Daughters of Eve (21 page)

"I don't 'bang away,'" Holly said.

"Oh, you don't, huh?" Mr. Underwood said in amusement. "I'll tell you, Miss Hollyhock, when I come home from work at night this house is shaking like there's an earthquake going on. I'm thinking of selling that blasted instrument just to get some peace and quiet"

"You can't sell the piano," Holly said. "It belongs to Mother."

"What's hers is mine as long as she lives in my house."

"No, it isn't," Holly told him coldly. "Not if it's something "she owned before you were married. That's not the way the community property law works."

"Well, aren't you the smart one," her father said. "'Smart' meaning 'sassy.' What are they teaching you over at that school, anyway, how to be a lawyer?"

"I don't like to hear you talk back to your father like that, Holly," Mrs. Underwood said. "You know he's just kidding around."

"No, he's not, Mom. He really thinks he has a right to everything in this house just because he makes the mortgage payment." Holly shoved her chair back from the table. "Excuse me. I've got to hunt up my library book. It's due back today."

"What's with her these days?" Mr. Underwood asked when his daughter had left the room. "She's grown quills like a porcupine. You can't joke with her about anything without getting a face full of stickers."

"Maybe she's coming down with something," his wife said. "She looks sort of flushed and funny." She paused. "Or maybe it's just the age. I was talking to Jean Brummell the other day, and she was saying it's the same thing with Paula. She was always such a sweet, well-adjusted girl and all of a sudden this year she's just gone haywire."

Mr. Schneider left for work at 7:35 A.M.

At 7:38 he was back in the house again, the snow on his shoes dripping rivulets onto the kitchen linoleum, shouting, "Fran, come down here! What the hell have you been doing with my car!"

"Harry, please," Mrs. Schneider protested. "Boyd is still sleeping."

"I don't give a damn who's sleeping, I want to know where that girl went last night." He crossed to the middle of the kitchen and raised his voice in a bellow that caused his wife to cover her ears. Trances, do you hear me? I want you downstairs right now!"

"I'm here, Dad," Fran said, appearing in the doorway. "I was feeding the rats. What's the matter?"

"The matter is that half the paint is scraped off my car," Mr. Schneider said angrily. "Where did you take it last night? That sure didn't happen over at the pet store."

"I'm sorry," Fran said. "I don't know what could have scratched it."

"Well, you'd better start thinking. This isn't the sort of damage caused by some car clipping you in a parking lot. It looks as though you went driving through a patch of bramble bushes."

"There's a bush of some kind by the side of the Carncrosses' driveway," Fran told him. "I guess I could have pulled in too close when I stopped for the forms for the science fair."

"It's not one side that's scratched up, it's two!"

"Well, maybe there were two bushes."

"And maybe there weren't any. You can't make me believe that happened by pulling into somebody's driveway. You had that car out in the woods, now, didn't you?"

"In the woods!" Fran exclaimed. "Why would I go there?"

"That's a darned good question. Why would you?"

"I didn't."

"Then where did you go?"

"I already told you. To the Pet Emporium and then to the Carncrosses'."

"Would you like me to phone Mr. Carncross and check on that?"

"You can if you want to. I don't care." Fran took off her glasses and breathed on them and began to polish them with the front of her blouse. Without the rims to give emphasis, her eyes looked suddenly very small and pale, overpowered by the length and sharpness of her nose.

Mrs. Schneider said, "If you'd only let us get you contacts, you'd be able to wear mascara. It would make such a difference in your looks, Franny."

"We're not discussing Fran's looks, we're discussing my car," Mr. Schneider said.

"Well, if she says she took it to Carncrosses', that's where she took it" Mrs. Schneider regarded her husband reprovingly. "It's a terrible thing to accuse your own daughter of lying, Harry. Fran's never given us any cause to doubt her word. If she doesn't know how the scratches got there, then she doesn't know, and all the yelling in the world isn't going to make her suddenly come up with an answer."

"I'm really sorry, Dad," Fran said. "I'll save up and have the car repainted."

"I never asked you to do that."

"But I want to do it. It's your car, and I got it scratched up, and I owe you a paint job. Now, can I go up and clean those cages before I have to leave for school?"

"Oh, go ahead. I don't have time to go into this any further. Tonight, when I get home, I'm going to ask you about it again. You think about that during the day, all right? See if you can't revise the story so that it rings true."

"There isn't anything different to tell you," Fran said, putting her glasses back on.

She left the room, and her parents could hear her footsteps as she ascended the stairs. The footsteps went down the upstairs hall, and they heard the door of her bedroom close.

"She was lying," Mr. Schneider said bluntly.

"I imagine she was."

"You imagine—what?" Harry Schneider turned to his wife in amazement. "Then why the hell did you give me that speech about how Fran's word is to be trusted and all that guff? Do you know something about this situation that I don't?"

"No, nothing. It's just that, Harry, you know as well as I do no girl drives out and parks in the woods by herself."

"You mean, you think—"

"She was with a boy. It has to be that. Eighteen years old, and she's finally got a boyfriend! If you do one thing, one single thing, to mess this up, I swear, I'll never speak to you again as long as I live."

"Our daughter's sneaking out on a school night, lying to her parents, and parking with some creep who doesn't even have his own car, and you're happy about it?" Harry Schneider shook his head in bewilderment. "You've got to be crazy."

"She's a normal young girl who has fallen in love."

"You don't know a thing about who this guy is or what he might be doing to her."

