Read Online The Window by Jeanette Ingold - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Jeanette Ingold
Tags: Young Adult
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singing something, and his footsteps are in three-beat time. And then he switches to another song, and it's one my mother used to like.
Mom ... I remember how she'd hum it. Her body wouldn't really move, but she'd seem like she was swaying, lost in a still waltz.
I remember her sitting in front of her makeup mirror, humming, frowning a bit because she was trying to match a magazine picture. The lipstick was dark stuff, deep red.
"It says you've got to respect your contrasts," Mom said.
Mom must have been about forty then. The deep color made her look even older, but I didn't want to tell her.
It was Christmas morning, the Christmas morning we were living in Florida, and we didn't either one of us have anything to do. I'd given her a leather key case with her name, Karen, stamped on it, and she'd gotten me a necklace with a silver flamingo, but we'd finished opening those in about five minutes and the hours had stretched out since.
Mom leaned closer to the mirror, seemed to decide she was done and she wasn't going to stay in the apartment any longer. "Come on, kid," she said, "let's join America."
So we'd gone out to join America, only America had closed down. The mall was shut, the drugstore, even the kosher deli was shut.
We'd driven to the beach and walked along it, with the old people who were walking two by two, and I thought they were having a lonely Christmas, also.
I'm still in bed, thinking about my mother and about Gwen, when the doorbell rings. I hear Uncle Abe calling, "I'll get it."
A minute more and Hannah's in my room.
"I guess I should have phoned first," she says.
"I wasn't really sleeping."
I wonder if I should tell Hannah what Gwen has done. It would be fairâGwen's our secret that we share. But ... my grandmother, married at fifteen'? Such a thing wouldn't happen in Hannah's family, and I don't want her to look down on me.
Besides, it's another personal thing, personal to Gwen, I mean. It wouldn't feel right to expose her like that.
Then I realize Hannah's trying to tell me something.
"...aren't getting along," she's saying. "They whispered all night, mean whispers, and this morning Dad said he'd be gone for a few days. Mom looked like she'd been crying."
"Everybody fights," I say, the first thing that comes to mind. Actually, I don't have the faintest idea if that's true. I haven't heard Gabriel and Emma fight, and they're the only couple I've ever lived with.
But I've said what Hannah wants to hear, and soon she's rummaging through my dresser, looking for shorts.
"It's practically summer outside," she says. Her voice is too bright, and I know she's already regretting telling me about her folks. "It really is a lot warmer than usual. Really warm for December. Maybe we can even get tans."
"In December? In the morning?"
"It's afternoon. Didn't you know?"
Hannah's like a cat, moving about my room. I can feel the energy coming off her, the way you can feel it come off the big caged cats at a zoo.
"Don't you ever feel like breaking out?" she asks. "I feel like I can't breathe in here."
Now she's dragging me downstairs, saying, "Let's sleep outside tonight. You ever sleep outside, Mandy?"
"Outside?" I echo, feeling dumb but not sure I know what she means.
"In a tent?"
We find Emma sorting wrapping paper. She says, "Certainly you can't sleep outside. It's December."
But Hannah promises we'll keep warm and the weather forecast is good, and I hear myself saying, "Please, Aunt Emma."
So while I'm getting dressed, Hannah helps Uncle Gabriel get an old tent from the barn, a pup tent from his army days, he says. They set it up by the side of the house.
Hannah and I spend the rest of the afternoon hauling stuff out to it, like we're preparing a room to move into. We run an extension cord so we can plug in my CD player. Get a cooler from the pantry and fill it with ice and sodas. Take out blankets and pillows and two big feather comforters.
I'm blowing up an air mattress, listening to
Mom ... I remember how she'd hum it. Her body wouldn't really move, but she'd seem like she was swaying, lost in a still waltz.
I remember her sitting in front of her makeup mirror, humming, frowning a bit because she was trying to match a magazine picture. The lipstick was dark stuff, deep red.
"It says you've got to respect your contrasts," Mom said.
Mom must have been about forty then. The deep color made her look even older, but I didn't want to tell her.
It was Christmas morning, the Christmas morning we were living in Florida, and we didn't either one of us have anything to do. I'd given her a leather key case with her name, Karen, stamped on it, and she'd gotten me a necklace with a silver flamingo, but we'd finished opening those in about five minutes and the hours had stretched out since.
Mom leaned closer to the mirror, seemed to decide she was done and she wasn't going to stay in the apartment any longer. "Come on, kid," she said, "let's join America."
So we'd gone out to join America, only America had closed down. The mall was shut, the drugstore, even the kosher deli was shut.
We'd driven to the beach and walked along it, with the old people who were walking two by two, and I thought they were having a lonely Christmas, also.
I'm still in bed, thinking about my mother and about Gwen, when the doorbell rings. I hear Uncle Abe calling, "I'll get it."
A minute more and Hannah's in my room.
"I guess I should have phoned first," she says.
"I wasn't really sleeping."
I wonder if I should tell Hannah what Gwen has done. It would be fairâGwen's our secret that we share. But ... my grandmother, married at fifteen'? Such a thing wouldn't happen in Hannah's family, and I don't want her to look down on me.
Besides, it's another personal thing, personal to Gwen, I mean. It wouldn't feel right to expose her like that.
Then I realize Hannah's trying to tell me something.
"...aren't getting along," she's saying. "They whispered all night, mean whispers, and this morning Dad said he'd be gone for a few days. Mom looked like she'd been crying."
"Everybody fights," I say, the first thing that comes to mind. Actually, I don't have the faintest idea if that's true. I haven't heard Gabriel and Emma fight, and they're the only couple I've ever lived with.
But I've said what Hannah wants to hear, and soon she's rummaging through my dresser, looking for shorts.
"It's practically summer outside," she says. Her voice is too bright, and I know she's already regretting telling me about her folks. "It really is a lot warmer than usual. Really warm for December. Maybe we can even get tans."
"In December? In the morning?"
"It's afternoon. Didn't you know?"
Hannah's like a cat, moving about my room. I can feel the energy coming off her, the way you can feel it come off the big caged cats at a zoo.
"Don't you ever feel like breaking out?" she asks. "I feel like I can't breathe in here."
Now she's dragging me downstairs, saying, "Let's sleep outside tonight. You ever sleep outside, Mandy?"
"Outside?" I echo, feeling dumb but not sure I know what she means.
"In a tent?"
We find Emma sorting wrapping paper. She says, "Certainly you can't sleep outside. It's December."
But Hannah promises we'll keep warm and the weather forecast is good, and I hear myself saying, "Please, Aunt Emma."
So while I'm getting dressed, Hannah helps Uncle Gabriel get an old tent from the barn, a pup tent from his army days, he says. They set it up by the side of the house.
Hannah and I spend the rest of the afternoon hauling stuff out to it, like we're preparing a room to move into. We run an extension cord so we can plug in my CD player. Get a cooler from the pantry and fill it with ice and sodas. Take out blankets and pillows and two big feather comforters.
I'm blowing up an air mattress, listening to
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