Read Online The Deep End by Joy Fielding - Free Book Online Page A

smoothing Lulu’s hair away from her face, “you’re doing fine in school. There’s nothing wrong with your marks.”
    “They’re not as good as Robin’s.”
    “Who told you that?”
    “Robin.”
    “Figures.”
    “Robin’s been acting very peculiar lately,” Lulu sidestepped. “Have you noticed?”
    “More peculiar than usual?” Joanne asked and Lulu smiled. “Anyway, I wouldn’t worry about your marks. Robin is a different type of student. She never has anytrouble memorizing facts. She’s a bit like Eve, who still doesn’t know her left hand from her right, but she can memorize anything you put in front of her. It doesn’t mean that Robin is any smarter than you are. You just have different ways of showing how smart you are.”
    “I didn’t ask for a lecture,” Lulu sulked and left the room.
    The phone rang as Joanne was rinsing the syrup off Lulu’s plate. Warily, she checked the time. It was exactly eleven o’clock. “Hello,” she answered, glancing toward the New York
Times
on the kitchen table.
    “You’ll never guess who’s going to be a movie star!” came the excited exclamation from the other end of the line.
    “Warren?” Joanne exclaimed, barely recognizing her brother’s voice. “What are you talking about? What’s going on?”
    “They want to make your baby brother a star. Steven Spielberg, no less. Wait—Gloria will tell you all about it.”
    “Gloria, what’s happened to my brother?” Joanne laughed as her brother’s wife came on the phone.
    “It’s true,” Gloria announced, her deep voice sounding even huskier than usual. “Can you imagine? I slave in this business for years and where do I get? Your brother delivers some star’s baby and gets introduced to Steven Spielberg, who’s been looking for a gynecologist to act as a consultant for his new picture. He takes one look at Warren’s baby blues and decides to give him a small part. They shoot in August. I’m so jealous, I could kill.”
    In the background, Joanne could hear high-pitched yelling.
    “What’s that?”
    “The girls are fighting, as usual,” Gloria told her. “It never stops. Kate hates Laurie. She really hates her.”
    “I’m sure she doesn’t.”
    “Yes, she does. But it’s all right. I understand. I hate her too. How’s everything on the East Coast, and when are you all going to come to your senses and join us here in Fantasyland?”
    “Everything’s fine here,” Joanne lied, understanding that reality had no place in the world of fantasies. Besides, why upset her brother and his wife? What could they do from three thousand miles away? “I’ll let you talk to your brother,” Gloria was saying.
    Joanne and Warren spent the next five minutes in pleasant, if essentially mundane, conversation, Warren filling his sister in on the more important events of the past week, Joanne leaving them out.
    “You’re sure everything’s all right?” her brother asked as the conversation wound to a close.
    “What could be wrong?” Joanne asked before she hung up.
    Robin was standing in the doorway.
    “Uncle Warren sends his love,” Joanne told her as Robin flopped into the chair her sister had previously occupied and yawned loudly. “I’m surprised you’re up this early. You were out very late last night.” She watched her daughter’s shoulders stiffen exactly the way Paul’s always did when faced with something he didn’t wish to discuss. “After three, wasn’t it?” She placed a glass of orange juice on the table. Robin immediately drank it down.
    “I didn’t notice the time.”
    “Well, I did, and I don’t want you coming in that late again,” Joanne stated simply, without harshness. “Is that clear?”
    Robin nodded.
    “Was it a good party?” Joanne continued gently.
    “Not very.”
    “So why’d you stay so late?” Joanne was aware that her question skirted the delicate balance between interest and interference.
    “We didn’t.”
    “Who’s we?”
    “Scott and