Read Online The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman - Free Book Online Page A

mushrooms on my plate with his ever-roving fork and popped the yield into his mouth. It was a display of table manners, I thought, that was unsuitable for public dining. I said, “Can’t you eat off your own plate, or at least ask me before you eat off mine?”
    “Yeah, Dad,” said Pammy.
    He laughed good-naturedly, as if we couldn’t possibly be finding fault with an honored custom. “Oh, of course, Miss Marx,” he said, mushroom flecks dotting his gums. “I beg your pardon.”
    “They’re right,” my mother said. “It’s a disgusting habit. One day you’re going to do it to some stranger in a restaurant—reach over and stick your fork in his french fries.”
    Rising to walk his plate to the sink, he asked happily, his spottednapkin billowing from the neck of his sweater vest, “What kind of a lout do you take me for?”
    O n a Friday afternoon the following April, I came home to find the house spotless, my room tidy well beyond what my mother usually accomplished in one of her bursts of irritation. My eyelet bureau scarves had been starched and pressed, and my stuffed animals were lined up like prizes at a shooting gallery. Inspecting the refrigerator, I spotted a white frosted oblong I knew to be her chocolate icebox cake. I asked what was going on. She said airily, “Nothing. I was in a cleaning mood.”
    “Is someone coming tonight?”
    She looked at the stove clock and said—cleverly, she thought—“Tonight? No.”
    “What did you make for dinner?”
    “Spaghetti and meatballs.”
    Normal food, except that on Friday nights we had chicken, an echo of my parents’ childhood Shabbat dinners.
    “How was school?” she asked.
    “Fine.”
    “Did you get back your algebra quiz?”
    I said not yet. Mr. Hogan was out, so we had had a substitute, who didn’t do any math with us.
    A car turned onto Irving Circle and drove slowly, as if the driver were reading house numbers. I went to the picture window in the living room: An olive-and-ochre Chevy with blue license plates came to a full stop in front of our house. Robin Fife bounced out of the passenger side, a blue-and-green kilt visible below her short Tyrolean jacket.
    I whipped away from the window and flattened myself against the wall like a parolee on the lam.
    “What’s the matter with you?” my mother asked, untying her half-apron from behind her waist.
    “It’s Robin,” I hissed.
    My mother said, “I know. She’s spending the weekend.”
    “No she’s not—”
    But we were out of time: Robin and her mother were on the front porch. I could hear Robin asking, “What’s her sister’s name again?”
    “Rachel?” Mrs. Fife offered.
    Without uttering a sound, my mother ordered me to get the hell over by her side and wipe the scowl off my face. She opened the front door with a gracious sweep and a welcoming smile. Robin cried, “Surprise!” and threw herself against me. I said blandly, “Hi, Robin.” And to her mother, as she crossed our threshold, “Thanks for arranging this, Mrs. Fife.”
    My mother served coffee in her bone china cups, and chocolate-covered cherries on a two-tiered candy dish, even though Mrs. Fife had declined with a flutter of her hand. They agreed to call each other Audrey and Sissy and to do this again soon with Eddie and Donald. After a half-hour, Mrs. Fife said she’d be on her way: Her college roommate lived in Lincoln, and they were planning a
wicked
weekend without the hubbies—shopping, a matinee at the Shubert, and dinner out.
    “A musical?” I asked.
    “Yes!” said Mrs. Fife, amazed as always by such extraordinary intuition. “
West Side Story
, though not the Broadway cast.”
    “Can I see your room?” asked Robin.
    “I’m leaving in a minute, so give me a kiss if you’re running upstairs.”
    There was no upstairs. We lived in a ranch house, but neither my mother nor I corrected her.
    I asked—for no reason beyond what my family had begun to call my one-track mind—“Are you going back