Read Online Freaky Green Eyes by Joyce Carol Oates - Free Book Online Page B

been supposed to spend two weeks at the Bainbridge Island Arts Camp, where some friends of mine from school were going, but I never got around to filling out the application, and Mom must have forgotten, too. Every week Dad was promising we’d go away for a few days to Cape Flattery, where some rich Seattle businessman had a place on the ocean, but (somehow I knew this) Dad was embarrassed to accept an invitation without his wife; how could he explain his wife’s absence, unless Krista could be talked into joining her family. (I overheard certain phone calls. I wasn’t eavesdropping, but I overheard.)But so many people wanted Reid Pierson to stay with them at their beautiful summer places, how could he choose? And it was baseball season. And Maria was fired (by Dad, for no reason we ever learned), so another woman had to be hired. And Samantha came down with summer bronchitis. And that was June.

SIX
cape flattery: july 4
    â€œWe can have a good time, Franky, can’t we? Even if Mom isn’t with us?”
    For Fourth of July Dad finally drove us out to Cape Flattery, which is about as far west and north on the Olympic Peninsula as you can get. We were excited! It was the first outing we’d had with our father in a long time. The Blounts’ lodge, as it was called, was six miles south of the Cape, built on a high, rocky bluff overlooking the white-capped greenish waves of the Pacific Ocean. We’d be going sailing and whale watching, Dad promised. The Blounts had three children, two boys and a girl, so we’d have someone to “relate to.”
    There’d been the possibility of Mom joining us for the long weekend. At least, that was what Dad hinted. Except on the morning we left for Cape Flattery, Dad told us there’d been a sudden change of plans. “She changed her mind, girls. She just called and said she wasn’t coming.” Samantha cried, “Why? Why isn’t Mom coming?” and Dad said, shrugging, “Sweetie, you’ll have to ask her.”
    Later Dad said, in a voice meant to be forgiving, “Like I said, girls, she’s in her own zone now. ‘Skagit Harbor.’”
    Each time Dad spoke of Mom, his words seemed to take on newer and more mysterious meanings.
    (First they swear to you there’s “nobody else.” Then, later, you learn that not only is there “somebody else,” it’s this “somebody else” who’s the reason for the weird behavior: quarreling, crying, shoving-around, falling-down-drunk stuff that makes you ashamed you even know these people, let alone they’re your parents. And sure, there’s a divorce. And it drags on,and on. And it never ends, because it’s inside you, too. And you carry it with you wherever you go, like a turtle with a crooked shell.
    (This is what friends of mine have said. Girls at Forrester whose parents went through divorce. I’d hear, and I’d think, But not the Piersons. We’re special .)
    Samantha’s bruise bracelet was mostly faded now. You had to know what it was to notice it. On the drive to Cape Flattery, Samantha in the front seat of the car with Dad while I sat in the back, sprawled out, reading and scribbling in my diary, I’d see Samantha examine her wrist now and then, lifting her slender arm to the light.
    Since Dad had disciplined her, Samantha was better behaved in his presence. I guess I was, too.
    When we got to the Blounts’ lodge, it was midafternoon. Dad had trouble locating the property, it was set back so far from the road in a dense evergreen forest. He’d been telling us about the Blounts, who were strong supporters of his and loyal friends.Mr. Blount was a multimillionaire, and he was locally famous for his generous donations to civic causes and charities. As a distinguished alum of the U. of Washington he’d endowed athletic scholarships for both men and women, including, just last year, a scholarship in