The Old House Read online

  “She ran away?” Buddy echoed, forgetting to drink her soda. “Mama ran away?”

  “Eloped.” Addie sent her a glance, then returned to her search. “Didn’t she ever tell you that? Never warned a soul. Just packed a suitcase and left a note. ‘Dan and I are getting married. Will write.’ Had the entire town in shock.”

  People did elope all the time, didn’t they? Why should that have sent the entire town into shock? After all, who did it matter to, except maybe her family, who hadn’t been expecting it.

  “Ah, this should be the one,” Addie said, carrying a box over to set it on the bed. “Let’s see what we’ve got.”

  The dresses she began to unpack caught Buddy’s interest even though she wasn’t much interested in clothes, especially right now. She could imagine her mother wearing that pale lavender one with the lacy collar, and the blue and white check, and the navy blue with the sailor collar. “These are beautiful,” Buddy murmured, putting down her Coke can on the edge of the desk.

  “I made them all for her,” Addie said. “We all pampered her. And even so, she did what she did.”

  “‘What she did’?” Buddy asked, but Addie wasn’t paying any attention.

  “Ah, maybe this one. It looked wonderful on her. I made it for her fifteenth birthday celebration. A grown-up dress, she wanted. Let’s see if taking it in a little will make it fit. Take off your clothes.”

  Feeling numb, Buddy obeyed. The dress was apricot-colored, very simple, and only a little bit loose on her. She didn’t resist when Addie twirled her around, inspecting her.

  “I didn’t think it would be out of style. Classic designs never are. If I take it in a smidgen, it should be about right. Let me get a few pins.”

  Buddy’s mind felt jumbled. Her mother had run away, and shocked the whole town, and done something that was not good. Something that made the family angry with her.

  There were so many questions she wanted to ask, but she didn’t quite dare. What had her mother done to Addie that had estranged them enough so that Addie didn’t write to her younger sister? Even Cassie, seemingly so much easier going, hadn’t written very often. Mama had missed the letters, Buddy knew, though she hadn’t talked about it except for once when Buddy had overheard her parents talking about it.

  “It hurts when they don’t answer me, Dan,” EllaBelle had said. “We used to be so close. I suppose Cassie’s just too busy now, running the house and taking care of Grandpa since our mom and dad died.” And Dad had hugged her and they had stopped talking when they had realized Buddy was listening.

  “Turn around,” Addie said now, and obediently Buddy stood and held her arms out of the way of the sticking pins. “Your mother looked like an angel in this. It was her first boy-girl party, and she was beautiful. Okay, take it off—be careful of the pins—and I’ll take a couple of the seams in.”

  Buddy felt confused and uncertain. One minute Addie talked about how beautiful EllaBelle had been, and the next she made remarks suggesting that her younger sister had done something that had alienated them, but with no explanation that Buddy could understand.

  The sewing machine in the corner was quite a contrast to the computer-printer setup. It was an old treadle machine, which Addie used expertly; then she pressed the new seams into place before Buddy tried the dress on again. Another of the oddly assorted items in this back bedroom was a full-length mirror, and Buddy was astonished at her own appearance.

  “Now all we need is to do something with your hair,” Addie said critically.

  Buddy stared at the offending dark mass. “It won’t curl,” she said. “We’ve tried.”

  “A new cut, then,” Addie decided. “It’s too long to style if it won’t curl. Mine never would, either. That’s why I keep it short. Cassie’s a whiz with the scissors.”

  Alarmed, Buddy touched the ends that hung down over the apricot dress. “I’m used to it this way.”

  Addie had a way of not noticing statements that didn’t jibe with her own perception of things. “Shoes. Good grief, you can’t wear athletic shoes with that dress.”

  Buddy looked down at them. “They’re the only ones I have with me.”

  “What size do you wear? Maybe a pair of mine would work. Sandals. Yes, let me check on sandals.”

  They found a pair in Addie’s closet, close enough to a fit so Buddy thought she could wear them long enough to attend church. Back at the mirror, she had to admit they looked much nicer than her own shoes.

