Lost in Cyberspace (13 page)

We had toad-in-the-hole for dinner and jam roly-poly for dessert. Not a bad meal, but it was like trying to digest a giant hockey puck. We all turned in early, especially Heather. But I was up and down most of the night.

Also, I was monitoring Heather.

At eleven by my digital clock, she was out of bed and bumping quietly around her room. I had my ear to my door. By eleven-fifteen I was back in bed pretending to be asleep because Heather was heading down the hall and might be planning to use my bathroom. Her bathroom is right next to Mom's room.

Heather cracked my door. This must have been eleven-sixteen. I was breathing steady. She crept across the room to my bathroom. I heard her new dress rustle and smelled Mom's perfume. Heather didn't turn the light on in my bathroom till she'd closed the door.

I slid out of bed and put an ear to the keyhole. Heather was whispering. She'd brought her phone.

“I'm dressed,” she said. “I'm like ready to rock. No, I can't talk louder. I'm in Josh's bathroom. Who is he? He's my little brother. I'm wearing heels. Are you wearing heels? How high? I'm wearing blush. Are you wearing ...”

It went on like that. Then she said, “Okay, but when you get here, knock softly. I'll be waiting by the door. Come in with your shoes off. You can change in my room. We can take a cab from here.” Then she signed off.

I had time to get back into bed because she was doing something at my sink and probably looking at herself in my mirror. Then the bathroom door cracked. She was pretty quiet. I'll give her credit for that. I let her get right by my bed.

Then I said, “How's Camilla getting out?”

My voice came out of the dark, so it probably sounded louder than it was. Heather stifled a scream. I flipped on my lamp.

There she stood with her hand clapped over her mouth. Her eyes were huge and all made up. Her hair was practically standing up from shock. But she'd done something funny and new with it anyway. She had on her new party dress. Black, of course. The skirt was so short it reminded me of the Hefty bag she wore downtown to Fenella's club. She was carrying her shoes and her phone.

“If you rat on me, I'll have your guts for garters,” she barked in a loud whisper. I eased up on my pillow. “Hey, I'm sound asleep. But how's Camilla getting out? Just curious.”

Heather sighed. “She told her parents she was spending the night with her grandmother who lives around the corner on Seventy-second. Getting out of her grandmother's place is a piece of cake. Her grandmother's real old. She goes to bed early. But she's a light sleeper, so Camilla's going to get dressed here. Josh, if I miss this party, my life's over. It's that simple. So put a sock—”

“I'm fast asleep.” I laced my fingers under my chin and closed my eyes. But I was still sitting up and the light was on. Heather crept out of the room.

I turned out the light. Sometimes you can hear better in the dark. Around eleven-thirty I was drifting off when I heard a quiet knock on the front door. Then some rustling. I dozed, but something brought me around. My clock said eleven-fifty. It must have been the front door closing behind Heather and Camilla. They'd be out by the elevator now, putting on their shoes. I drifted off again.

A sharp rap knocked me awake at eleven-fifty-four. Somebody was outside Mom's door.

“Madam,” Phoebe said.

I rolled out of bed and cracked my door. Phoebe was still in her uniform. She even had her apron on, tied behind. She was still knocking.

Mom mumbled. She works a full day, so she's tireder at night than Heather.

Phoebe opened Mom's door. The light went on, and I could see a section of Mom trying to sit up. Her hair was in a big tangle.

“Oh, madam, I thought you might require help dressing,” Phoebe said.

“I'm dressed,” Mom said in a fuzzy voice. “For bed.”

“But, madam, I thought you'd be attending the party. Miss Heather has already left.” My jaw dropped. Mom bolted up.

“What party?”

“At a Mr. Junior Saltonstall's, I believe,” Phoebe said.

Mom was grabbing around for her robe. “Wake up Josh,” she said.

I made a run for my bed, dived in, and got the covers up. The room flooded with light. I was breathing steady.

“Josh,” Mom said.

I put one eye over the cover and squinted. Mom was standing over me, knotting her robe belt. Phoebe was there, her hands cupped. “But, madam,” she said, “I merely assumed you'd be going to the party as well, to chaperone. Surely young girls don't go to parties without their mothers.”

