Dreadful Sorry (9 page)

"Get a big library table for that alcove at the other end," suggested Molly. She knew exactly the sort of table it should be: rectangular, made of oak, with carved legs. People could sit there and do puzzles in the evening. With a fire going and the window seat piled with cushions, the room would be really cozy. The cushions on the window seat would be covered with a woven tapestry pattern of flowers and vines in pinks and blues and grays. There would be a leather easy chair pulled up to the fire, with a little ottoman to prop your feet on. She could just see it all right now, as if—she sucked in her breath—as if she remembered it from somewhere.

The children did their lessons by the window.

Paulette glanced at her curiously but crossed to a door in the wall next to the fireplace. She flung open the door. "And here's where we've been living these past eight months since we moved in," she said, gesturing Molly inside with a flourish. "The study. This room will be off limits to guests. We're going to keep it as our private living room. What do you think?"

Molly bit back a scream.

She backed away, tripping over Paulette, and ran through the library out into the hallway. The staircase loomed above her, and she moaned, turning wildly this way and that, not knowing which way to run. Then she saw the front door and reached for the handle. She flung the door open and ran out into the cool evening air. She sucked great mouthfuls of it into her lungs. Paulette was right behind her, arms outstretched, crying her name.

"Oh,
Molly!
" She wrapped her arms around Molly when they reached the van. Molly didn't have the will to resist. She stood in the circle of Paulette's arms and sobbed.

She found herself crying: "I know that room! I've been there before!" She didn't know how it could be so, but she'd seen the same warm red of the Oriental carpet, the same polished surface of the big desk before. She knew the gray stone fireplace, knew that same acrid smell of smoke.

She was babbling aloud, almost without knowing it, to Paulette, who stood holding her close. "It's the same room, all the same furniture—
everything
the same," she kept repeating, as Paulette rubbed her back soothingly.

Finally Molly pulled away, exhausted and trembling. Paulette kept one hand on Molly's arm. "Listen," Paulette said. "Come back in with me, Molly. Come look at that room again. It's
nothing
like what you've described. There
is
no desk. There
is
no fireplace. I
wish
we had an Oriental carpet—but we
don't.
Come look!"

Molly hung back. "No, no, I can't go in there."

Paulette opened the van and reached for Molly's suitcases. "You can just stand in the doorway, okay? Just take one look. It's the only room in the house besides the kitchen and the two bedrooms that has any furniture in it at all. But it's not what you say, Molly." Her voice was breathless and bewildered. "I don't know what you saw, but it wasn't
our
room."

The dark shapes of trees on the headland offered no sense of sanctuary. Molly could hear the sound of the ocean hurling itself against rocks. Where could she go, if not back to the house? She reached for one of the big suitcases, but Paulette shrugged her off and struggled with both of them herself. Molly followed, holding her backpack in one trembling hand.

Paulette set the suitcases down at the foot of the big staircase. Then she and Molly walked back into the library and through the room to the door at the back. "Just one peek," urged Paulette. "You'll recognize the furniture all right, but it's not anything like what you described. It's the stuff from Billy's old New York apartment. Look—on the wall, there's the picture of him that you drew when you were a little girl. He's had it framed. I think the ears stick out a little too much, don't you? But it's so
cute!
"

Molly forced herself to look around the study. Sure enough, it was just as Paulette had said and just, in fact, as she remembered from her father's New York living room. The same old plaid couch, covered with the green afghan. The sagging green armchairs. The leaning bookshelves crammed to overflowing. A coffee table, cleared and polished in Molly's honor, no doubt, held a single vase with summer wildflowers. There was a television with a VCR in one corner and a shelf above the television holding stacks of videotapes. And there was, as Paulette had said, no fireplace at all.

"You're right," Molly said, embarrassment flooding her where only minutes before there had been pure terror. "You must think I'm really bizarre. I probably woke up Dad, too, when I yelled."

"I doubt it," said Paulette. "Those painkillers are pretty strong." She hesitated, then spoke again, her voice cautious. "Molly, I don't understand. You seem afraid here. Want to talk about it—whatever it is?" She regarded Molly with wide eyes.

"No," Molly whispered. "I'll be all right."

