Read Online Monday I Love You by Constance C. Greene - Free Book Online

hands are all wet,” she said, running her hands under the cold water. I shook my head. She let it ring some more, then grabbed up the receiver and said “Yes?” into it in a feisty way.
    â€œMay I ask who’s calling?” she said. Who did she think she was anyway, an executive secretary?
    â€œIt’s that Doris Brown.” She held out the receiver. “I wish she wouldn’t call so early in the morning. Mornings are so frantic around here.”
    I looked around our kitchen. It seemed pretty calm to me.
    â€œHello, Doris,” I said, holding the receiver a little away from myself, in case it wasn’t really Doris but someone masquerading as Doris.
    â€œGrace. Can you sit tonight? Sorry for short notice. Got to get away for some R and R. Hope you’re not busy.”
    Over the telephone Doris talked in shorthand. The thing I liked about her was she always called at the last minute, always apologized for doing so and always said, “Hope you’re not busy.” As if I ever was. I loved Doris for saying that.
    I said five-thirty would be fine. “Plan to spend the night.” She always said that too. “I’ll probably be late. May spend the night with my girl friend. You know how it is.”
    â€œSure,” I said, not knowing how it was but willing to buy anything Doris said.
    â€œPeachy,” said Doris, signing off.
    â€œShe wants me to sit tonight,” I told my mother. “I’ll spend the night, because she’s going to be very late.” Well, I sure was in demand as a baby-sitter, anyway, I thought. First Govoni, now Doris.
    My mother screwed up her face so she looked as if she might be hurting.
    â€œI don’t like you sitting off there, no neighbors or anything, alone and all,” she said. “And now this,” she waved at the radio. “This wild man on the loose. God knows what he’s capable of. Anything. Everything. Most likely he’s a pervert, too.” She chewed her lip excitedly. “He’s probably spaced out of his mind, snorting cocaine or something. You really shouldn’t be alone out there. It’s dangerous.” My mother willed me to look at her.
    I refused. As a matter of fact, I had been scared badly once or twice while baby-sitting at the Browns’, by strange noises outside or loud bangs from a passing car, sounds that sounded like gunshots. But I’d have to be put on a rack to admit that to her now. One word of apprehension from me, and my mother would say, “Call her up and tell her I said NO.” And I liked baby-sitting for Buster Brown. I liked the money I earned too. So I kept quiet and smiled patronizingly at my mother’s anxieties.
    â€œI won’t be alone. The baby will be with me. We might play some cards.” I should’ve known better than to joke with my mother. She has no sense of humor. None at all. Her lips never even twitched.
    â€œYou never know. I don’t like it. You’re too young to be out there all night by yourself.”
    She never listened to me. Nobody did. I shrugged and got out the vinyl overnight bag my father had won in a crap game. He won the strangest things. Once he brought home a roasting chicken he said he’d won in a poker game.
    I had no intention of going to school. I planned to go to the library, wait for the doors to open, then sit down at one of the big, shiny tables, take out my yellow lined pad and a handful of sharpened pencils and go to work. If anyone asked, I’d say I was working on a school project. Lots of research was needed. Mrs. Quick, the librarian, was kind to me. To others, she was curt and brisk, but once she’d asked me if I’d got a good mark on my last paper, and did I want a cup of tea.
    I put my nightgown into the bag, as well as my toothbrush and my Ace bandage. Sometimes, when I had a free moment, I practiced binding myself with the bandage. The way they did in the nineteen