Tangled Webb (2 page)

“Well, naturally not! How could you? After all, it's only been about—not even a month.” Alison shifted her books to her other arm and added, “I hope you've got something edible in your refrigerator. I'm starving.”

I'm no good at pretending. She knows there's something wrong. Maybe she even knows I'm not exactly sure yet what it is. But Alison's not like some people. She won't bug me to talk about it until I'm ready.

I stopped at the box to get the mail, dumped it on top of my ring binder and books, and sorted it one-handed as we
walked up the flagstone path. Junk, two envelopes with windows, and three letters from Gramma—one to Daddy, one to Kelsey, and one to me.

I said, “Goody!” and reached for the doorknob, but before I could turn it, the door opened and Kelsey stepped out so suddenly we nearly crashed into each other.

“
Oh!
” she gasped. “Oh—hi, Juniper! I'm sorry! You startled me.” She backed up, almost stumbling, and swung the door wide, smiling but looking all flustered. She was wearing a coral T-shirt, and she'd gone so pink her cheeks nearly matched it. She looked startled, all right, a lot more so than I could see much reason for. She went on talking, kind of fast. “I was just going out to see if the mail had—oh, good, you've got it. Not that I'm expecting anything . . .” She took the envelopes I handed her, looking uncertainly at Alison. “Hi . . . Alice?”

Alison just grinned and said, “Alison Fisher.”

“Alison
. Sorry! I'm awful at remembering names. I do know who you are, honest. Juniper's best friend. Come on in.”

“You've got a letter from Gramma,” I told her. “We each got one.”

“Oh!” Kelsey closed the door, studying the envelopes in her hand. “From Bozeman, Montana. That's your father's mother, isn't it? She's writing me?”

“Probably saying, ‘Welcome to the family,' or something.”

“How nice!” Kelsey's color had begun to fade enough so you could see the freckles across her nose and cheekbones, but now she flushed up again. It wasn't because she was pleased, though. She was looking at that envelope as if it might bite her.

She couldn't be nervous about
Gramma?
She wouldn't be if she knew her. I said, “You'll like Gramma,” sort of to reassure
her. “She's a lot like Daddy. Kind of quiet and easygoing. But doesn't
give
when you push. You know.”

“Yes, I know,” Kelsey said, and she gave me a look I couldn't figure out at all. She smiled a little, as if she were going to say something else, but she didn't. She just tucked the letter in her pocket and said, “Come on in the kitchen. I made cookies this morning. Only keep it down, Preston's still asleep.”

It still seems funny to see her moving around our kitchen, twitching aside Margo's curtains with the red roosters on them, and using Margo's favorite coffee mug and my cookie plate with the scalloped edge that I bought that time at the beach with my allowance, that Margo always saved for when
I
made brownies. I kept having to swallow little objections or, anyway, comments that I'd probably have been sorry about later. The trouble is, the whole kitchen still seems like Margo's, even after all these years. Probably because Daddy and I never changed anything. Maybe Kelsey will, now. Maybe she should.

The cookies were the ones on the back of the oatmeal box—I guess Kelsey doesn't know many recipes. But she put in chocolate chips instead of raisins, and it made them real good. By the time I'd read my letter—and then read it again because it sounded just like Gramma and was almost like talking to her—Alison was halfway through her milk and gabbing away to Kelsey as if they were old pals. Alison's old pals with everybody in five minutes if you give her half a chance. There I was just reaching for my second cookie and she was already telling Kelsey all about Author Day next Tuesday, and Elizabeth Kenilworth coming to give talks, and that she—I mean Alison—is going to write books, too, when she grows up, and she's going to ask Elizabeth Kenilworth all about how to do it when she goes up afterward to get her autograph.

As if anybody could just tell you, in about two sentences, how to write books. Alison's sure to ask, though. And whatever Elizabeth Kenilworth answers, she'll put it all down in her notebook. Alison is really absolutely sure she's going to be a great author when she's about Kelsey's age. Well, maybe I'd like that too, I mean I
know
I would. But I have trouble believing I'll ever write all that well. To tell the truth, I have trouble believing Alison will. I mean, her plots are so sort of
wild
.