She sounded innocent, even a little bewildered. But there was something sly in her eye.

“Josh, what do you know about this?”

“Who, me?”

“Talk to me,” Mom said in her firm voice.

“Heather said if I told, she'd have my guts for—”

“I'm listening, Josh,” Mom said.

“Junior Saltonstall is having a party at his house, with upper-school guys. Heather has a new dress. She went.”

“The Elise and Howard Saltonstalls?” Mom asked.

“I should think so, madam,” Phoebe said. “I took the liberty of looking them up in the telephone directory. They are the only Saltonstalls. On Sixty-fifth Street.”

“I thought they were in the Caribbean,” Mom said.

“They are,” I said. “That's why Junior's having a party.”

I can read Mom's mind. It was full of drugs, alcohol, and upper-school guys breaking the Saltonstalls' furniture.

“And Heather's out by herself in the middle of the night, heading for that—”

“She's not by herself,” I said. “Camilla's with her.”

“Camilla?” Phoebe said. She put a hand out on the end of my bed.

“Camilla told her parents she was staying at her grandmother's on Seventy-second. When her grandmother went to sleep, Camilla came over here to change clothes. It was an airtight plan.” I checked my clock. “They've only been gone about ten minutes.” It was midnight on the nose.

Mom stared away at my ceiling. “This single parenting is a twenty-four-hour-a-day deal,” she said. She's thirty-eight, so around then I guess you start talking to yourself.

“All right, Josh,” she said. “Get up and get dressed. You and I are going to a party.”

“Mom, if Heather finds out I—”

“Up, Josh. We're going to bring Heather home. I want you to see this so-called party for yourself in case you ever think of having one.”

Mom stalked out of the room, running hands through her hair.

But Phoebe stayed stone-still at the foot of my bed. “Miss Camilla,” she said softly. “Is she a Van Allen?”

I nodded. “And she really lets you know it.”

“The Van Allen family live just next door to the Vanderwhitneys, you know. They used to.”

“Right,” I said. “Now it's all classrooms.”

“Mrs. Van Allen, the Mrs. Van Allen of that time, was named Camilla too,” Phoebe said, her mind going years back. “But of course that was all long ago, wasn't it?”

And her hand slipped into the collar of her dress.

Mom was more or less dressed, and I was in my Bulls warm-up jacket. We were zooming down Fifth Avenue in a cab. It was a cold night, but Mom was hot under the collar. She'd actually told the cabby to step on it.

Then we were on our way up in the elevator in the Saltonstalls' building. You could hear the party from here. When the elevator door opened, the party had already spilled out into the hall. Girls and guys all over the place. And enough smoke to pollute your lungs permanently. Everybody had drinks in their hands, and they weren't Snapple.

Some silence fell when Mom and I got off the elevator. I was too young, and she was way too old. She had my hand in a death grip. But I was looking around. After all, this was my first party.

The front door of the Saltonstalls' apartment was open. Inside, it was wall-to-wall preppies and pounding heavy-metal sound. Some people were kind of dancing, but there wasn't a lot of room. When they saw us, they cleared a little path, and Mom kept walking. She had parent written all over her.

“Hey, Junior,” somebody said. “Looks like you've got a couple of gate-crashers.”

Out of the crowd a guy loomed up, a big sixteen in a damp shirt. He was wearing the official necktie of a well-known boarding school as a belt. And he had a six-pack in each hand. His face was blurred. Junior Saltonstall. “Who do you think—”

Mom shoved him aside.

The living room was a real mob scene. I didn't know you could get that many people into one apartment. The light wasn't too good. The smoke was terrible. Almost everybody was in black, and preppies look a lot alike anyway. The pictures were still on the wall, but the night was young.

Then we saw them. Heather and Camilla were over against a wall, kind of clinging to each other. They were pretty young for this crowd. Their dresses fitted in better than they did. They didn't look like they were having that great a time. I couldn't see how anybody could be having a great time. With the noise and the smell and the crowds, it was like the subway.

