Read Online Fortune's Daughter by Alice Hoffman - Free Book Online Page B

actually feel the goose bumps rise on her arms and legs. Later, Carolyn made up a bed for her with clean sheets, but Rae couldn’t sleep. She could hear crickets and the hum that lightning bugs make when they’re trapped in the mesh of a screen window. The walls in the house sagged and creaked, and there was an owl’s nest in the chimney so that a muffled hooting echoed from inside the bricks. Carolyn couldn’t sleep either; she came into Rae’s room late at night and sat at the foot of the bed.
    â€œIt’s not an accident that you have red hair,” Carolyn said. She lit a cigarette, and in the dark the smoke spiraled up to the ceiling. “When I was pregnant with you I bought a pair of red high heels made in Italy. Even though I couldn’t really wear them because my feet had swollen, sometimes when I was alone I put them on and just wore them around the house. That’s the reason you have red hair.”
    â€œNo it isn’t,” Rae said.
    The hum of the lightning bugs was growing fainter, although Rae could still see patches of light caught in the window.
    â€œI’ll bet you anything it’s the reason,” Carolyn said.
    â€œWhat if you had worn purple shoes?” Rae challenged.
    â€œYou would have had black hair that was so dark it would look nearly purple at night.”
    â€œGreen?” Rae asked.
    â€œPale blond hair that turned green every time you swam in a pool with any chlorine in it.”
    By the time she fell asleep Rae had forgotten about the business on the bus, and the sound of the owls had become as regular as a heartbeat. But that weekend, when Rae’s father drove down, Rae could tell that something was wrong between her parents. Usually, they argued—now they just didn’t speak. The silence in the house was suffocating, but then, on Sunday, Rae found something on the front porch that made her think August wouldn’t be so terrible after all. It was a cardboard shoebox, and inside was a pair of ruby-colored plastic beach shoes. When Rae slipped them on they fit perfectly, as if they’d been made for her.
    She meant to go inside and thank her mother for the gift, but the shoes simply had to be used, so she walked past the salt marsh, down to the beach. Even when she ran into the water she kept her shoes on, and she walked for nearly two miles and didn’t come home until dinnertime. Rae went around to the back of the house where she could rinse off her shoes under a metal faucet, but she stopped by a mock orange shrub that was covered with white flowers. Carolyn was out there on the back porch, and she was breathing in that same way she had when she’d asked the bus driver to pull over. Rae’s father was standing behind the screen door to the kitchen, looking out.
    â€œIf you’re so miserable why don’t you leave,” he told Carolyn.
    The sky was as blue as ink, and when Rae licked her lips she could taste salt. There was a slight wind, and Carolyn’s skirt rose up, like the tail end of a kite. Right then what Rae wished for more than anything was that her mother would have the courage to take Rae and get back on the bus and leave him.
    â€œBut if you stay,” Rae’s father said through the screen door, “I don’t want to hear any more complaints. I’d just as soon not talk at all.”
    In the shadows by the side of the house, Rae crouched even lower and held her breath. She expected Carolyn to call out her name, and when she did Rae would stand up and her mother would grab her hand; then they’d run past the high white dunes, and keep running until they reached the center of town.
    But Carolyn didn’t call out her name, she just stood at the porch banister, then she turned and went inside, and the screen door slammed behind her. Even then, Rae could tell when someone had given up, and as she stood out in the yard she felt betrayed. Later, when she went inside, Carolyn