Read Online 29 by Adena Halpern - Free Book Online Page A

switched phones again. “Hello, Lucy? It’s Mom. Try me on both my cell phone and my home phone. Aunt Frida is very worried.”
    Barbara picked up the land phone and said to Frida, “That was her home phone. Let me leave the same message on her cell.” She put down the land phone again.
    “Hello, Lucy? It’s Mom again. Don’t forget to try me on both my cell phone and my home phone. Aunt Frida is very upset. Love, Mom.”
    Barbara picked up the land phone again.
    “Well, that’s all I can do for now. Why doesn’t Mom get a cell phone? I keep telling her it’s very important.”
    “I don’t have one, either, Barbara,” Frida told her. “They’re too expensive. If someone wanted to call me, they’d call me at home.”
    “Because situations like this could arise!”
    “Oh.” Frida pondered this. “Well, that’s very true.”
    “So who was the woman Lucy was with?” Barbara inquired.
    “A woman about Lucy’s age, maybe a little older. But you know how these girls dress older, so maybe they were the same age.”
    “Well, with the way Lucy dresses . . . Did you see how she looked last night?”
    “I thought the dress was a bit short,” Frida agreed, which was one hundred percent true.
    “Well, as long as she’s making her own way,” Barbara reasoned.
    “And Ellie is very proud of her.”
    “The two of them speak their own language.”
    “Yes, I noticed that, too.”
    “Sometimes I just don’t get the two of them, the way they think.”
    “I agree.”
    “What I wish is that Lucy would just settle down already. She’ll be an old maid before she knows it.”
    “You’d think she’d have found someone already, with all of her good qualities.”
    “She says she wants to make it on her own first. She sounds like Mary Tyler Moore!” Barbara chuckled, and Frida followed her cue. Sometimes Barbara could make Frida feel at ease, but it didn’t happen often. “I mean, sometimes Lucy can be so immature.”
    Frida continued laughing. “Barbara, you speak the truth. What I can’t get past is why Lucy presented that woman in the apartment as her cousin from Chicago. You don’t even have any cousins in Chicago.”
    Barbara stopped laughing. “What do you mean she said the woman in the apartment was a cousin?”
    Frida paused. “Didn’t I mention that?”
    “No, you didn’t! Frida, how could you leave out the most important part of the story?”
    “I . . . I . . .”
    “Well, what did Lucy say?”
    Frida grabbed the paper and started fanning herself again. She’d never regretted anything more in her entire life than making this call. “Well, she said that the woman was Ellie’s brother’s granddaughter from Chicago.”
    “Why would she say that?”
    “I don’t know. That’s why I was so worried.”
    “If you were so worried, why didn’t you tell me this piece of information in the first place?”
    Frida put her head in her hands. “Oh, Barbara.” She sighed. “It’s been such a crazy morning, with Ellie calling me and then her not being in her apartment and finding Lucy with the cakes. I guess it just got away from me.”
    “Hold on just a second.”
    Barbara put the phone down and dialed Lucy’s cell number. “Lucy, it’s Mom. Did you lie to Aunt Frida and tell her that the woman she saw you with in Gram’s apartment was your cousin from Chicago? You know very well that we have no family in Chicago. Why would you do that? Call me back. Aunt Frida is very worried.”
    Barbara got back on with Frida. “Do you think I should call her land phone, too?”
    “Well . . .” Frida thought about all the times her children seemed upset that she called too much. “Maybe it’s best to leave it with just the one message.”
    “You’re right.”
    “So what are we going to do now?” Frida asked.
    “What are we going to do?” Barbara repeated tersely. “I’ll tell you what we’re going to do. I’m coming down there, and we’re going to find Mom and Lucy and this