Rirefly Lane / Улица Светлячков. Книга для чтения на английском языке

The surge of adrenaline she’d gotten from her announcement faded, leaving a quiet kind of sadness behind. She knew what she had to do now, but the thought of it made her sick.

Tell her the truth.

If you don’t, Mrs.Mularkey will.

“I got the new Seventeen and Tiger Beat,” Kate said, stretching out on the blue shag carpeting. “You want to read ‘em? We can take the ‘Can You Be Tony DeFranco’s Girlfriend?’ quiz.”

Tully lay down beside her. “Sure.”

“Jan-Michael Vincent is so foxy,” Kate said, flipping to a picture of the actor.

“I heard he lied to his girlfriend,” Tully said, daring a sideways glance.

“I hate liars.” Kate turned the page. “Are you really going to be a news reporter? You never told me that.”

“Yeah,” Tully said, really imagining it for the first time. Maybe she could be famous. Then everyone would admire her. “You’ll have to be one, too, though. ‘Cause we do everything together.”

“Me?”

“We’ll be a team like Woodward and Bernstein[73], only with better clothes. And prettier.”

“I don’t know—”

Tully bumped her. “Yes, you do. Mrs. Ramsdale told the whole class that you’re an excellent writer.”

Kate laughed. “That’s true. Okay. I’ll be a reporter, too.”

“When we get famous, we’ll tell Mike Wallace[74] we couldn’t have done it without each other.”

After that, they fell silent, flipping through the magazines. Tully tried twice to bring up the subject of her mother, but both times Kate interrupted her, and then someone was yelling, “Dinner,” and her chance for coming clean had slipped away.

All through the best meal of her life, she felt the weight of her lie. By the time they’d cleared the table and washed and dried the dishes, she was stretched to the breaking point. Even dreaming about fame on television couldn’t ease her nerves.

“Hey, Mom,” Kate said, putting away the last white Corningware plate, “Tully and me are going to ride our bikes down to the park, okay?”

“Tully and I,” her mother answered, reaching down into the magazine pouch of the La-Z-Boy’s arm for the TV guide. “And be back by eight.”

“Aww, Mom—”

“Eight,” her father said from the living room.

Kate looked at Tully. “They treat me like I’m a baby.”

“You don’t know how lucky you are. Come on, let’s get our bikes.”

They rode at a breakneck speed down the bumpy county road, laughing all the way. At Summer Hill, Tully flung her arms out and Kate followed.

When they got to the river park, they ditched their bikes in the trees and lay on the grass, side by side, staring up at the sky, listening to the river gurgling against the rocks.

“I have something to tell you,” Tully said in a rush.

“What?”

“My mom doesn’t have cancer. She’s a pothead.”

“Your mom smokes dope. Yeah, right.”

“It’s true. She’s always high.”

Kate turned to her. “Really?”

“Really.”

“You lied to me?”

Tully could barely maintain eye contact, she was so ashamed. “I didn’t mean to.”

“People don’t lie accidentally. It’s not like tripping over a crack in the sidewalk.”

“You don’t know how it feels to be embarrassed by your mom.”

“Are you kidding? You should have seen what my mom wore out to dinner last—”

“No,” Tully said. “You don’t know.”

“Tell me.”

Tully knew what Kate was asking of her; she wanted the truth that had spawned the lie, but Tully didn’t know if she could do it, turn all her pain into words and pass them out like cards. All her life she’d kept these secrets close. If she told Kate the reality and then lost her as a friend, it would be unbearable.

Then again, if she didn’t tell the truth, she’d lose the friendship for sure.

“I was two years old,” she finally said, “when my mom first dumped me at my grandparents’ house. She went to town for milk and came back when I was four. When I was ten, she showed up again and I thought it meant she loved me. That time she let go of me in a crowd. The next time I saw her I was fourteen. My gran’s letting us live in this house and sending us money every week. That’ll last until my mom bails again – which she will do.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Of course you don’t. My mom isn’t like yours. This is the longest amount of time I’ve ever spent with her. Sooner or later she’ll get bored and move on without me.”

“How can a mother do that?”

Tully shrugged. “I think there’s something wrong with me.”

“There’s nothing wrong with you. She’s the loser. But I still don’t get why you lied to me.”

Tully finally looked at her. “I wanted you to like me.”

“You were worried about me?” Kate burst out laughing. Tully was just about to ask her what was so funny when she sobered and said, “No more lies, right?”

“Absolutely.”

“We’ll be best friends forever,” Kate said earnestly. “Okay?”

“You mean you’ll always be there for me?”

“Always,” Kate answered. “No matter what.”