"Fran isn't stupid, dear. She's waited a long time for this. She isn't about to go out and pick somebody awful." Mrs. Schneider put a hand on her husband's arm. "We've worried about her for so long, about this freaky thing of hers about wanting to be a scientist. That bedroom full of rats! I have nightmares about it. I wake up at night, and I'm afraid to walk to the bathroom for fear one of them has gotten out and is running around in the hall somewhere. You've kept telling me it was just a stage and she'd outgrow it. Well, maybe she has. Wouldn't that be wonderful!"

"But why can't she tell us about him? Why can't she bring him home and introduce us to him?"

"She will when she's ready. She's probably shy about it. Fran's awfully young for her age in a lot of ways. Why, when I was eighteen, you and I were already engaged!"

"We were?" Mr. Schneider's voice softened. "Were you really that young, Barb?"

"Of course, I was. Don't you even remember?" Barbara Schneider sighed. "All I want for Franny is for her to find somebody like you and marry him and be as happy as I've been. Is that too much to ask for your only daughter?"

"Mom," Niles said, "something's the matter with Pete."

"What do you mean, 'something's the matter'? Is he sick?"

"I guess so. He won't get out of bed."

Edna Grange turned from the stove to face her second son. It always upset her when things went wrong in the morning. Mornings were harried times under the best of circumstances. George's alarm went off at 5:00; a series of breakfasts followed, and then everyone took off at a different time. When she stood over the stove frying eggs, her brain still dull with sleep, she did not need anything further to distract her.

"Is he sick?" she asked again.

"Well, he's something. How do I know what's wrong with him? He's lying in bed, and he won't get up."

"He was out too late."

"No, it's more than that. Mom—" Niles was really concerned. Niles was concerned about so few things that she had to react. "Something happened to him last night. You know how he went out for a while?"

"Not just for 'a while.' Dad and I were asleep by the time he came in."

"So was I, and I didn't hit the sack till after midnight. He was out real late. I never even heard him come in. And this morning when I got up he was lying there with his head wrapped up in a bath towel."

"With his head in a bath towel!" Now she was hearing him clearly. "Why in the world—?"

"He won't talk to me. Something happened to him. Mother"—Niles never called her "Mother," even on Mother's Day cards—"come up and talk to him. You can't just go off to work and leave him like this. Something's wrong, and I mean really!"

"Okay, hon, I'm coming." She took off her apron in an automatic gesture. When you cooked breakfast in the clothes you were wearing to work, you wore an apron, and you removed it the moment you left the stove. "Ruthie, you finish the eggs, will you? You know Eric wants the yolk to be solid."

"Sure, Mom. I know." Ruth moved smoothly in behind her with the ease of long experience.

"Okay, Niles, come on."

The second-floor bedroom that the older boys shared was dimmer than the kitchen. The blinds had been deliberately pulled against the glare of the morning light. There was one empty bed with blankets draped to the floor. The other contained a figure.

"Peter, what's the matter?"

"Go away."

"Petey?" She went over to the end of the bed and stood, gazing, down at the blanket-covered form. "Pete, what's with you? It's almost time for school."

"I'm not going."

"Of course you're going. You have to go to school." She paused. There was no answer. She moved in closer. "Pete, what's wrong with you?"

"I'm sick."

"How are you sick? Do you think you have a fever?"

"Mom, get out of here."

"Don't you dare tell me to get out of your room. I'm your mother." She tried to keep her voice steady and conversational in tone. "Niles is worried about you, and, now, so am I. What's that on your head?"

"A towel."

"Take it off. What's the matter with your head that you don't want us to see it?"

"Mom, I'm sick."

"You've already told me that, and I believe you." She went around and sat down on the bed and put her hands on the sides of his head, turning it gently so that she could see his face. She caught her breath. "You've been crying! Look, sweetie, I want to know what's wrong. I'm not leaving this house until I find out what this is all about."

"Okay, okay, so you want to see it." He shoved her hands away and sat up. He reached up and unwound the towel and let it drop to his lap. "Okay. Now you know. Are you satisfied?"

"Good God!" Edna Grange had never used the Lord's name in vain in her entire life. Now, she did so without even realizing it. "My God, what happened?"

"I got mugged."

"Somebody jumped on you?"

"It wasn't just one guy, it was a bunch of them. If it had been just one or even two I could have defended myself, but this was a mob."

"I can't believe it! How could anybody be so horrible!" She reached instinctively once more for his head, and he jerked quickly back from her touch. "Honey, I just want to help. Does it hurt?"

"Goddamn, of course, it hurts! It makes me want to throw up! I did throw up for about an hour after I got home." His voice was shaking. "The damned bastards, they shaved off my hair!"

"But, they didn't hurt you—"

"What land of hurt are you talking about? I'd rather they'd broken all my ribs. Mom, there's no way I can go back to school like this. Look at me! First they cut it with shears, and then they had a battery-operated razor and they kept going back and forth with it like they were making some sort of checkerboard."

"Oh, honey. Oh, Petey." She had to restrain herself from putting her arms around him as she had when he was a little child. "Who was it who did this to you?"

"I don't know. I never saw them before."

"Where did it happen?" Niles's voice came, quiet and controlled, from the back of the room. "Was it down at the creek?"

"Yeah."

"Where you went to meet Bambi?"

"Bambi wasn't there. It was these guys instead."

"But she wrote the note."

"I said, it wasn't her!" His voice rose sharply. "I told you yesterday that didn't look like Bambi's handwriting. Somebody faked me out. Somebody pretended Bam wanted to see me to lure me down there where they could jump me with nobody around."

"Why would anybody do that?" Niles asked matter-of-factly. "Did they take your wallet?"

"I don't know." Peter lifted the towel and began to wrap it again around his head. "I guess they must have."