Read Online Blessings by Belva Plain - Free Book Online Page B

doesn’t rain. They’re planning to dance outdoors. It should be lovely.”
    A small formal dance … He didn’t tell me that, either. Maybe he didn’t know. But I have no dress … Jennie thought. Never had she felt so much a stranger.
    The talk continued. “Have you heard what Aunt Lee gave her?”
    “No, what?” asked the uncle.
    “A horse!” said Mrs. Mendes. “A colt, to be accurate. You’ve met our Aunt Lee,” she reminded Annie Ruth, “the one who has the horse farm.”
    “She’s such a queer! A regular skeleton in the closet,” said Sally June.
    “Sally June, what a dreadful thing to say!”
    “Well, it’s true, isn’t it?”
    “I don’t know what you mean,” Mrs. Mendes answered stiffly.
    Sally June giggled. “Mother! You do know.”
    “My sister has always been a tomboy,” Mr. Mendes said, probably for the benefit of Jennie, the stranger in the room.
    “A tomboy!” the girl persisted. “She’s over fifty. Everybody knows she’s a—”
    “That will do,” Mr. Mendes said, and repeated sharply, “That will do, I said!”
    In the silence one heard the clink of silver on china. Sally June hung her head, while a fearful flush spread up her neck. She looked frightened.
    Peter broke the silence. “Speaking of horses, it reminds me that when I was at Owings Mills that weekend, I saw Ralph out riding. We passed him in the car. I didn’t know he’s at Georgetown now.”
    How gracefully Peter drew the new subject out of the old! Of course, he had felt the tension in the room. He continued, “He may be going into the diplomatic service like his brother.”
    “And get killed like his brother,” the aunt said, explaining politely to Jennie, “These are old friends of our family’s. Their son was killed during a riot in Pakistan.”
    “Fifteen years it must be,” said Mrs. Mendes. “And his mother still mourning. It’s ridiculous.” She spoke briskly, addressing the table. “I have no patience with people who can’t face facts.”
    “It was a terrible death,” Peter reminded her gently.
    “All the same, she ought to shape up,” his mother said. “People can, and they do.” Unexpectedly she turned to Jennie. “Peter tells us that your father was in a concentration camp in Europe.”
    So he had talked about her here at home. “Yes,” she answered. “He was very young and strong, one of the rare survivors.”
    “What does he do now?”
    Peter hadn’t told them that. “He has a store. A delicatessen.”
    For an instant the other woman’s eyes flared and flickered. “Oh. Well, he got through it all right. He picked himself up and survived.”
    “Yes,” Jennie said. Survived. His nightmares. His silent spells. And for the second time that day she found herself staring at the cuff that was finished with the skill that had kept her father alive, the skill he couldn’t bear to remember.
    She glanced back at Mrs. Mendes, who had begun on another subject. You have no heart, she thought.
    The servant was placing before her a plate on which lay a doily and a bowl of ice cream; on either side of the bowl were a spoon and an implement that she had never seen before. It seemed to be a cross between a fork and a spoon. Having no idea what to use, she was hesitating when, without changing his expression, the man placed his forefinger almost surreptitiously on the handle of the curious implement. All at once she remembered having heard about such a thing as an ice-cream fork and knew that was what it must be. She wished she could thank the man and decided to do so if ever there should be an opportunity. He had seen her bewilderment. She thought, He knows more about me than does anyone else in this room except Peter. I do not like it here. It’s colder than the ice cream.
    But the ice cream was different from any she had ever had, with possibly a trace of honey in it, and some sort of tart liqueur. She ate it slowly, finding an odd comfort in its smoothness, as if she were a child with