Tangled Webb (8 page)

I said, “Is Kelsey going to the hospital?” in this dumb voice that sounded like I was standing in a cave or something.

Daddy stared at me a second and then came around to my chair and gave me a bear hug. “No! Put it out of your mind, Juni! Kelsey's perfectly all right.” He looked straight in my eyes until I knew I could believe him, then he rubbed his beard against my ear the way he used to when I was a little kid. “The fact is, she's going to have a baby.”

“A baby!” I went straight from being scared to being flabbergasted. I don't know why—it's not unheard of, when people get married. But I just couldn't seem to take it in. A baby—Daddy's and Kelsey's—a brand-new person, right here in this house. My little half sister or half brother. I finally said, “When?”

“Not till way next winter. We weren't going to say anything yet, but I don't want you worrying. It explains a lot of things, you see? Just don't mention it till she's ready.” He went back to sit down. “Let's finish dinner. Okay by you, Preston?”

Well, Preston hadn't really let anything interrupt him. He
had
finished, and was beginning to decorate his high chair tray, and the floor, with little dabs of leftover carrots, which yanked me back to the present in a hurry. Getting him and the floor wiped up helped me settle down inside, and trying to picture him becoming a
big
brother, next winter, to some little scrap of a baby, got me clear over being scared. It wasn't really me I'd got scared for anyway, it was Daddy. I just couldn't stand the idea of the same thing happening to him for the
second
time. Or to Preston even once.

Well, it's not going to. Kelsey's okay. She came downstairs even before Daddy and I had got all the stuff in the dishwasher. It was just one of her funny spells. And maybe the baby explains them all, even the one at dinner, but I can't see how. I thought people having babies just craved pickles and upchucked in the early morning.

But what else
could
have brought this on? That woman on the escalator yelling “robbers”? I can't imagine it. Unless Kelsey thinks I'm really a shoplifter.

Or—could
she
be a shoplifter?

I remember Alison had that idea once. No, she said “kleptomaniac.” I guess it's the same, as far as the store is concerned.
Except I think a kleptomaniac's family usually always pays for what they take, so they won't go to jail. Where did I read that?

I better go see Alison tomorrow. We've got to talk.

SUNDAY, JULY 14

I called Alison first thing this morning and let the phone ring about eighteen times before I remembered she and her mom had gone to the coast. They were going to leave at the crack of dawn and stay
all day
and drive back tonight. Church and a family reunion some place near Cannon Beach, where her grandmother lives. So I can't see her till tomorrow. Oh, well. I'm going to help Daddy mow the lawn.

Later

I wish I had something
real
to do. Our yard's not big enough to keep two people busy for even an hour. And mowing's not complicated enough to get your mind off anything else. Like Preston having a little sister or brother next winter. Two tiny little kids in the house—it'll sort of make me one of the grownups. Except to the grown-ups, maybe.
They'll
still think of me as a kid—too young for this or that or the other—unless I do something kiddish, and then they'll tell me I'm a lot too old to pull a stunt like that, so cut it out.

I wonder how I'll think of myself? As the baby-sitter, maybe.

Now it's clouded up and beginning to drizzle, so no use going to the pool.

Daddy's working on accounts. Kelsey's putting Preston down for his nap. Alison's at the coast. And all I can do is
think
. And not just about the baby.

What I keep thinking about is coming in from the yard this morning to get a Coke and Kelsey—real casual,
extra
casual—asking what that woman yesterday looked like. The woman on the escalator.

I said, “I don't know. We couldn't remember, later.”

She was fixing some salad for lunch, and didn't look around at me, just kind of laughed and said, “You must have noticed
something.”

“Not really. Well, we both thought she had on a red blouse, or maybe jacket, but I thought she had black hair and Alison thought brown. And we couldn't decide if she had a purse—I got the idea she maybe worked in the store.”

Kelsey said, “Oh! Maybe that—maybe so.”

