Getting Rid of Marjorie Read online

  Emily was so astonished that she forgot her determination not to look up. Marjorie’s face was taut and not pretty at all. She looked scared to death.

  “Oh, you mustn’t worry about things like that,” Emily’s mother said. “Dad Parker—Bill—will tell you, we’ve never had a burglary or any kind of problem in all the years we’ve been out here. Chicory Road is a dead end, you know, and we get very little traffic. There’s nothing but woods beyond here.”

  Marjorie shivered. “That’s what bothers me,” she said. “I suppose it sounds silly to you, but I don’t like woods. Not at all! And I don’t like being away from people. I’m a city person, I guess.”

  “But it’s much more dangerous in the city than it is here, Mrs. Parker,” Sally said. “This is the nicest place in the world to live in. There’s room to do things, and your friends aren’t far away, even if you can’t look out the window and see them. Emily and I are together every day.”

  Sally was trying to make up, Emily knew. Trying to make up for being beautiful, for being the kind of golden girl a grandfather would be proud to introduce to his new wife. Well, it wasn’t Sally’s fault that she was perfect. Emily rolled her eyes at her friend to let her know she was forgiven.

  “Here we are, ladies. Something to soothe the fevered brow.” Emily looked at her father as he pushed past her with a tray. Fevered brow! He was certainly uptight. Her grandfather was right behind him, and this time he put his arm around Emily’s shoulders and pulled her into the living room with him.

  “Sit down, Emily,” he ordered. “Tell me what you’ve been up to the last few weeks. I’m sure I’ve missed a lot.”

  “There’s nothing to tell,” Emily said.

  It was the first lie she had ever told him. If he had come home alone, if things were the way they always had been, Emily would have had a list of secrets a mile long ready to share when they were alone. She would have told him about Jason Timmons calling her a baby because she wouldn’t drink from his father’s flask. She would have told him how silly most of the girls in her class had become—calling up boys and whispering secrets all the time. She would have told him that Sally was her only real friend, and maybe that was just because they happened to live near each other. And that she felt dull and stupid next to Sally. And that she wanted to be good at something. Anything! They were all things she had been saving to tell him.

  “Life is full of problems,” he might say. “But we do survive somehow. You’re a strong person, Emily.” When he said that, she had always felt strong. After all, no one knew her as well as he did. But she needed to hear him say it.

  And now they couldn’t talk. Before, when Emily told him secrets, it had been like putting them into a vault where no one else could find them. But now there was cute little Marjorie, his companion, and secrets wouldn’t be safe with him any more.

  Her grandfather looked at her, eyebrows raised, and she saw that he finally realized something was wrong. “I’m sure we have lots to talk about,” he said. “Marjorie and I are going to be pretty busy getting unpacked tonight, but how about a hike tomorrow morning?”

  “I can’t,” Emily said. “I have plans.”

  “Emily!” Her mother’s voice was raised in warning.

  “She’ll be glad to go, Dad,” her father said. “She needs the exercise. She’s turning into a crotchety old lady.”

  Emily started to protest, but her grandfather interrupted. “It’s all right,” he said. “We’ll do it another time. Right, Emily?”

  She nodded without looking at him. He was talking to her as if she were a child, a baby to be soothed!

  “Well, I’m sure you two will have plenty of time to get caught up on the news later,” Marjorie said brightly. “And you certainly do have hiking space, don’t you?”

  With Grandpa back in the room, she was trying to sound as if she thought the country was great. He turned to her with a pleased expression.

  “I’m going to make a hiker out of you, too, my dear,” he said. “Wait till you see these woods with the wildflowers in full bloom.”

  “I’m sure they’re beautiful,” Marjorie said. “Of course, I’ve never been much of a walker.”

  Grandpa chuckled. “That’s because of your shoes.” They all looked at her tiny green sandals with their incredibly high heels. Like needles, Emily thought with contempt. She’ll break her neck the first time she steps outside the door.

