Read Online Souvenir of Cold Springs by Kitty Burns Florey - Free Book Online Page A

doll in her life.
    â€œHow’s Ann doing?” Margaret asked.
    Heather shrugged. She wasn’t going to tell Margaret about Lambert Prep. “All right, I guess. They don’t get a Thanksgiving vacation at her school.”
    â€œThey don’t? Wow. What is it? Reform school?”
    â€œHa ha,” Heather said. “Not quite. Actually, my mother was up there a couple of weeks ago, but I haven’t had a report from her lately. She’s in Florida at the moment.”
    She had the postcard in her purse. Blue pool, palm trees, tanned people on chaise longues. The card read:
    Honey, I’ll miss you at Thanksgiving (so called) but when I get a chance at some sun I’m not about to pass it up. I’ll be here 2 wks, then back to S.C., then who knows. See you Xmas I hope. I’ll call. XXX. Mom
    Margaret said, “I kind of miss your mother being here on Thanksgiving. She always livened things up.” She chuckled. “Is she still casting spells on Uncle Teddy? I remember she had that voodoo doll she used to stick pins in. And she was consulting with some gypsy fortune-teller.”
    â€œGod, Margaret—that was a joke. One of my father’s weird routines.” This was a lie: Heather had seen the doll. Her mother had mailed it to her father, a yellow-haired figure made out of one of his old shirts, stuck through with straight pins. Her father had opened the package and stared at it speechless, then he’d begun to laugh uncontrollably. Shortly after that he got his ulcer. Heather said, “My mother’s bad, but she’s not that bad.”
    â€œOh well,” Margaret said mildly, obviously sick of the subject. She squeezed out one more drag and crushed the remains in the tin box. She turned off the tape in the middle of a song. “I guess we should go down. What do you think of Sandra?”
    â€œI still haven’t met her. What’s she like?”
    â€œSort of snobby. She hates America, especially Syracuse.”
    â€œWho can blame her?” Heather asked.
    Uncle Jamie had found the old sketches he’d been looking for: pencil drawings from ten, twelve years ago of Heather and Peter and Margaret and Ann. He had set them up on the chair rail around the dining room, and they all exclaimed over them as they lit into the turkey and potatoes and lentil loaf.
    Weren’t they cute.
    Will you look at little Heather—those eyes.
    I know I’ve said this before, but Margaret’s the spitting image of Peggy, you’ve really captured it in that sketch, Jamie.
    As always, when Peggy’s name was spoken, there was a melancholy moment of silence. Aunt Nell bowed her head, then looked up again at the sketches and said, “And Ann—the sweetest face.”
    Heather looked at small, blonde Ann, smiling out at the world. The picture gave her an actual pain between her breasts, like indigestion. Looking at the sketches of herself wasn’t much better.
    Uncle Jamie wanted them for a show of his drawings at some gallery in London. “You’re going to put me up in a gallery?” Margaret asked. “These old pictures of me?”
    â€œWhy not?” Sandra said. She smirked around at the table. “I should think you’d be flattered, Margaret.” Mawgrit, she pronounced it. Heathah, she had said when they were introduced. I’ve been dying to meet you, I hear you’re the absolute hope of the family.
    â€œI hate being conspicuous,” Margaret said.
    Sandra laughed. “Well, I hardly think any of your little friends are likely to stroll into a gallery in London and see your portrait there.”
    â€œNo, but I can sympathize,” said Lucy. “It’s just knowing that you’re on public exhibition. And it reminds me of those primitive peoples who don’t want their photographs taken, they think it takes away a part of themselves. I really try not to photograph people unless I have their