I waited, but she didn't go on, and I remembered something else and said, “She had kind of heavy eyebrows.”

No answer. Kelsey was concentrating hard on the salad, bending over with her front hair practically covering her eyes. After a minute I went ahead and got my Coke and one for Daddy, and opened them, and put replacements into the refrigerator, and was about to start out when she said, “Of course, a lot of people do.” It left me blank a second, and she added, “Have heavy eyebrows.”

“Oh. Yeah, they do,” I said, and waited some more, but she finished the salad then, and stuck it in the fridge and then started washing her hands and humming as if she was all through with the subject, and it wasn't making her nervous at all.

Oh, no. Not much it isn't. Margo could have played that whole scene and convinced me she was just making idle conversation. But Kelsey is
no good
at acting. She's still worrying her head off about that woman. And it's the
woman herself
, not the shoplifting part, that's on her mind.

I wonder why. Just a stranger on an escalator wearing a red jacket. With heavy eyebrows. Maybe
she's
Character C.

I'm sure tired of
thinking
. I wish I had a job.

Lots later—after midnight

She thinks she knows her. That's the only answer. She thinks that woman is somebody from her other life—before last January—before Kelsey Morgan Blockman started having some I.D. and being alive.

But why would a woman from Kelsey's other life be gawking at my sandals, and why would she say “robbers”? That's such a dumb thing to yell at somebody.

Maybe she wasn't looking at my sandals. All I'm really sure of is—she was staring at the stroller. So what if she was looking at
Preston?

Then what if she didn't say “robbers” at all, just something that sounded like it?

Like—what if she said “Robert”?

THURSDAY, JULY 18

Alison and I have been
haunting
the mall. Without Preston, unfortunately. Kelsey clamped down again on our taking him along—the very next day after I told the “robbers” story. He got too hot that day, she says. It isn't good for him to get hot like that. Well, today it happens to be a fearsome seventy-three degrees out, with a nice cool breeze, but never mind. No mall for Preston, probably from now on.

She can't risk that woman being there again and spotting him. Which is exactly what
we want
—so we can find out who the woman is and why she yelled “Robert!” If she did.

We'll just have to watch for her without him. For all we know, she'll never go into Grover Brothers' store again in her life. But that's the only place we know to look for her, so we go every day, and ride up and down the escalators, and keep our eyes peeled. To tell you the truth, it's getting pretty boring.

“Maybe she yelled ‘robbers' after all,” I told Alison today when we gave up and slouched over to the Orange Julius place for lunch. I was feeling kind of discouraged.

“Listen, I've got an idea,” Alison said. Alison's always got an idea, especially when she thinks you're about to poop out on her.

“None of our ideas work,” I said.

“This one will. Get Preston away by himself this afternoon and try calling him ‘Robert'! See if he acts like it's his name.”

“I already
did
that. Right after breakfast Monday morning. Before I even told you about my theory.”

“How come you didn't say so?” Alison looked real hurt.

“Well, it didn't work, so what was the use? At first I thought it had. I took him out to his sandpile and got sort of behind him, and suddenly said, ‘Robert,' and he looked around right away. But then I decided I'd better test it, so a minute later I got behind him and said, ‘Johnnie.' Well, he looked around
again
. Then I tried ‘Mickey' and ‘Hey, you,' but he looked around whatever I called him. Of course by then he thought it was a real funny new kind of game.”

“Oh,” said Alison. We drank Orange Juliuses and thought awhile, staring past each other's shoulder. Finally Alison said, “Who could she be, that woman? If she said ‘Robert' she
recognized
Preston.”

“Somebody who knew him before. Who knew Kelsey before.”

“She's bound to be from out of town, then. So maybe she's already gone back, and that's why we can't find her.”

“Unless she's stuck around in hopes of seeing Preston again,” I said. “But if she wanted to see him again why didn't she rush right down the escalator after us? We were hanging around down there in plain sight—but she just took off somewhere. That doesn't fit at all.” The whole thing was making me cross.