  “We’ll get you some good boots,” he went on. “And some blue jeans. I bet you don’t even own a pair of jeans.” He said that as if not owning jeans was something to be proud of.

  “We’ll see,” Marjorie said. “All of this is going to take some getting used to, isn’t it?”

  “Worried about becoming a country girl?” Emily’s father asked. “Well, I guess Los Angeles is about a million miles away from Chicory Road. Still, it’s been a while since we’ve seen any Indians in the woods.”

  “Really, Paul,” her mother said. She seemed to be trying to send him some kind of warning, but Emily’s father kept smiling at them all as if he had said something witty.

  Tony spoke for the first time. “Horse pooh,” he said. “You have to be careful.”

  “What on earth?” their mother snapped.

  Marjorie leaned toward him. “What did you say, dear?”

  “You can’t wear those pretty shoes in the woods,” Tony explained. “People ride their horses on those paths, and you might step in—”

  “Oh, I see.” Marjorie put out her hand and, exactly as Emily had predicted, Tony ran and sat beside her. “I’ll be very careful,” she promised, and her soft, scratchy voice made it sound as if she and Tony were sharing a secret.

  Grandpa laughed, and after that the conversation became the kind of weather-politics-books talk grown-ups liked. It was as if the laughter had pulled a plug, and the electricity that had charged the room had suddenly leaked away. Emily saw that Sally was as bored as she was. After a few minutes the girls excused themselves and went out into the late afternoon sunshine.

  “Well, what do you think?” Emily asked, when they were a safe distance from the living-room windows.

  Sally looked thoughtful. “I don’t think she’s so bad,” she said, then added cautiously, “do you?”

  “I think she’s ghastly,” Emily said. “She’s horrible! I can’t understand how my grandfather could marry a silly, scaredy person like that.”

  “Well, she certainly is different from your real grandma,” Sally agreed. “And I don’t think she’s going to like living here very much.”

  “That’s fine with me,” Emily replied. “I hope she hates it. I hope she hates it so much she packs up tomorrow and goes right back to California where she belongs.”

  “Still, she was trying to make everyone like her,” Sally said. “I felt kind of sorry for her.”

  Emily jammed her fingers into the waistline of her jeans and looked up at the sky. Clouds were gathering over the tree tops in shaggy, gray-white masses.

  “You only like her because she said you were beautiful,” Emily said. “Big deal.”

  “I do not!” Sally sounded hurt. “I know I’m not beautiful.” She stood there, in front of a forsythia bush, waiting for Emily to say something and looking prettier than ever. When the silence stretched out, Sally started toward the path that led through the woods to her road. “I’m going home.”

  “See you tomorrow,” Emily said, but her friend shook her head without looking back.

  “I’m going to start my book tomorrow,” she said.

  And that was that. Emily stared after her. “Well, if that’s the way you want to be, okay,” she said, too softly to be heard beyond the forsythia bush. But it was no use pretending she didn’t care. She had been rude to Sally, and now she had lost her, too.

  The whole darn world’s falling apart, she thought. It was all Marjorie’s fault.

  5 • Emily’s Project

  Emily sat up with a squeak of fright. Lightning lit her room, followed by a crash of thunder that shook the bed. The rain, blowing through the open window, was crossing the room in a fine spray. Her face was wet.

  Emily closed the window and was hopping back across the soaked carpet when the lamp flicked on. Her mother’s voice made her jump again.

  “What a mess! I’ll be right back.” Her mother disappeared down the hall and returned with an armful of towels. Together she and Emily knelt and pressed the towels into the carpet, absorbing as much of the water as possible.

  “I can’t imagine why I didn’t hear this coming,” her mother grumbled. “I usually get in here and close the west window at the first sound of thunder, but this time I slept right through the warnings.”

  “Me, too,” Emily said. “Guess I was really knocked out.”