Tully felt an emotion open up inside her like some exotic flower. She could practically smell its honeyed scent in the air. For the first time in her life, she felt totally safe with someone. “Forever,” she promised. “No matter what.”

Kate would always remember the summer after eighth grade as one of the best times of her life. Every weekday, she rushed through her morning chores without complaint and babysat her brother until three o’clock, when her mom came home from running errands and volunteering on the 4-H council. After that, Kate was free. Weekends were, for the most part, her own.

She and Tully rode their bikes all over the valley and spent hours inner-tubing down the Pilchuck River. In the late afternoons, they stretched out on tiny towels, wearing neon-colored crocheted bikinis, their skin slick with a mixture of baby oil and iodine, listening to Top 40 music on the transistor radio they never left behind. They talked about everything: fashion, music, boys, the war and what was still going on over there, what it would be like to be a reporting duo, movies. Nothing was off-limits; no question couldn’t be volleyed over the net[75]. Now it was late August and they were in Kate’s bedroom, packing makeup for their trip to the fair. As usual, Kate had to change clothes and put on makeup after she left the house. If she wanted to look cool, anyway. Her mom still thought she was too young for everything. “You got your tube top?” Tully asked.

“Got it.”

Grinning at their own brilliant plan, they headed downstairs, where Dad was sitting on the sofa, watching television.

“We’re going to the fair now,” Kate said, thankful that her mother wasn’t here. Mom would notice the bag that was too big for the county fair. Her X-ray vision would probably see through the macramé exterior to the clothes, shoes, and makeup within.

“Be careful, you two,” he said without looking up.

It was what he always said now, ever since girls had started disappearing in Seattle. The news was calling the killer “Ted” these days because some girl at Lake Sammamish State Park had actually gotten away and given a description and his first name to the police. Girls all across the state were terrified. You couldn’t see a yellow VW Bug[76] without worrying that it was Ted’s car.

“We’ll be super careful,” Tully said, smiling. She loved it when Kate’s parents worried about them.

Kate crossed the room to kiss her dad goodbye. He curled an arm around her and handed her a ten-dollar bill. “Have fun.”

“Thanks, Daddy.”

She and Tully headed down the driveway, swinging their bags beside them.

“Do you think Kenny Markson will be at the fair?” Kate asked.

“You worry too much about boys.”

Kate bumped her friend, hip to hip. “He has a crush on you.”

“Big whoop. I’m taller.”

Suddenly Tully stopped.

“Jeez[77], Tully, be a spaz, why don’tcha[78]? I almost fell over—”

“Oh, no,” Tully whispered.

“What’s the matter?”

Then she noticed the police car parked in Tully’s driveway.

Tully grabbed Kate’s hand and practically dragged her down the driveway, across the street, and to the front door, which stood open.

A policeman was waiting for them in the living room.

When he saw them, his fleshy face pleated into clownlike folds. “Hello, girls. I’m Officer Dan Myers.”

“What did she do this time?” Tully asked.

“There was a spotted owl protest up by Lake Quinault that got out of hand yesterday. Your mother and several others staged a sit-in[79] that cost Weyerhaeuser[80] a full day’s work. Worse, someone dropped a cigarette in the woods.” He paused. “They just got the fire under control.”

“Let me guess: she’s going to jail.”

“Her lawyer is seeking voluntary treatment for drug addiction. If she’s lucky, she’ll be in the hospital for a while. If not…” He let the sentence trail off.

“Has someone called my grandmother?”

The officer nodded. “She’s expecting you. Do you need help packing?”

Kate didn’t understand what was happening. She turned to her friend. “Tully?”

There was a terrible blankness in Tully’s brown eyes, and Kate knew that this was big, whatever it was. “I have to go back to my grandma’s,” Tully said, then she walked past Kate and went into her bedroom.

Kate ran after her. “You can’t go!”

Tully pulled a suitcase out of the closet and flipped it open. “I don’t have any choice.”

“I’ll make your mother come back. I’ll tell her—”

Tully paused in her packing and looked at Kate. “You can’t fix this,” she said softly, sounding like a grown-up, tired and broken. For the first time, Kate understood the stories about Tully’s loser mom. They’d laughed about Cloud, made jokes about her drug use and her fashion sense and her various stories, but it wasn’t funny. And Tully had known this would happen.

“Promise me,” Tully said, her voice cracking, “that we’ll always be best friends.”

“Always,” was all Kate could say.

Tully finished packing and locked up her suitcase. Saying nothing, she headed back to the living room. On the radio “American Pie” was playing, and Kate wondered if she’d ever be able to listen to that song again without remembering this moment. The day the music died[81]. She followed Tully out to the driveway. There, they clung to each other until Officer Dan gently pulled Tully away.