Anyway, Kelsey asked what kind of books Elizabeth Kenilworth writes, and that's when one of those odd things happened again. Alison said, “Mysteries!” and gave one of her movie-actor shivers and started listing titles. I think she owns about ten of the books.
“The Tale of the Tower. Three Blind Bats. The Secret of the Old Well
. Oooo, they're wonderful!”

Kelsey smiled and said, “Scary?”

“Well—
fun
scary. I mean—”

Alison bogged down, so I helped. “Not scary like vampires and monsters. Scary because something bad's bound to happen and you don't know when. Or somebody's out to get you but you don't know who.”

Alison gave one of her bubbly giggles. “Yeah. It's like a sledgehammer hung up somewhere waiting to fall on your head.”

There was a little tiny pause, then Kelsey said, “That's fun?” in an odd sort of voice that made me stare.

Alison blinked, and said, “Well—you know. It's only a book.”

By then Kelsey was laughing in that breathless way she has. She said, “Oh, sure, I know. It really sounds like a good read.” She was still smiling as she got up to refill the cookie plate,
which didn't need refilling. But she'd closed that door behind the smile.

I don't think Alison noticed. She just went on about Elizabeth Kenilworth, while I watched Kelsey and wondered what there could have been in that silly conversation to bother anybody. Then in a minute here came little splatting footsteps along the bare floor of the hall, and Preston showed up in the kitchen doorway. He just stood there in his undershirt grinning at us, and he's so
cute
, with his curly little dark mop and brown eyes, and
one
dimple, that we all forgot whatever we'd been thinking about, and just concentrated on him. He's going to be one spoiled little kid if we don't watch out—with me and Kelsey and Daddy and now Alison, too, all crazy about him. He sure does look like Kelsey—no doubt about whose little boy he is. He's even got a few little brown freckles like hers, right across his button of a nose.

She didn't mind at all if Alison and I played with him, so we got him dressed and took him out in his stroller for a while, only not far, not even down to the mall. Kelsey doesn't let him much out of her sight. He learned to say “Alsnfisher,” and he kept sort of patting Alison's hand or arm, in a surprised sort of way. I guess he hasn't known many black people. Then we brought him home again and helped him build block towers till Alison had to leave. We never did do any math.

Kelsey is okay, really, I've decided. Some people are just not as cool as others, that's all. Kelsey's one of the jumpy ones. Meeting strangers, like Daddy's friends or even Alison, and sudden surprises like when we nearly collided in the doorway—things like that throw her off balance for a minute. Once she gets used to living here—in Margo's house—and being married again, she's bound to get over it and act like anybody
else. Probably she thinks everybody's criticizing her and comparing her to Margo. They probably are too. I guess I am. I ought to try to quit.

Oh, well. It's only about three weeks since the wedding. It'll all wear off. It's bound to. Things are going to be perfectly okay.

SATURDAY, MAY 18

I don't know. Things are
not
perfectly okay. I wish I could tell whether it's my fault or Kelsey's. I can't decide whether to feel guilty or not.

Daddy sticks up for Kelsey, of course. I mean, he sort of keeps explaining her to me. I listen too. I
want
her explained. But the things he explains never seem exactly the same things I'm bothered about.

Oh, well, quit
talking
about it.

Daddy's gone until tomorrow evening. He had to go down to Klamath Falls to do something for that big office down there where he installed all their computers a couple of years ago. They're always having problems and yelling for help. If they'd only bought better systems they wouldn't have so much trouble, and neither would he, but they insisted on these el-cheapo printers and software so what can you expect? I tell Daddy he ought to take a couple of weekdays off to make up for working weekends, but he'll never do that. And if you're a one-man business you can't send anybody in your place.