  She didn’t tell her mother how glad she was to have been awakened. Her dreams had not been pleasant, and the final one, broken off by the storm, remained uncomfortably clear. Emily had been walking down the road in the dark, toward her grandfather’s house, the lights of her own house getting smaller and dimmer behind her. There were no lights at all up ahead. Suddenly she had the feeling that she was being followed. She stopped, listening for footsteps, but there was no sound. Still, she knew danger was close by. She began to run, reaching at last the curving driveway that led to her grandfather’s front door. Gravel crunched under her feet, and now she could hear other steps, drawing close in the dark. The driveway seemed endless, but finally Emily reached the house. Where was the big front door? Sobbing, she ran her hands over the wooden siding, trying to find a doorknob. It wasn’t there. Then lightning struck close by, and in the split second before she woke she saw the whole front of the house. There were no doors, and no windows either. Just the smooth white siding, with her grandfather and safety on the other side.

  “You’d better get into some dry pajamas,” her mother said. “Your knees are wet. I’ll put another blanket on the bed.”

  Emily took pajamas from a bureau drawer and went down the hall to the bathroom to change. She never undressed in front of her mother any more, but this time she had another reason for changing in the bathroom. Its window faced south, and she wanted to see the windows in her grandfather’s house. It was silly, of course—a dream was just a nothing—but when she saw a sprinkling of yellow lights beyond the trees she sighed with relief.

  Emily took a drink of water and returned to her bedroom. Her mother was sitting on the side of the bed, watching the rain beat against the windows. “I feel like tucking you in,” she said. “Is that allowed?”

  Emily shrugged but climbed quickly under the covers. She lay very still while her mother folded the sheet neatly over the top of the blanket, then bent and kissed her on the forehead. “It’s going to be all right, Emily,” she said. “You have to give things time.” With a final pat, she drifted out of the bedroom, turning off the lamp as she went.

  It was amazing how once in a while her mother could zero in on trouble and other times be so unaware of what was going on. Not that she believed those comforting words, of course. Yesterday had been a disaster, and tomorrow would undoubtedly be another, but it was nice to know someone was concerned. Her mother was a good person. Most of the time she was better with babies than she was with eleven-year-olds, but she tried. That was important.

  Emily turned over in bed, dismissing the lightning that flashed across her closed lids. “I won’t think about Grandpa and I won’t think about Sally,” she whispered to herself. And surprisingly, she didn’t. When she woke again, blue sky sparkled outside her closed windows, and the bedroom was very warm.

  Emily’s father, who often made Sunday breakfast, was banging around in the kitchen when she went downstairs. Tony was in the backyard drying off his swing and slide with a clutch of paper towels, and Jane and Polly were in their playpen in the living room.

  Her father waved at her. “How are you today, Sunshine?”

  “Okay.” Emily sat down at the table, and he forked three pancakes onto her plate. She dropped a large pat of butter in the center and slid it around with her knife before pouring on maple syrup.

  “Still grumpy?”

  “I’m not grumpy.” Emily hunched over the pancakes and made a hole in the center to let the syrup pour in.

  Her father filled his own plate and sat down opposite her. “Your mother’s going to sleep late,” he said. “The storm kept her awake. I bet it kept Marjorie awake, too. They don’t have many like that in smoggy old L.A.”

  “Their lights were on,” Emily said and then could have bitten her tongue. She didn’t want her father to think she was spying—or interested.

  He didn’t seem to notice. “I think it would be a good idea if you went for that walk with your grandfather this morning,” he said. “Whatever else you were going to do can wait.”

  Emily scowled. “I don’t like walking.”

  “You could have fooled me. I thought you loved it.”

  “Well, I don’t want to today.” Emily’s father was killing her appetite. She thought about getting up and walking out, but when she looked up, she saw that his expression was serious. “I wish you’d do it, Emily. And I want you to make Marjorie feel welcome. Your mother thinks she may not be happy here, so far out in the country and everything so different from what she’s been accustomed to. Your mother thinks she could be quite miserable if we don’t all try to help.”

  How miserable? Miserable enough to go back to Los Angeles? Miserable enough to get a divorce? What was so terrible about that?

