Read Online Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane - Free Book Online Page B

you can call your dad from my house. Mrs. Smith will make you a sandwich.” But he lived with Chris, Peter remembered, and then Chris would know, and then their whole class would know. His shoulders were quaking so violently now that he knew everyone must be noticing. Mr. Smith put an arm around him, but that only made it worse.
    The police officer asked, “You’re her son?” He introduced himself as Officer Dulley.
    “Yes,” he said.
    Officer Dulley asked him for his full name and address, and when he didn’t answer, Mr. Smith gave the officer Peter’s full name and told him he was pretty sure the Stanhopes lived on Jefferson. That, yes, Peter livedwith his mother. Yes, his father was in the picture. They were talking about his dad now. Officer Dulley disappeared inside the ambulance for a few minutes and then came back. No one seemed in any rush to get anywhere.
    “Did she have a heart attack?” Peter asked when he returned.
    “No,” Officer Dulley said, without indicating if whatever did happen was better or worse.
    “What precinct is your dad in?” Officer Dulley asked, but Peter couldn’t remember. It was right there in his brain but he couldn’t come up with it.
    “He’s on the job, right?”
    Peter nodded.
    It was decided that he would hang out at the Smiths’ house until they got in touch with his father.
    “Wait,” Peter said, stepping away from Mr. Smith’s hand on his shoulder and watching as the ambulance doors closed. “I want to go with her.” But they were already pulling away from the curb.
    “She’s fine, Peter. She’ll be fine.”
    “Well, then can’t you just drop me off at home?” The ambulance paused at the intersection at Middletown Road and whooped the siren twice to let the other cars know it was going to drive through. “My dad will be home pretty soon.”
    “Are you sure that’s what you want?”
    “I’m sure.”
    On the short drive Mr. Smith said it was a tiring time of year, really, when a person thought about it. It was a happy time of year, sure, with all the family and the celebrating but overwhelming, too, for some people. For a start, look at all the money being spent. “Plus it’s different for women,” he added, “they always feel like everything has to be just so with the dinners and the entertaining. You need this bowl to match this bowl. You need this spoon. Used to be people made gingerbread cookies and got maybe one present, but these days things are different.” Thenhe looked at Peter like that explained everything. Peter felt like telling him that he and his father had put up their tree. He alone had baked cookies when the day came for the class bake sale. He’d just followed the directions on the package and they’d turned out delicious, then he’d put them in a shoebox like he’d seen the other kids’ moms do. When his mother came home, she snapped at him that he’d forgotten to line the box with foil or wax paper. Who would want a cookie from a box shoes had been sliding around in? She made it sound as if he’d stored the cookies inside a public toilet. All those ingredients wasted. He’d used the last of the butter. She slammed the fridge. The last of the brown sugar. She slammed the cabinet door. But then, when she saw the baking sheet and bowls washed and drying on the counter, she stopped ranting, and it was as if an invisible hand had been clapped over her mouth. She ran her fingers along the table and found they came up clean. She stood before the shoebox and selected a cookie from the top of the pile. He waited. He watched. Finally, she said quietly that they were so good it would be a shame anyway to sell them for only twenty-five cents apiece. They were extraordinary.
    “We’ll keep these for ourselves,” she said. “Tomorrow I’ll get some from the bakery for you to sell at school.”
    “What happened in the store?” he asked Mr. Smith as they rounded the corner onto Jefferson. “Did someone say something to her? Was