The Jealous Kind (Holland Family Saga 2)

“How interesting.”

“My mother says I’m fanciful.”

I could see her attention fading.

“I have a term paper on John Steinbeck due tomorrow,” she said. “I’d better get started on it.”

“I see.”

“I’m glad you came by.”

I tried not to look as stupid as I felt. I could see her father working on his truck, the muscles in his forearm swelling as he pulled on a wrench. I wanted her to introduce me to him. I wanted to talk about trucks and pipelines and drill bits. I didn’t want to leave. “Sunday night is a good time to play miniature golf. The stars are out and the breeze is blowing from the south, and there’s a watermelon stand with picnic tables close by.”

“See? You talk like a writer. Let’s get together another time.”

“Sure,” I replied. I hadn’t finished my lemonade. “I can show myself out. You’d better get started on your paper.”

“Don’t be mad.”

“I’m not, Miss Valerie. Thank you for inviting me in.”

“You don’t have to call me ‘miss.’?”

I got up from the table. “My father is from Louisiana. He gets on me about manners and proper grammar and such.”

“I think that’s nice.”

I waited, hoping she’d ask me to stay.

“I’ll walk out with you,” she said.

We went through a dark hallway that smelled of wood polish. A man’s work cap and raincoat, a 4-H Club sweater, and a denim jacket with lace sewn on the cuffs hung from wood pegs on the wall. A man’s galoshes and a pair of white rubber boots, the kind a teenage girl would wear, rested on the floor. There was no housecoat or woman’s hat or house shoes or parasol or shawl or scarf in the hallway.

Also, there was a solemnity about the living room that I hadn’t noticed before. Maybe the effect was created by the nineteenth-century furniture and the radio/record player with a potted plant on top of it and the empty fireplace and the couch and chairs that looked as though no one sat in them. I had thought Valerie Epstein lived in the perfect home. Now I wondered.

“Is your mother here?” I asked.

“She died during the war.”

“I’m sorry.”

“She’s not. She did what she thought was right.”

“Pardon?”

“Her brother got left behind when her family fled Paris. My mother had herself smuggled back into the country. The Gestapo caught her. We think she was shipped to Dachau.”

“Gee, Miss Valerie.”

“Come on, I’ll walk outside with you,” she said. She put her arm through mine.

The porch glider was swaying in the wind, the trees swelling, yellow dust rising into the sky. I could smell the odor of rain striking a hot sidewalk. “Can I have your phone number?”

“It’s in the book. You’d better hurry.” She glanced at the sky. “Don’t get into trouble. You understand? Stay away from Grady, no matter how much he tries to provoke you.”

“My father will let me have the car tonight. We can go to the watermelon stand. I’ll pick you up at eight and have you back home in less than an hour.”

“Nobody is this stubborn.”