  You’d better care,” her father said, proving that, like her mother, he could read her mind once in a while. “If Marjorie decides she can’t stand country living, she might convince your grandfather that they ought to move into Milwaukee. Or even back to California. You wouldn’t like that, I’m sure.”

  Emily glared at him. “It wouldn’t happen,” she said. “Not in a hundred million years. Grandpa loves the country and he loves his house. He wouldn’t leave here, ever. He told me so lots of times.”

  “He didn’t have anyone else to think about then.” Her father refilled his coffee cup and stared into it as if he were reading the future. “Just keep that possibility in mind,” he said. “And behave yourself.”

  He picked up the sports section of the Sunday paper, and Emily saw that the conversation was over. For a moment her father had frightened her, but now she reminded herself of how her grandfather laughed when she asked him whether he would ever leave the house at the end of the road. What was it he had said? “I used to be a city boy, but Grandma Ellen loved it out here, and she taught me to love it, too. When your father and mother decided to build close by, that made it perfect.” He had thrown his arm around her and pulled her close to him. “I don’t have Grandma any more, but I have my family and I have this place. I’m still a lucky man. And I intend to stay right here the rest of my life.”

  How silly to think he would change his mind for squeaky-voiced Marjorie!

  Emily finished her breakfast and went outside, avoiding the backyard where Tony was making dive-bomber noises as he pumped the swing higher and higher. Usually when she wanted to get out from under her parents’ eyes, she could go to Christophers’ and spend hours with Sally, bicycling, listening to records, or just talking. But Sally was angry with her, and busy besides. She was writing a book. Just to think of it made Emily envious, and being envious of Sally made her feel like a really bad person.

  I have to have a project, too, she thought desperately. But what could it be? She couldn’t write well or paint, and she hated sewing and cooking except for the batches of cookies she made once a week for her grandfather’s cooky jar. Even those had been packaged mixes. What could an envious, ugly, friendless person with no talent do to fill up a summer?

  Emily walked to the clearing where she and Tony had talked yesterday and sat down on the same log to think. The woods were steamy after last night’s storm. Birdsong filled the air. Emily sat very still, her eyes on a stubby green jack-in-the-pulpit. This clearing is an island, she told herself. I am its princess. The people here are very happy because they’ve been waiting for years for an Indian princess who wears blue jeans to come and rule them. We’re going to live here together for ever and ever.

  Her eyes closed, and she imagined she could hear the voices of the happy people. Then there was laughter, real laughter, and her eyes flew open. Someone was walking along the other path that cut at an angle past this one and went down to the creek. Her grandfather’s tall figure came into sight through the trees, and Marjorie was beside him clinging to his arm. As Emily watched, Marjorie stumbled, and they both laughed again.

  “—get those walking shoes tomorrow,” her grandfather said. “You’re going to learn to love this before the summer is over.”

  Emily let out her breath in a shuddering sigh. When she leaned back to look up at the tree tops, teardrops ran into the corners of her mouth.

  If her grandfather only knew how she felt.… She stopped crying as she remembered what he always said when she felt sorry for herself. First he would hug her, and then he would say, “If you feel this bad, you’d better do something about it, Emily. You’re strong. You’re smart. Consider it an opportunity.”

  Emily blinked the tears away. All of a sudden the answer she needed was there, as clearly as if it were written in the sky above the tips of the birches. She had her project. She had something to do that was important. It was something she could never brag about (like writing a book), but it was really important.

  “The name of my project will be Getting Rid of Marjorie,” she said out loud for the birds and the jack-in-the-pulpit to hear.

  6 • The First Step

  “But I don’t want to go over to Jimmy’s,” Tony whined. “I’ve got things to do here.”

  “What things?” Emily glared at her brother.

  “I’m sorting my matchbooks. Daddy gave me a whole bunch of envelopes, and I’m going to put all the blue match-books—”

  “You can do that later. Jimmy’ll think you don’t like him any more.”