I used to like it when he had to drive to some other town on the weekend, because he always took me with him—after Margo died, I mean. If he had to go on school days, of course
Mrs. Evans came and stayed with me, but Saturdays I always went along, and we had the best time, singing dumb songs and counting mailboxes and playing animal-vegetable-mineral and stuff like that. And I always talked to him. It was a chance to tell him about whatever was on my mind. Then, while he was working on the systems, I sat in whatever office it was and did my homework, and we had dinner at a restaurant and slept at a motel. It was really fun.

Now there's no need for me to go along because Kelsey's always here to be with me and fix meals and stuff. She's home all the time—she quit her job when they got married. Instead, she's taken over the job Daddy's answering service used to do.

It was so she wouldn't have to leave Preston at Tiny Tots Day-Care Center anymore, and I don't blame her, really. He's so
little
to leave with people he doesn't know. Kelsey said he never would say a word to anybody at Tiny Tots, for the whole time he stayed there—nearly five months. She thinks it made him slower to begin talking. He doesn't say much, even now, to anybody but her. I've heard him chattering away to her—not that he has much of a vocabulary yet—but if Daddy or I or Alison or anybody else comes into the room, he shuts right up. He'll smile, and play blocks or pat-a-cake with you, and say your name if you ask “Who am I?” He's quick and smart as anything. But he just won't talk much. He calls me “Juper.”

Kelsey told me she likes my name. It was last night at dinner, and I was trying to get Preston to say “Ju-ni-per,” only he wouldn't, just grinned at me with his mouth full of mashed potatoes as if I was making a real funny joke. And Kelsey all of a sudden said, “I just love your name. It's so
unusual
. Was it your idea, Charley, or—” She stopped, as if she maybe wished she hadn't asked Daddy that.

But he just said, “No, it was Margo's. One weekend not long before Juni was born, she and I drove over into central Oregon, down along the Deschutes—”

I got up quick and took my plate to the kitchen so I wouldn't have to listen. Margo must've told me that story a hundred times when I was little—about the smell of juniper that was everywhere, even in the towns, and her deciding right then that she wanted a spicy, sharp, lively little girl just like that spicy, sharp, lively fragrance—and that she'd got one. I used to make her tell me that over and over, whenever I thought about it. It made me feel so special.

But I could hardly stand Daddy sharing that sort of real private thing about Margo with
Kelsey
. I feel like it ought to stay just something between him and me, a part of remembering Margo. I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong to feel that way.

Anyway, last night when Kelsey was putting Preston to bed, I grabbed my chance and went into the little office room where Daddy'd been returning his customers' phone calls, and asked him straight out if he was going to talk about Margo to Kelsey. I mean, I was nice about it, but there wasn't time to lead up to it gradually, or be tactful.

He swiveled his chair around right away, looking startled and real concerned. But he misunderstood me totally. “Juni, you mustn't worry about anything like that!” he said. “Kelsey would
never
get jealous. She's the most generous person in the world. It was something I noticed about her right off.” Before I could say a word, he went right on, reaching out to move his visitor's chair so I could sit up close to him. He can handle a heavy wooden chair with one big hand, easy, as if it didn't weigh anything. “Jealousy just isn't in her nature. She knows very well Margo was irreplaceable—for you and me both. We've talked about it—she understands
perfectly, and doesn't want it any other way.”

I said, “Well, but I didn't mean—I mean—” I don't know what I was trying to say. We were just suddenly on a different subject and I couldn't think how to get us back.

Daddy said, “It's a little hard to explain it to you. My years with Margo just seem a separate part of my life now. Another world.” He stared at nothing for a minute, maybe back into that other world, because he got this expression on his face that it used to have when he looked at Margo—a kind of amused but marveling look, as if he were watching a magic show. Then he blinked that away and focused on me again, rubbing his knuckles back and forth under his beard. It's short and wiry and sandy colored, blonder than his hair. The light from the desk lamp made a kind of halo around its edges. He said, “All I can say is Kelsey and I have a different feeling for each other from the one I had for Margo, or Kelsey had for Tim. It's a second marriage for her, too, remember. It's calmer. But very secure. I'm gonna make sure of that.”

“Yes, sure,” I mumbled. “I realize. But I—”