  “Okay. Let’s go consult Cassie about your hair,” Addie said, as if Cassie’s opinion, and her own, were the only ones that mattered.

  Cassie didn’t ask Buddy for her opinion, either. Though Buddy made a little squawking protest, they sat her down on a kitchen chair and whipped put an enveloping cape to keep the hair off her new dress, and Cassie got out the scissors.

  “I’ve been cutting hair since I was not much older than you are,” Cassie assured her as she began to snip.

  Long strands of dark brown hair fell onto the cape, and Buddy watched in dismay as more and more of it fell around her. It was all she could do not to cry. She’d never been especially vain about her hair—after all, it was straight and ordinary—but it was her hair. Would it be this way with everything if she had to stay here for long? With someone else making all the decisions that should be her own? It made her feel as if the person she really was was insignificant, that only with improvements could she be found acceptable.

  “There!” Cassie said finally. “What do you think, Addie?”

  Addie grunted. “Just like one of those models we saw on TV. Getting rid of the hair makes your eyes look bigger. She’s the spitting image of EllaBelle, isn’t she?”

  Cassie stood back to inspect her own work. “Go take a look, Buddy. There’s another tall mirror in the front hallway. Turn on the light so you can really see.”

  Dreading the stranger who was going to appear before her, Buddy trudged through the dining room to the hall and flicked the light switch.

  And stranger she was. But the dark hair, always so unruly and without form, now lay about her head in a perfect, close-fitting cap, with the slightest of waves at her temples and just below her ears. Addie had followed her and made a sound of satisfaction. “It was too heavy before. Pulled out what little wave you had. This is perfect.”

  The girl in the mirror certainly didn’t look like Buddy Adams. Buddy’s resistance melted away. She looked almost pretty.

  They heard a door open in the rear of the house, and a man’s voice called out, “Where is everybody? How long till supper?”

  “Oh, Gus is home,” Addie said flatly. “Take the dress off before you mess it up. You’ll need nylons, too. Mine would be too long for you and Cassie’s too wide. I’ll pick up a pair tomorrow on my way to work.”

  “Work?” Buddy echoed, distracted from her own suddenly intriguing image.

  “Work. I run the library, such as it is. Open every Thursday and Saturday. You’ll take Haysville by storm,” she predicted, then added drily, “just like your mother did. She always was the family beauty.”

  After she’d turned away, Buddy lingered for a moment, turning this way and that, as a growing delight filled her. She looked older than eleven, and quite smart with the new dress and the awesome hairstyle.

  Even after she’d changed back into jeans and a sweatshirt, the haircut remained. Simple, yet elegant. That had been one of Mama’s phrases. She’d liked things that were simple, yet elegant. Until now, Buddy had never imagined that those words could pertain to herself.

  She didn’t know what Dad and Bart would think, but she decided that she was pleased, after all.

  Uncle Gus was at the refrigerator with the door open, selecting a bottle of beer. He turned and stared at her. “Well, who’s this?”

  “You remember, I told you Buddy was coming for a few days,” Cassie said. She was stirring something on the stove while Addie set the table. “Buddy, this is Uncle Gus.”

  He was a sto
cky, middle-aged man, going bald on top but overdue for a haircut. He needed suspenders to hold his pants up over a large belly, red ones over a black and yellow plaid shirt. “Buddy? Funny name for a girl,” he observed, hooking a chair with a booted foot and pulling it out to sink down at the table with his beer.

  “It’s a nickname,” Buddy said stiffly. “My real name is Amy Kate.”

  “Now who’d give a pretty little girl a name like Buddy?” he asked, flipping the cap of his bottle toward the nearest wastebasket, and missing. He took a long drink and stared at her some more.

  “My dad started calling me that when I was little,” Buddy said. “I used to go everywhere with him, even on the truck when he was driving, and he called me his little Buddy.”

  Gus apparently lost interest in her at that point and turned his attention to his son. Max was perched on a stool near the counter, putting slices of cucumber and tomato on beds of lettuce in a series of salad plates set out in front of him.