Paulette nodded. "Well, let's go upstairs now." Molly followed Paulette out of the study, through the library, and back into the hall. "Can you carry your small bag? I'll take the suitcases."

Molly slung the carry-on bag over her shoulder and followed Paulette, who struggled under the weight of Molly's heavy suitcases, up the stairs to the long hallway.
She's pregnant,
remembered Molly.
I shouldn't let her carry heavy things.

But she felt too weak to help, to speak, to do anything.
I'm becoming a zombie,
she thought. It sounded pathetic but seemed right on the mark. She kept her eyes down so she wouldn't see the long hall stretching before her.

Paulette opened the first door along the hallway and flicked on the light. "Here you go, Molly. It's pretty small, but this is the only bedroom besides ours that we've fixed up. I hope you like it."

Molly stumbled in and dropped her carry-on bag on the floor. She saw through bleary eyes that, though not large, the room was high-ceilinged and freshly papered in white with sprigs of daisies. The double bed had an ornate brass headboard, which gleamed in the soft overhead glow. There was a mahogany dresser with a vase of the same wildflowers Molly had seen down in the study. A small rolltop desk stood by the window. The floor was covered by a braided rag rug in many deep colors. "It's great," murmured Molly. "Thanks."

"The bathroom is right next door," continued Paulette. "But the shower doesn't work yet, so just use the bath." She hesitated. "Do you need anything else? Are you all right now?"

Molly sank onto the bed. "I'm fine. I'll be fine." She fingered the end of her braid and looked up at Paulette. Something more seemed to need saying. "I'm not always so weird," she offered. "Really."

Paulette smiled unconvincingly. "Well, sleep tight," she said. Then she closed the door. Molly heard her footsteps darting down the hall to the room she shared with Bill. Molly was so tired she couldn't even drag herself to the bathroom. She curled up right on top of the soft bedcover and fell immediately asleep.

Sometime in the middle of the night she awoke with a pressing need and left the room to use the toilet next door. Groggily she made her way back into her bedroom and climbed into the bed. She pulled the cover over her this time and settled her head on the soft pillows. As she drifted again into sleep, she thought she heard the sound of children's voices somewhere. The singing was soft and distant but all too clear: "
Oh my darlin', Oh my darlin', Oh my darlin', Clementine—

She sat bolt upright in bed, clutching the covers, straining to hear. But there was only silence. She waited another few minutes, listening, hardly daring to breathe, then at last lay down and pulled the pillow over her head. She must have been dreaming again.

Molly slept heavily until a hand shook her shoulder. Paulette stood at the side of her bed, wearing an oversized T-shirt with a picture of a panda on it. Her uncombed carrot-colored hair was spiky.

"Good morning!" Paulette crossed to the window and pulled back the long curtains. Sunlight flooded the room. "Rise and shine! I'm indulging our favorite invalid with breakfast in bed, and I've set up trays for you and me, too. How do you want your egg?"

Molly sat up groggily and pushed her hair out, of her face. It had fallen out of its braid. Her face was unwashed and her mouth felt fuzzy and horrible.

"Your dad's having a poached egg, but I'm having scrambled."

"I'll have scrambled, too." She yawned widely, then tossed back the covers. "Is it all right if I shower first?"

"The showers aren't installed yet, remember? You can have a bath, but it takes a while for the water to warm up, I'm afraid."

Molly followed Paulette out into the hall. In daylight the hallway seemed less forbidding, less like the one in her dreams. Sunlight from the tall window over the stairs made diamond patterns on the carpet.

In the bathroom Molly shed her clothes, then started water flowing into the funny old tub. The tub stood high on curved iron legs, its porcelain chipped in places, revealing rusted patches. When the water was warm enough, she stepped in gingerly and knelt on the bottom. She left the rubber plug for the drain hanging from its little chain so the Water would rush out almost as fast as it poured in. Leaning forward, she splashed water over herself with cupped hands. She grabbed a washcloth from the pile on the windowsill and washed her face. She ducked her head under the flow from the faucet and shampooed quickly, then turned off the water, expelling her pent-up breath in a gasp of relief. In less than five minutes total she was out of the tub, toweled dry, and dressed in jeans and a red West River Academy T-shirt. She'd managed it—almost a bath. But she eyed the tub warily and wondered whether they sold shower attachments for the faucet in such a little town.

