Read Online Rich Rewards by Alice Adams - Free Book Online Page B

darling little Peggy would turn out to be like me? Unlikely that they did; such a thing would not have seemed possible to them, and they probably all blamed my bad character on my mother, whose intelligence provoked suspicion among them.
    And about Peggy they were quite right, of course: the last time I saw her, in New York, she had made a superb dinner for a dozen people, a Thanksgiving dinner (and how like her to invite me, a stray and disreputable cousin, known for too many love affairs), despite having one arm in a cast from a skiing accident. Despite the demands of three very small children. Even her husband is nice. Needless to say, I rarely see them.
    Don found his tiny daughter perfect and beautiful, even when she screamed and spit and made those appalling smells—those were the things that I noticed exclusively: how could he love little Peggy?
    And he lovingly helped Margaret with the baby’s care. I used to watch, astounded and deeply agitated, as Don bathed Peggy in her canvas Bathinette, holding her so gently, soaping her everywhere, then rinsing, lifting her from the water and patting the pink flesh dry, powdering her chubby buttocks and between her legs—
how could he
?
    Surprising, I think, that more children are not murdered by other children.
    On one bright winter afternoon, Don decided to take us sledding—all of us, Margaret, Peggy and me—out near the Union Cemetery. An endless hill; we left Margaret at the top, with little Peggy in her wicker basket. We sailed down, down, down—I was stretched out on top of Don’s large sturdy back, holding on. Sailing down.
    He remarked with some surprise that I was really a good little sport.
    How could he have known that it was the best day of my life, so far?
    Strangely, perhaps, I do not remember the arrival of my mother, come to take me home, nor what must have been a somewhat strained family reunion. What I do remember is that the night she arrived one of my front teeth, baby teeth, came out—for me a wonderful, significant event. I thought I looked terrific; I looked like Uncle Don.
    I spent the whole trip up to Madison giggling at my reflection in the dashboard, a reflection that distorted the oval shape of my head, making it round. I kept saying, “Look at my teeth! Don’t I look like Uncle Don?”
    At last my mother could not stand it, my coldhearted, unwelcoming silliness, and she cried out, “No! Of course you don’t look like Don, you little fool. What’s the matter with you, anyway?”
    How could I have told her, even had I known, that I was in love?

9
    One morning, out shopping for fish on Clement Street, in a Chinese market, I recognized an almost familiar sweater: crude wool, variegated colors. I then saw that it was Caroline Houston, in the sweater that she had worn to her parents’ party, that crazy Sunday. She greeted me pleasantly enough, though without effusion, real or otherwise. I was a little surprised when she said, “I live just a block from here. Would you want to come by? I could make some tea.”
    I accepted, we both finished our fish transactions and together we walked a block down Clement Street.
    Caroline’s studio was a huge bare room, one flight up above a grocery store. At one end there was a wide mattress on the floor, covered with something bright, woven wool. And along the walls there were big woolen sculptures, almost obscured by giant ferns. At the other end of the room was a kitchen area, a table and a couple of chairs, small refrigerator, stove. A wall telephone.
    We were sitting at her kitchen table, drinking fragrant and very hot tea, when she abruptly told me about her parents: they had just split up, she said.
    “So dumb, the way she left” was how Caroline put it to me. “Sneaking out in the middle of the night, after one of their parties.” Her face and her voice showed total exasperation;she had had it with crazy grown-ups, with her parents. Caroline, about twenty-two.
    “Sneaked out in the middle of