  “I heard you kids got in trouble in school again, shut down a couple of classrooms.”

  Max gave him a look that appeared to denote distaste. “Not me,” he denied. “Some of the other kids. Only closed one classroom and the library.”

  “You want to watch it,” Gus said, anyway. “I know you kids all think old Faulkner is a joke of a principal, but he can kick you out of school. I’ll tell you, you get expelled, no way I’m driving you over to Kalispell to school.”

  Max’s jaws clenched visibly. “I’m not getting kicked out of school, Pa.”

  “When I was a kid, I got in trouble in school. I was in more trouble when I got home. My old man lit into me with his belt.”

  Buddy was watching Max and saw the expression that came over his face. Max was smaller than his father, but Buddy was suddenly convinced that he would resist to his utmost if Gus tried to whip him.

  A dysfunctional family, Max had said. She hadn’t asked Bart for a definition, but she had a pretty good idea what Max had been talking about. She didn’t think she cared for Uncle Gus very much.

  “How come nobody ever feeds me?” Grandpa asked from the doorway of his room. He pushed the button to activate the voice on his watch. “Is supper all over?”

  “No, Grandpa, it’s not ready yet,” Cassie said.

  The old man wandered across the room toward the area where food was being prepared. “I smell cucumbers. Don’t put any in my salad, Sister.”

  “Max is making them separate, and no cucumbers in yours. Go sit down, honey. It’ll be ready in a few minutes.”

  Grandpa tapped out with his cane and located a chair. “Did you know Blackie came back? He was lost, but he came back.”

  “No, Grandpa, Blackie didn’t come back,” Addie said, steering him into the chair. “Blackie died, remember?”

  “No, he didn’t. He’s sleeping on my bed right now. Been there all afternoon.”

  “My kitten!” Max said, suddenly agitated. “That’s where he went!”

  He left his salad assembly line and trotted over to the open door to the old man’s room. “Hey, there you are, you scamp. That’s what I’m going to call him, Scamp.”

  Gus was scowling. “Where’d you get that critter? You know I don’t like cats.”

  “I’ll keep him out of your way,” Max said, cradling the kitten.

  “I like cats,” Grandpa said. “I always had cats around the house, and the store, too.” He hesitated, an odd, rather lost expression coming over his face. “Do I still have the store?”

  “No, Grandpa. You sold the store after you had a stroke,” Addie told him.

  Grandpa’s forehead wrinkled up as he tried to remember. “I sold the store?”

  “Yes. To Alf Peterson.”

  The forehead got more wrinkled. “I never liked Alf Peterson.”

  “Neither did anyone else, but he paid you in cash. And you couldn’t keep running the place anymore.”

  “Cash,” Grandpa repeated. “There was a lot of cash, wasn’t there? A big pile. A whole bag full.”

  Suddenly the room was full of tension.

  Buddy didn’t have the slightest idea why, but she stiffened, feeling as if the air had abruptly turned blue.

  Cassie forgot to stir the gravy she was making. Addie paused with the last napkin in her hand, not placing it on the table. Gus rested his beer bottle on the table and seemed almost to be holding his breath.

  And Max . . . when Buddy’s gaze swept toward him, Max was staring at her.

  Whatever the problem, Buddy thought, Max knew what it was. And somehow it involved her, though she couldn’t imagine how that could be.

  And then, as if someone had hit the pause button on a remote control, freezing all the action, it was as if the play button had been activated, and motion resumed.

  Chapter Six

  The atmosphere at the supper table was quite different from what it had been at lunch, and Buddy knew exactly why.

  Gus dominated what conversation there was. Max said nothing at all unless someone directly addressed him. He had put down another bowl for the kitten and was watching him, avoiding his father’s attention as much as he could.

  Gus talked about the fellows down at the Hayloft, the local tavern. He talked about sporting events and scores. He informed them that there was a Seahawks-Raiders game on the satellite at seven o’clock, if they wanted to watch.

  Nobody rose to the bait. Bart and Dad had watched football games on TV, especially when the Seattle team was playing, and often Buddy had joined them to cheer on the Seahawks. It had always been a fun evening, and they’d popped corn or baked pizza and sipped soft drinks.