“Maybe she was too shocked. Maybe she fainted or something, and couldn't follow us!”

“Come on. Why would just seeing Preston make her faint?”

“Well . . .” Alison said slowly, “suppose she's his real
mother. Suppose Kelsey stole him from her. I've heard of people doing that—people who want babies real bad and finally just
take
one.”

I thought about it, but not long. “She was too old to be Preston's mother. She looked older than Daddy.”

“Well, maybe his real mother is somebody else, but this woman
knows
her—and knows her little boy was stolen.”

“That's possible,” I said, and then I knew it wasn't. “It's
not
possible. Preston looks so much like Kelsey he's practically a Xerox. He calls her ‘Mama' and that's who she is—his mama. We're on the wrong track.”

Alison nodded and gave a big sigh. “So maybe the woman didn't yell ‘Robert' after all. Heck. It was such a neat theory. I guess she's not Character C.”

“Well, listen, she might've recognized him for some other reason. Maybe—maybe she's a police officer or a detective or something, and recognized Preston because she'd seen him with Kelsey. Maybe she's a
store
detective, transferred to Oregon from wherever she worked before—”

“—wherever Kelsey comes from,” Alison put in.

“Yeah! And Kelsey shoplifted something there, or maybe a lot of things, and fled to Oregon to evade capture and—”

I heard myself beginning to sound like a piece in the newspaper and wondered if I was just inventing our mystery plot again.

But Alison said, “That really is possible. It would explain everything. I wonder how we could check it?”

“Her clothes?” I said. I was just guessing. “Maybe they'd have out-of-town labels if she stole them.”

“Even if she
didn't
!” Alison cried. She gave a little bounce, all excited again. “Why didn't we think of it before? I'll bet
something
she owns has a label from whatever store she got it
at, in whatever town she came from! All you have to do is go through her closet.”

Oh, that's all. First her wallet, now her closet. It's all very well for Alison—she doesn't have to do any of these rotten things, she just tells
me
to do them.

Of course, it's
my
stepmother we're investigating. It's my problem. So I guess I'll do it. Maybe tomorrow evening. Daddy and Kelsey are going out, and I'm baby-sitting.

FRIDAY NIGHT, JULY 19

There's not a single label in any of Kelsey's clothes. Even her sweaters and winter coat. Except in a couple of shirts she got just recently—and all they say is “100% cotton, wash separately, line-dry.” And of course the Levi's label on her jeans. But no store labels. I think there used to be one in her coat, and she cut it out. There was a square place inside the right front that looked different from the stuff around it—like when you take a picture off the wall. She must have cut off all the labels there were.

I wish I hadn't found out. I mean, this makes it
real
. She's somebody else—and trying to hide it. Not that I didn't think so before, but I didn't know for
sure
. Or even quite believe it. I kept telling myself I was probably just making the whole thing up.

Daddy is telling himself it's all because she's having a baby—all her nerves and funny reactions. Well, I never heard that having a baby made you cut the labels out of your clothes.

Of course, he probably has no idea she's done that. He has no idea of a lot of things because they're not things you notice unless you're snooping—or because he's gone all day and isn't
around when they happen, the way I am. Besides, he feels close to her, and trusts what she says without question. He's a very loyal, trusting person. I guess I'm not.

I can't decide if I ought to tell him about this. I bet he wouldn't see anything at all alarming in it—or even important. So Kelsey doesn't like labels. So what? They scratch your neck. Not the ones inside your coat, but never mind, he'd reason that away somehow. Or start
explaining
Kelsey to me again. Or worrying about
my
problem of adjusting. Or bawling me out for prying in Kelsey's closet.

I couldn't blame him if he did that. I'm not ever going to snoop around in anybody's personal belongings again. Let Alison do it if she wants to. I don't like the way it makes me feel.