Olivia (Logan 5)
Page 11
invalid. She didn't eat well and what she ate, she often didn't keep down. Her usual rosy complexion evaporated and didn't return until toward the end of the week, which was just in time for what she had planned. On Saturday, three boys from her highschool class arrived at the house after lunch to visit her. They brought flowers and candy. Carmelita appeared in the doorway of the sitting room where Mother, Daddy and I were.
"There are three young men here to see Belinda," she announced with little emotion. "Three?" Daddy asked, his eyebrows lifting. "Yes, sir."
"Boys?"
"Yes, Mr. Gordon."
Daddy shifted his gaze to me and I frowned. "That's very nice," Mother declared. She smiled
my way even though I continued to scowl.
"Show them in," Daddy declared and stiffened
up the way he usually did for a business meeting he
anticipated would be difficult. He had a way of bringing up his shoulders and lowering his neck until he resembled a bird of prey. Daddy was barrelchested, stout and very intimidating when he swelled
up and put a glint of steel in his eyes.
I knew each of the boys Carmelita showed in.
They had all been here to take Belinda on a date at
one time or another this year. There was Arnold
Miller, who had been my prime suspect only because
Belinda had spent so much time with him recently. He
was very tall, easily six feet four, good-looking with
light brown hair and green eyes speckled with brown.
From what Belinda had told me, she fancied him
because he was something of a school sports hero,
their star basketball player and star baseball pitcher.
Most of the girls wanted him for a boyfriend. Belinda
enjoyed being envied more than she enjoyed being
loved.
Arnold's parents owned a lumber mill and
garden equipment store, one of the biggest retail
outlets in Provincetown. Arnold was the oldest of
three children, all boys. I thought he was a little shy,
but I couldn't be sure if that was an act he put on in
front of me. Belinda only giggled when I had first
asked her about him months ago.