Read Online Annie On My Mind by Nancy Garden - Free Book Online Page A

probably right to have us all go up there with her. But I could see she was still embarrassed, so I said, “Well, good night,” as loudly and as cheerfully as possible, and practically pushed Dad and Chad back into the elevator. Annie waved to me from her door, and her lips formed the words
    “Thank you” silently as the elevator door closed. When we got back out onto the street, I felt as if I were about to burst with I didn’t quite know what, so I started whistling.
    “Liza,” said Dad—he can be a little stiff sometimes—
    “don’t do that. This isn’t a terrific neighborhood.. Don’t call attention to yourself.”
    “It is so a terrific neighborhood,” I said, ignoring a drunk in a doorway and a skinny collarless dog who was sniffing around an overflowing litter basket. “It’s a gorgeous neighborhood, beautiful, stupendous, magnificent!” Chad tapped his head with his forefinger and said, “Crazy,” to Dad. “Maybe a stop at Bellevue?” Bellevue is a huge hospital with a very active psycho ward. I made a growling sort of werewolf noise and lunged at Chad just as a bum reeled up to Dad and asked him for seventy-five cents for the subway. So I growled at the bum, too, and he reeled away, staring at me over his shoulder. Dad shot me a look that was supposed to be angry, but he couldn’t keep it from turning into a guffaw, and then he put one arm around me and the other around Chad and marshaled us firmly over to the next block where he hailed a cab. “I can’t risk being seen with you two,” he grinned, giving the driver our address. “Can’t you just see the Times? ‘Engineer Seen At Large With Two Maniacs. Sanity Questioned. One Maniac A Suspended High-School Student. Ear-Piercing Ring Rumored.’” I sneaked a surprised look at Dad and he reached over and mussed my hair in a way he hadn’t done since I was little. “It’s okay, Liza,” he said. “We all make mistakes. That was a big one, that’s all. But I know you won’t do anything like it again.” But, oh, God, neither of us had any way of knowing that I would do something much, much worse—at least in the eyes of the school and my parents, and probably a whole lot of other people, too, if they’d known about it.
    Liza took Annie’s picture out of the drawer she’d been keeping it in, put it on her bureau, and went to bed. But she couldn’t sleep. She tried to read and the words blurred; she tried to draw and couldn’t concentrate.
    Finally, she went to her desk and read through Annie’s letters. “I miss you,” all but the last one said at the end. Liza took some cassettes from her bookcase—Brahms, Bach, Schubert; she put on the Schubert and went back to bed, listening. Maybe I should stop, she thought more than once; I should probably stop thinking about this. But although the next day she took two long walks, went to the library, and put in three unnecessary lab hours to avoid it, she was back at her desk after dinner, looking at Annie’s picture and remembering…

6
    Monday morning, just before first period, I called school and asked for Ms. Stevenson. But Ms. Baxter, who answered the phone, said she was home sick. I thought for a minute and then, because I didn’t want to talk to Mrs. Poindexter, I asked for Ms. Stevenson’s home number. “This is Liza Winthrop,” I said uncomfortably. “I guess you know I was suspended Friday. I, um, don’t know if I’m supposed to do homework or how I’m supposed to keep up with classes or anything.”
    There was a pause, during which I imagined Ms. Baxter taking out one of her lace handkerchiefs and dabbing mournfully at her eyes.
    “Six-two-five,” she said, as if she were praying, “eight-seven-one-four.”
    “Thank you.” I clicked the receiver button and began dialing again. Ms. Stevenson’s phone rang five times, with no answer. I was just about to hang up and call Sally to see if by some chance she knew what we were supposed to do, when a voice, not Ms.