Kate couldn’t even wave goodbye. She just stood there in the driveway, numb, with tears streaming down her cheeks, watching her best friend leave.

Chapter six

For the next three years, they wrote letters faithfully back and forth. It became more than a tradition and something of a lifeline. Every Sunday evening, Tully sat down at the white desk in her lavender and pink little-girl’s room and spilled her thoughts and dreams and worries and frustrations onto a sheet of notebook paper. Sometimes she wrote about things that didn’t matter – the Farrah Fawcett[82] haircut she’d gotten that made her look foxy or the Gunny Sax[83] dress she wore to the junior prom – but every now and then she went deeper and told Katie about the times she couldn’t sleep or the way she dreamed of her mother coming back and saying she was proud of her. When her grandfather died, it was Kate to whom Tully turned. She hadn’t cried for him until she got the phone call from her best friend that began with, “Oh, Tul, I’m so sorry.” For the first time in her life, Tully didn’t lie or embellish (well, not too much); she was mostly just herself, and that was good enough for Kate.

Now it was the summer of 1977. In a few short months they’d be seniors, ruling their separate schools.

And today was the day Tully had been working toward for months. Finally, she was going to actually step onto the road Mrs. Mularkey had shown her all those years ago.

The next Jean Enersen.

The words had become her mantra, a secret code that housed the enormity of her dream and made it sound possible. The seeds of it, planted so long ago in the kitchen of the Snohomish house, had sprouted wildly and sent roots deep into her heart. She hadn’t realized how much she’d needed a dream, but it had transformed her, changed her from poor motherless and abandoned Tully to a girl poised to take on the world. The goal made her life story unimportant, gave her something to reach for, to hang on to. And it made Mrs. Mularkey proud; she knew that from their letters. She knew, too, that Kate shared this dream. They would be reporters together, tracking down stories and writing them up. A team.

She stood on the sidewalk, staring at the building in front of her, feeling like a bank robber staring at Fort Knox.

Surprisingly, the ABC affiliate[84], despite its clout and glory, was in a small building in the Denny Regrade section of town[85]. There was no view to speak of, no impressive wall of windows or expensive art-filled lobby. Rather, there was an L-shaped desk, a pretty-enough receptionist, and a trio of mustard-yellow molded plastic lobby chairs.

Tully took a deep breath, squared her shoulders, and went inside. At the receptionist’s desk, she gave her name, and then took a seat along the wall. She made sure not to fidget or tap her feet during the long wait for her interview.

You never knew who was watching.

“Ms. Hart?” the receptionist finally said, looking up. “He’ll see you now.”

Tully gave her a poised, camera-ready smile and stood up. “Thank you.” She followed the receptionist through the doors to another waiting area.

There, she came face to face with the man to whom she’d been writing weekly for almost a year.

“Hello, Mr. Rorbach.” She shook his hand. “It’s excellent to finally meet you.”

He looked tired; older than she’d expected, too. There were only a handful of reddish gray hairs growing on his shiny head, and none of them were where they should be. The pale blue leisure suit he wore was decorated with white topstitching. “Come into my office, Miss Hart.”

“Ms. Hart,” she said. It was always better to start off on the right foot. Gloria Steinem said you’d never get respect if you didn’t demand it.

Mr. Rorbach blinked at her. “Excuse me?”

“I’ll answer to Ms. Hart, if you don’t mind, which I’m sure you don’t. How could anyone with a degree in English literature from Georgetown be resistant to change? I’m certain you’re on the cutting edge of social consciousness. I can see it in your eyes. I like your glasses, by the way.”

He stared at her, his mouth hanging open the slightest bit before he seemed to remember where he was. “Follow me, Ms. Hart.” He led her down the bland white hallway to the last fake wood door on the left, which he opened.

His office was a small corner space, with a window that looked directly at the monorail’s elevated cement track. The walls were completely bare.

Tully sat on the black fold-up chair positioned in front of his desk.

Mr. Rorbach took his seat and stared at her. “One hundred and twelve letters, Ms. Hart.” He patted the thick manila file folder[86] on his desk.

He’d saved all the letters she’d sent. That must mean something. She pulled her newest résumé out of the briefcase and set it on his desk. “As I’m sure you’ll notice, the high school paper has repeatedly put my work on its front page. Additionally I’ve included an in-depth piece on the Guatemalan earthquake, an update on Karen Ann Quinlan, and a heart-wrenching look at Freddie Prinze’s last days. They’ll surely showcase my ability.”

“You’re seventeen years old.”

“Yes.”

“Next month you’ll start your senior year of high school.”

