grandfather was about to return. Now, with Emily’s warning clearly in mind, he was back at his post in the front yard, his expression both eager and anxious.

  Emily watched him from her bedroom window. Behind her, in the playpen, Polly cooed cheerfully and Jane tried to eat her toes.

  I’ll see that Tony remembers you, Grandma Ellen, Emily promised. And when the babies get older, I’ll talk to them about you all the time.

  It was a real task she was taking on, and she knew it. Ladies always loved Tony, and he was an easy mark. Emily gritted her teeth, imagining him sitting on Marjorie’s lap, grinning up at her with his ragged grin. Oh, she would be charming; Emily didn’t doubt that. Otherwise she never could have attracted Grandpa, who already had as full and happy a life as a man could wish for.

  Emily imagined that Marjorie would look like Grandma Ellen—tall and big-boned, with graying blond hair brushed into a twist at the back of her neck. She was glad her grandfather and her mother had sorted through all of Grandma Ellen’s clothes and given them to charities. At the time it had seemed a harsh thing to do, but if they had remained in the closets, Marjorie would soon be wearing them.

  Ghastly, Emily thought and made a mental note to repeat the word to Sally. It was the kind of word writers liked.

  “Here they come!”

  Emily’s stomach lurched as Tony started running down the road. After a moment, the familiar blue Buick came into sight, moving slowing because her grandfather always tried to keep down the dust on the road.

  The door opened below, and Emily’s mother came out on the front lawn. She was wearing her best pants suit, the blue one, and she walked to the side of the house and said something. The lawn mower stopped. Emily moved back from the window as her mother reappeared with her father a step or two behind. The car door slammed.

  “Grandpa!” Tony’s voice was shrill, and there was a burst of laughter. He had, no doubt, made one of his flying leaps into Grandpa’s arms. Emily heard the low growl of her grandfather’s voice, and then there was a polite murmur as everyone talked at once.

  Gushing, Emily thought fiercely. Her parents didn’t want Grandpa to have a new wife any more than she did, but they put on smiling masks and pretended to be pleased. They didn’t dare to be honest. What kind of example was that?

  “Emily.” Her mother’s call sounded falsely sweet. “Your grandfather’s here and waiting to see you. Bring the twins with you.”

  Emily edged around the playpen and stood in front of the mirror. Her image glared back at her, the thick brows drawn to aching tightness. Her long hair was in a tangle, and her stomach strained against her ragged jeans. She was wearing her oldest T-shirt, the one with a rip in one shoulder. She looked awful. If she had to go down, and she knew she did, Marjorie and Grandpa would see how little she cared about this homecoming. One member of the family, at least, would show her real feelings.

  Emily picked up Jane and was not sorry to discover that the baby needed changing. We’ll see how she likes smelly infants, she thought.

  “Emily!” This time it was Grandpa who called. She took a deep breath, picked up Polly in her other arm, and went downstairs.

  It would have been better if she had been outside with the others when Grandpa and Marjorie arrived. For as she stood at the screen door, waiting for them to notice her, a bright voice called “Hi!” and they all turned toward the side yard.

  “Oh, Bill,” burbled the new wife at Grandpa’s side, “you said she was smart but you didn’t tell me she was beautiful. Look at that hair!”

  It was Sally, standing there in the late afternoon sun and glowing like a candle.

  “Hi,” she said again, her voice just slightly quivery under the weight of their attention. “I’m—I’m just Sally, Mrs. Parker. Emily’s friend.”

  “Oh, dear,” said Emily’s mother.

  “Emily, get out here!” her father roared.

  Then her grandfather was striding up the path to the front door. “Here come my three gorgeous granddaughters,” he shouted. And that was almost the worst of all. Worse than looking like a tramp when Sally looked like an angel. Worse than having to be civil to Marjorie. Because her grandfather had called her gorgeous, and for the first time in all the long, wonderful years that she had loved him, he sounded like a phony.

  4 • The World’s Falling Apart

  They sat in a circle in the living room, all except Emily, who slouched in the doorway and studied the toes of her sneakers. She knew she was making the others uncomfortable, but she didn’t care. She despised them all, including Sally who had followed them inside and now clearly wished she hadn’t.

  “Drink, anyone?” Emily’s father jumped to his feet and looked at Marjorie. Emily wondered what he was thinking. Did he think she was pretty? Probably. She was tiny and slim, with smooth olive skin, and he always said he favored brunettes. She wore pale green pants and a loose green tunic, with a chain of bright-colored wooden beads that reached nearly to her waist. Cute as a button, Emily thought savagely. Men!

  “You mustn’t bother, Paul.” What a dumb voice she had, scratchy sounding! “Well, do you have some fruit juice?”

  “Of course. There’s a whole pitcher of juice in the refrigerator.” That was Emily’s mother
sounding thrilled, as if Marjorie’s asking for a glass of juice was the cleverest thing she had ever heard of. Her mother had just finished taking the twins upstairs to change them and put them down for their naps. Now she was sitting on the sofa, smiling, smiling, until Emily thought her face would surely crack.

  “I’ll have the same,” Grandpa said. “Let me help, Paul.” He jumped up and went out to the kitchen, giving Emily a quick hug as he passed her. She kept her body stiff, almost losing her balance in her determination not to respond. If her grandfather noticed, he didn’t show it. She could hear his deep voice in the kitchen, describing the trip back from California, and her father’s responses. Tony followed them, edging past Emily with care.

  “Well.” Emily’s mother added another volt or two to her smile and leaned toward Marjorie. “You and Dad Parker really surprised us all.”

  “I’m sure we must have,” Marjorie said. “To tell the truth, we even surprised ourselves. I can hardly believe that a month ago I was going off to work every morning and not making any personal decisions bigger than what to wear that day.”

  And I’ll bet you gave that a lot of thought. Emily sneaked a sideways glance at Sally.

  “What kind of work do you—did you—do?”

  “Office management. I was manager at the Carver Company in Milwaukee years ago. That’s where Bill and I met. After my parents died, I needed a complete change, so I sold everything here and moved to Los Angeles. Carver had a branch office there, and later I found a position I liked even more.” Marjorie leaned forward and, after a hasty glance toward the kitchen, hurried on, her voice lower now and scratchier than ever. “I’ve never lived in the country before. I’m … concerned!”

  “Concerned?” Emily’s mother repeated the word, and her too-bright smile faded to a look of confusion.

  “I mean, do you have much trouble out here? Break-ins, vandalism, home invasions—that sort of thing? Bill told me he lived outside the city, but I wasn’t prepared for such isolation.”