Outside the window the June morning sparkled. The sun beat down on the headland, the gentle sea breeze stirred the long grasses around the house, and through the open bathroom window Molly could smell salt. The ocean must be very close.

She toweled her wet hair, bending from the waist to shake out the tangles. Then she braided her hair into her customary long tail and walked barefoot down the hall to the master bedroom. The door was open. Molly gave her father a hug. "How's your ankle?"

He was sitting up against several pillows, his blond hair tousled, blond stubble of a beard scratching her face when he squeezed back. "Oh, it's there. I didn't sleep very well." He patted the bed and she sat on the edge.

"I didn't either, with this great lummox flailing around next to me," said Paulette, reaching over to ruffle Bill's thinning hair. He grabbed her fingers and kissed them.

Paulette set their breakfast on tray tables near the bed. There was a stack of toast, little jars of jam, an egg each, orange juice, and three small bowls of blueberries. "The blueberries grow right here on the, headland," she told Molly. "I picked these this morning. They're great with milk and a little sugar."

"Thanks." Molly drank her juice. Paulette poured them each a cup of mint tea. Bill stretched, shifting his ankle with a groan, then settled back on his pillows.

"So, Molly, how did
you
sleep?" he asked. From the significant look he exchanged with Paulette, Molly knew her stepmother had told him all about Molly's unusual reaction to the house the night before.

She pleated the bedspread between her fingers. "I just don't know what's going on with me, Dad.
But it's not only here. Things were weird at home, but I thought coming here would help. Looks like it hasn't."

"Since when have things been...
weird
at home, honey?" asked her father. "Since your accident?"

"I'm not so sure it was an accident," she muttered.

"But what kind of weird?"

"Well, you know the bad dream I've always had? It used to come just once in a while, but not anymore. Now I'm having bad dreams all the time. They're making me crazy."

Bill Teague looked concerned. "What brings on the dreams, Molly? Stress? I know Jen keeps your nose to the grindstone—"

"No, it isn't really anything to do with Mom." Molly hated it when her parents criticized each other. "Things started getting worse a few weeks ago, you know—when I got caught lying about passing the swim test, I think." The humiliation still felt fresh. "That night I had the dream again. First time in a long time. And then every night. It was hellish, Dad. Swim lessons by day, nightmares by night." She forked up some egg. "Look, let's not talk about it. I'm trying to forget."

Paulette had been sitting quietly, sipping her tea. Now she spoke up. "Recurring dreams come to us for a reason, you know. And I bet there's some connection between the swimming lessons and the dreams. If we were in San Francisco, I could take you to this great therapist who does dreamwork,
Molly. I don't know about Maine—they might not have that sort of thing here."

Molly buttered a piece of toast.
Dreamwork!
Jen would get a kick out of the word. It was so very Californian.

Bill saw her expression and put his hand on hers. "Let's drop it," he said. "You're here now and under no stress at all." He tried for a joke. "You just relax and strip wallpaper. What could make for a better summer?" Then he looked serious. "You should explore the village. Maybe you'll make some new friends."

"Oh!" exclaimed Paulette. "Bill, that reminds me—the phone call!" She turned to Molly. "I forgot to tell you last night that your friend called."

"My friend? What friend?"
Kathi sure didn't give up easily.

"It was a boy. Nice, deep voice. Jonathan or Jason or something." Paulette giggled nervously at Molly's anxious face. "He sounded very nice. Said he was a friend of yours and planned to do some traveling up here this summer. He was hoping we needed somebody to work on the house."

"Oh, my God, was it
Jared?
Was his name Jared Bernstein?"

"That boy!" exclaimed Bill.

Paulette hesitated. "I think that was the name..."

"When did he call?" Molly wailed. "How could he have known I was here?"

Paulette sank into a green armchair, looking drained, as if having Molly as a guest was proving to be more exhausting than she'd anticipated. "Well, let's see," she began, running her hands through her hair. "We were papering the dining room and the phone rang in the study. I went in to answer, and it was this boy. He sounded ... well,
nice.
He said to say hello to you when you got in."