"Good. I mean, I hope you're not a prude at heart."
I said nothing. What was I? I had to wonder myself. She laughed, a little nervously.
"Oh, you'll be fine," she decided. "We're going to have so much fun. It'll be the best time of your life," she promised. "On Monday I'll take you over to the school myself. You can go with Wade after that, and then talk him into a little car for you. I'll show him how it will be what he calls cost-efficient, and he'll agree."
She laughed.
"I can twist him around my little finger. You'll see."
"When do you plan on having your baby?" I asked. I couldn't help but wonder how becoming a mother would change her.
She looked at me as though I was asking a ridiculous question.
"I mean, you'll be pregnant before I leave, won't you?"
She smiled at me without speaking.
"What?" I asked.
"Really, Celeste, I would have hoped you had picked up on that by now. I have absolutely no intention of becomi
ng pregnant."
"But . . . I thought you said . . . Mother Higgins said . . ."
"Little lies. Like dust on a window. Just brush it away, and no one remembers it was there.
"Or," she said after a pause, "cares."
She turned up the radio and laughed.
"Steve and Gerry," she said. "They were like putty in my hands. Soon I'll have you capable of doing the same thing to any man you want to do it to. You'll see."
We drove on.
"You'll be sorry you agreed to this," I heard what sounded like Noble whispering in my ear.
I turned.
But there was no one there.
Not yet.
6 A Dead Bird
. Ami didn't seem the least bit worried about our being discovered entering the house this late. She didn't walk softly or whisper when we walked through the hallway. Perhaps the drinks had made her more flamboyant than she wanted to be. In fact, I thought she was talking very loudly.
"Do you want anything before you go to bed?" she asked at the kitchen door. "Not that I know where any-thing is in there," she added, and laughed. "Matter of fact, except for my own things, I don't know where anything is in this house."
The lights were dim, and there was no one in the kitchen, or anywhere downstairs for that matter. I didn't even know where Mrs. McAlister and Mrs. Cukor slept, but I imagined the door that came after the den-office led to downstairs bedrooms at the rear of the house. I was curious as to how those two slept near each other and what, if anything, they had to share. Probably a bathroom, I thought. Living in an orphanage most of my life, I knew what it was like not to get along with someone who was in your face so much. From what Ami had told me, and what Mrs. McAlister had said, she and Mrs. Cukor seemed to dislike each other intensely.
"Mrs. McAlister has gone to bed long ago, of course," Ami said, "but if you want a glass of milk or something cold to drink, I'm sure we can find the refrigerator."
"No, I'm fine, thank you." I was really too tired to even drink a glass of water.
"You won't hear or see Mrs. Cukor moving about either. Once she goes into her room and locks her door behind her, she couldn't be roused even if the house was on fire. I don't know what she does in there. She has no television, and I've never heard a radio. Actually, I've never been in either of their rooms, not that I would ever want to be in them," she said as we walked to the stairway. Just as we reached it, the grandfather clock bonged to tell us it was one in the morning. I could see a light pouring into the hallway from under the den door.
"Is Wade still working in the office?"