Read Online The Repeat Year by Andrea Lochen - Free Book Online

unobstructed view of the living room.
    A heavy woman with graying reddish hair sat on the black-and-white floral couch. Sherry Witan. She looked quite at home in Olive’s living room, even though she had never set foot in the apartment before.
    “Hi, Sherry,” Olive said. “What a nice surprise.” She hoped she sounded convincing.
Surprise
was definitely the right word for what she was feeling right now, but not preceded by an adjective like
nice
. She couldn’t imagine why Sherry Witan was here. Olive had never seen her outside her parents’ parties before. It wasn’t as though they were good friends who went out for coffee and chatted weekly on the phone; she didn’t think her mom even maintained a close relationship with her. At her parents’ parties, Olive had never held a conversation with Sherry that exceeded the typical one-minute party platitudes. “Hi, how are you doing?” “Good. How are you?” “Great. This hummus is fantastic.” “My mom’s a good cook.” “She is.” Olive had found that she had relatively few small-talk skills. She didn’t seem to notice the awkward pauses and would instead gaze intently at the speaker as though eye contact were the only crucial element in a social encounter.
    Sherry didn’t stand. Instead, she swiveled her head like an owl to survey Olive. “Your mother gave me your address. I hope you don’t mind.”
    “Not at all.” Olive sat down in the papasan chair closest to Sherry. “Is there something you wanted to talk about?”
    Sherry ignored the question. Her eyes swept over the room, seeming to miss nothing. Kerrigan’s
On Wisconsin
alumni magazines and issues of
Sports Illustrated
on the coffee table. The dusty artificial orchid. Nail holes riddled the walls and yellowish water stains bruised the ceiling. A beer bottle hid halfway behind the TV.
    Olive scrutinized the living room, too. When she returned her attention to Sherry, Olive found that she was watching her as though no one had ever taught her not to stare, as though she believed she was magically concealed from public view and therefore able to watch people as hungrily and conspicuously as she liked. Olive stared back. Sherry was in her late fifties.
Large
was the best word to describe her. She carried her weight with importance and made you feel in her presence, especially if you were thin, that you were an insubstantial waif. Her facial features were remarkably refined and delicate by contrast to her body: narrow brown eyes; thin, pink lips; a small, babyish nose; finely penciled-in eyebrows. If you studied Sherry in two separate photographs, one of her face and one of her body, you would never imagine that the two parts belonged to one another, and yet they somehow seemed to work in harmony for her. Her hair was a washed-out red that defiantly revealed several inches of gray roots at her part and temples. It fell in loose waves over the shoulders of her fringed gray silk shawl.
    “I’m leaving,” Kerrigan called in a loud voice from the foyer area. “I’m supposed to meet Steve for dinner and the hockey game. I’m already almost twenty minutes late.” Olive straightened herself up and peered over Sherry’s head. Kerrigan stood as if waiting for some kind of recognition that she was free to go. She raised her eyebrows at Olive.
    “Okay. Have fun. Thanks for waiting.”
    When Kerrigan had left, Sherry sank back more comfortably into the couch. She absentmindedly stroked one of the fringes of her shawl.
    Olive had used up all her patience and soft tones with Mr. Hutchinson. She didn’t want to be nice anymore; she wanted to demand that Sherry state her purpose and then go. There was so much to think about, and anywhere other than her bed right now felt like an unbearable place to be. The only thing that was preventing her from losing her temper was the memory of Sherry’s well-timed snort yesterday. That and a tiny voice begging Olive to take notice: Sherry had not made this