“Heather,” Mom said.

Heather's made-up eyes enlarged and began to melt. She tried to turn invisible, but her back was to the wall.

“Who
are
those people?” Camilla said. Her pale eyebrows shot up. “Omigosh, it looks like your mother and Jake. Oh, how embarrassing for you, Heather. Couldn't you just die?”

“Mom,” Heather said, completely confused. “What am I doing here?”

 

The next thing I remember, we were in a cab, zooming back uptown. Mom had Heather on one side of her and Camilla on the other. I was practically on the floor.

Heather was getting over the shock and beginning to sulk. Camilla was trying for cool. “Terribly sweet of you to give me a ride home, Mrs. Lewis. But honestly I'll be fine. Grannie knows all about the party. She doesn't expect me back for ages.”

“In a pig's eye,” Mom said.

We pulled up at Camilla's grandmother's place and got out. She lives in that building on Seventy-second that looks like a cathedral. Tall pointed stained-glass windows and a big, dim lobby with polished wood. The doorman was seven feet tall and had gold braid on his shoulders.

“I am afraid, madam,” he said down to Mom, “that Mrs. Van Allen has retired for the evening.”

“Wake her up. I'm delivering her granddaughter to her,” Mom said brief and firm. “In person.”

“Mrs. Van Allen's maid will have retired too, madam,” the doorman said. He was also firm. “And she is hard of hearing.”

“That's right,” Camilla said. “Gladys is as hearing-impaired as a post. She's lots deafer than Grannie. She won't hear a thing. I'll just say good night to you here and—”

“Don't budge, young lady,” Mom said to Camilla. “Keep ringing till somebody answers,” she told the doorman.

“On your head be it, madam,” he said. But he dialed the house phone.

After a lot of rings he was saying, “Mrs. Van Allen, I have a lady in the lobby who wishes to return your granddaughter.” He gave us a glance. “No, Camilla is not in her bed. She's in the lobby and dressed for a night on the town.”

Camilla propped her hair behind her ears and looked into space.

“Very good, Mrs. Van Allen. I'll instruct them to wait.” He hung up. “Mrs. Van Allen will see you in ten minutes exactly. You may take a seat.”

It was a long carved bench. Heather wouldn't sit next to me because I'd ratted on her. Mom wouldn't let Heather and Camilla sit together. So it was Heather, then Mom, then Camilla, then me. Heather and Camilla's feet were killing them in those high heels. But nobody spoke. It was one in the morning. I thought being out this late was interesting.

Then the doorman gave us a nod and walked us to the elevator. Camilla was all out of small talk. Heather was still sulking. Her black eyeliner was sliding down her blush. The elevator rose to the Van Allen floor.

Camilla led the way to her grandmother's door, but she was in no hurry. “I forgot my key,” she said in a small voice. But the door was opening anyway.

 

At first her grandmother was just a dark shape. You could only see her hand. It was real old, just a bunch of bones and veins. An old-fashioned wedding ring and engagement ring were loose on one finger. She was clutching a cane.

The cane came up and aimed at Camilla. “You, young miss,” said an ancient voice. “Into your room at once. You will be dealt with later.”

Camilla scampered inside, and the apartment swallowed her up. Mrs. Van Allen was still just a dark shape. She saw the three of us out in the hall. Her hand shook. The cane nearly got away from her, but she gripped it.

“Mrs. Lewis?” she said to Mom.

Mrs. Van Allen's gaze swept over us. Her glasses were like nickels winking in the dark. She wore something long and black like a shroud. But it could have been her robe.

“We don't like to disturb you,” Mom said, “but I wanted to deliver Camilla to you safe and ... sound.”

“Very kind of you, I'm sure,” Mrs. Van Allen said. “But then, you always were.” There was the ghost of an English accent in her voice. “Come into the drawing room for a moment. It is so gloomy out here, and I see so dimly now.”

She turned around and expected us to follow. Heather hung back, but we did. Mrs. Van Allen needed her cane, but her back was straight. In the dimness her hair glowed white. It was smooth against her old head with a knot behind.