Read Online A Crime in the Neighborhood by Suzanne Berne - Free Book Online Page A

rolled their eyes. Julie put her other hand on her hip.
    â€œI wanted to tell you kids.” My father paused and straightened up, then leaned against his car. “I’ve been meaning to tell you, to let you know, that I am sorry everything has worked out this way. I wish it could be different, but it is what it is.”
    â€œWhat?” said Julie.
    â€œWhat what?” said my father, looking surprised. He had been regarding us very earnestly.
    â€œThe way what is?”
    He flushed behind his aviator glasses. “Our lives. Your mother and I—”
    â€œOh,” said Julie. “I know all that.” And she took her hands off her hips and turned away. “You know what,” she told Steven. “I need to get some stuff from the drugstore.”
    â€œIt can wait, can’t it?” said my father.
    â€œDad,” Julie said balefully. “I am having my
period
.”
    Steven snickered.
    â€œAll right,” said my father helplessly.
    â€œI’m having my period, too,” said Steven, following Julie and her sheath dress across the parking lot, although he had stopped snickering by then and looked back once or twice, his silky little ponytail wagging.
    After they had disappeared, my father and I leaned against the car. A seagull flew overhead, which was unusual this far inland. I pointed out to my father that it must be lost.
    â€œListen,” he said at last. “About this little trip I’m taking. It isn’t much. You’ll hardly notice I’m gone. It’ll be all right.” Gently, he patted my head. “I’ll be back soon.”
    Even then I knew he was lying.
    Actually, that’s not true. I would like to think I was prepared for what happened next; but in fact I was used to believing what my father told me, so as I trailed after the twins later that afternoon on our way back home, my thoughts were probably no more anxious than the thoughts of any child whose parents are separated and who is being ignored by her older siblings.
    My father had not looked especially grave that afternoon. His aviator glasses were not askew; his hair was not standing on end. Instead, as I remember that day now, he looked only subdued squatting in the parking lot of the Spring Hill Mall, holding me at arm’s length.
    â€œI’ll be back soon,” he said, without a catch in his voice.
    In my imagination, a seagull circles and circles overhead, the afternoon sun glinting off his outstretched wings. My father bends over me. His sideburns tickle my cheek. “It is what it is,” he whispers. “What is it?” I whisper back.
    On our way home the twins and I saw Boyd Ellison ride by on his bicycle. He was standing up on the pedals, leaning over the handlebars, intent as a wizard. If he waved at us, I don’t remember now. “Queer bait,” said Julie, as he flashed by. Steven said, “I wonder why Dad gave us these watches.” “Who cares,” said Julie. “Mine is hideous.”
    Later that same afternoon, to escape the sneering accents of the twins reading aloud from their yearbook (“Mary Alice Neider simply scintillated in the Junior Class production of
Love’s Labor’s Lost
”), I clawed as high as I could up the crab apple tree and hid inside the leaves.
    It began to be evening. A radio was on in the Lauders’ house next door and I heard snatches of words, mostly about poll results; it was an election year and even I understood the difference between Democrats and Republicans. We were Democrats. The air cooled and from the branch where I sat picking off lichen I could smell mown grass and road tar and hear kids on the next block scream
Red Rover, Red Rover
. They seemed to be calling in the evening, which drifted closer and closer as cars drove into driveways, screen doors sang and slammed, and here and there a light switched on. Until suddenly everything was blue.
    My mother came to the porch