  Gus slurped beer.

  The cooking was excellent. Buddy realized how poorly she and her own family had been fed since Mom was gone, depending on simple recipes with little seasoning, or take-out foods, or frozen dinners. They hadn’t tasted anything like this beef roasted with potatoes and carrots and onions. Their salads hadn’t been topped by sunflower seeds and slices of pale green avocado.

  Yet nobody complimented the cook. Gus rose in the middle of the meal and got another bottle of beer. “Listen,” he said to Max. “You get that front yard mowed tomorrow, you hear?”

  Max nodded, not speaking.

  “And you’d better bundle up them old newspapers and get ’em over to the recycling bin.”

  Cassie cleared her throat. “I was hoping you might have time to put up the storm windows tomorrow, Gus. We haven’t had any bad weather yet this year, but last year this time we got that big blow, and the first snow.”

  Gus gave her a disgusted look. “And I hurt my back getting them windows in, don’t you remember? Listen, if Max can’t manage ’em, why don’t you go ahead and hire somebody to do it? Jim Silva’s always looking for a small job to pick up a little extra.”

  Addie spoke for the first time since Grandpa had been asked to say grace, which he did surprisingly well. “And where did you figure we were going to get the money to pay Jim?”

  “Didn’t you just get a check from Gordon? I saw the envelope on the dining room table. Good old rich Gordon, he always comes through, don’t he?”

  Addie’s lips thinned. “The money Gordon sent was to buy new tires for the car, so we’ll feel safe enough to drive into Kalispell if we have to. We can’t ask Gordon to pay for everything. It’s a good thing Daddy left us a little annuity to keep this place running, but he never figured on what inflation was going to be like, and there isn’t enough to go around for anything luxurious.”

  “Didn’t bother you to ask him to buy you that computer, did it? That must have set him back a bundle.”

  “He lent me the money for the computer. I’ll pay him back when I sell something,” Addie defended herself. “And it’s none of your business, anyway, Gus.”

  “Yeah, well, I hope he ain’t holding his breath, waiting for you to sell one of them romancy novels of yours. At least Gordon’s making enough money so he can afford to waste some of it. I’m sure not. My disabil
ity pension ain’t enough to cover much but the essentials,” Gus said, helping himself to two more biscuits and slathering them with butter. Suddenly he jumped sideways and glared at Grandpa. “For crying out loud, look what you did! You got it all over me!”

  Cassie was on her feet, hustling for a dish towel to wipe up the spilled water. “You know he can’t see a glass of water. It’s the same as invisible.”

  “Then let him sit next to somebody else,” Gus grumbled, wiping at his pants.

  Grandpa activated his watch. “Is it time for Jeopardy! ?” he wanted to know.

  “Not for half an hour yet,” Cassie told him. “Finish your supper, honey.”

  They all finished in silence. Buddy was glad nobody expected her to speak up while Gus was there.

  He was the first to push back his chair. “Got to get moving,” he said, as if he had an appointment. “That bowling match starts in just a bit. Got me a little bet on that Scheffler fella, bet he’s going to come out on top.”

  Again, Addie’s mouth pinched up. Gus couldn’t afford to help pay someone to put up the storm windows, but he could put a bet on a bowling game, and he could sit at the tavern all evening, no doubt buying more beers. Buddy was beginning to understand why Addie wondered how Cassie could have married the man.

  She realized that Max was looking at her. When he saw that she’d noticed, he shrugged. “You look different with your hair cut that way.”

  She’d almost forgotten that. She couldn’t tell from his tone whether he thought she looked better or worse.

  Gus was nearly out of the kitchen when he stepped in the kitten’s bowl, and maybe on his tail, too, because he yowled and leaped away from him. Gus swore. “There’s no way you’re keeping that critter where people can trip over him,” he said to Max, who was already on his feet to rescue the newly named Scamp.

  “I want Blackie to sit in my lap while I listen to Jeopardy!, like he used to do,” Grandpa said, getting up, too.