Secret Brother

“That’s very nice,” Mrs. Camden said.

“You don’t even know who she is,” I snapped back.

“I just meant it’s nice that you’re getting out, seeing your friends,” she said.

“Am I taking you?” Grandpa asked

“No. I’m going with Aaron Podwell. He’ll pick me up and bring me home.”

“By eleven.”

“Eleven?”

“That’s a bit early, William,” Mrs. Camden said softly. “She’s old enough to be Cinderella.”

He looked at her and nodded. “It’s har

d to think of these kids growing up so quickly.”

“These kids?” I said.

He lost the softness in his face. “Twelve, then,” he said. “And don’t be late.”

“Or Aaron’s new car will turn into a pumpkin,” I said.

Mrs. Camden widened her smile.

“Worse than that,” Grandpa said. “His father will hear about it.”

Mrs. Camden held on to her smile.

I turned and walked on to the dining room.

What I hated about her was how hard it was becoming to hate her at all.

9

They were too chatty at dinner, but I finally had my old appetite back, especially when it came to My Faith’s cooking. We had often had dinner guests, especially when my grandma Lucy was alive, but since she had died, I rarely saw my grandfather as interested in anyone as he was in Mrs. Camden. By now, they were both addressing each other by their first names, Dorian and William. It was Mrs. Camden more than my grandfather who tried to include me in their discussions, but they were talking about singers and actors I never knew. When I said so, they both seemed surprised.

“If we didn’t teach history in our schools, kids today wouldn’t even know who George Washington was,” Grandpa quipped. I couldn’t get over how quickly he was returning to himself.

“Not true,” I said. “We’d know every time we had a dollar.”

Mrs. Camden laughed so hard that I couldn’t keep a smile off my own face. Grandpa laughed, too.

“She’s very clever,” she told him.

“Her mother was sharp like that, too, and her grandmother wasn’t anyone to trade witty remarks with and come away without wounds to your pride.”

He paused as if he could see her sitting across the table. Then he shook his head and returned to their conversation. After one of My Faith’s famous lemon tarts, Mrs. Camden turned to me and asked, “What do you girls wear to house parties these days? We used to get so dressed up that you’d think we were going to the Waldorf or something.”

“Nothing very fancy,” I said.

“She probably needs something new,” Grandpa said. “Never saw a female who didn’t use an occasion to get something new.”

“I have enough,” I said.

“If you’d like someone to go shopping with you after school this week, I’d be happy to do it. Not that I know what’s in style these days,” she told my grandfather.