All those letters had worked. He knew everything about her. “Exactly. I think that’s an interesting story angle, by the way. Going in to senior year; watching the class of ‘78. Maybe we could do monthly features about what really goes on behind the doors of a local high school. I’m sure your viewers—”

“Ms. Hart.” He steepled his fingers and rested his chin on the tips, looking at her. She got the impression he was trying not to smile.

“Yes, Mr. Rorbach?”

“This is the ABC affiliate, for gosh sakes. We don’t hire high school kids.”

“But you have interns.”

“From UW[87] and other colleges. Our interns know their way around a TV station. Most of them have already worked on their campus broadcasts. I’m sorry, but you’re just not ready.”

“Oh.”

They stared at each other.

“I’ve been at this job a long time, Ms. Hart, and I’ve rarely seen anyone as full of ambition as you.” He patted the folder of her letters again. “I’ll tell you what, you keep sending me your writing. I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

“So when I’m ready to be a reporter, you’ll hire me?”

He laughed. “You just send me the articles. And get good grades and go to college, okay? Then we’ll see.”

Tully felt energized again. “I’ll send you an update once a month. You’ll hire me someday, Mr. Rorbach. You’ll see.”

“I wouldn’t bet against you, Ms. Hart.”

They talked for a few more moments, and then Mr. Rorbach showed her out of his office. On the way to the stairs, he stopped at the trophy case, where dozens of Emmys and other news awards glinted golden in the light.

“I’ll win an Emmy someday,” she said, touching the glass with her fingertips. She refused to let herself be wounded by this setback, and that was all it was: a setback.

“You know what, Tallulah Hart, I believe you. Now go off to high school and enjoy your senior year. Real life comes fast enough.”

Outside, it looked like a postcard of Seattle; the kind of blue-skied, cloudless, picture-perfect day that lured out-of-towners into selling their homes in duller, less spectacular places and moving here. If only they knew how rare these days were. Like a rocket blaster, summer burned fast and bright in this part of the world and went out with equal speed.

Holding her grandfather’s thick black briefcase against her chest, she walked up the street toward the bus stop. On an elevated track above her head, the monorail thundered past, making the ground quake.

All the way home, she told herself it was really an opportunity; now she’d be able to prove her worth in college and get an even better job.

But no matter how she tried to recast it, the sense of having failed wouldn’t release its hold. When she got home she felt smaller somehow, her shoulders weighted down.

She unlocked the front door and went inside, tossing the briefcase on the kitchen table.

Gran was in the living room, sitting on the tattered old sofa, with her stockinged feet on the crushed velvet ottoman and an unfinished sampler in her lap. Asleep, she snored lightly.

At the sight of her grandmother, Tully had to force a smile. “Hey, Gran,” she said softly, moving into the living room, bending down to touch her grandmother’s knobby hand. She sat down beside her.

Gran came awake slowly. Behind the thick old-fashioned glasses, her confused gaze cleared. “How did it go?”

“The assistant news director thought I was too qualified, can you believe it? He said the position was a dead end for someone with my skills.”

Gran squeezed her hand. “You’re too young, huh?”

The tears she’d been holding back stung her eyes. Embarrassed, she brushed them away. “I know they’ll offer me a job as soon as I get into college. You’ll see. I’ll make you proud.”

Gran gave her the poor-Tully look. “I’m already proud. It’s Dorothy’s attention you want.”

Tully leaned against her gran’s slim shoulder and let herself be held. In a few moments, she knew this pain would fade again; like a sunburn, it would heal itself and leave her slightly more protected from the glare. “I’ve got you, Gran, so she doesn’t matter.”

Gran sighed tiredly. “Why don’t you call your friend Katie now? But don’t stay on too long. It’s expensive.”

Just the thought of that, talking to Kate, lifted Tully’s spirits. With the long-distance charges what they were, they rarely got to call each other. “Thanks, Gran. I will.”

The next week Tully got a job at the Queen Anne Bee, her neighborhood weekly newspaper. Her duties pretty much matched the measly per-hour wage they paid her, but she didn’t care. She was in the business. She spent almost every waking hour of the summer of ‘77 in the small, cramped offices, soaking up every bit of knowledge she could. When she wasn’t bird-dogging the reporters or making copies or delivering coffee, she was at home, playing gin rummy[88] with Gran for matchsticks. Every Sunday night, like clockwork, she wrote to Kate and shared the minute details of her week.

Now she sat at her little-girl’s desk in her bedroom and reread this week’s eight-page letter, then signed it Best Friends Forever, Tully, and carefully folded it into thirds.

On her desk was the most recent postcard from Kate, who was away on the Mularkey family’s yearly camping trip. Kate called it Hell Week with Bugs, but Tully was jealous of each perfect-sounding moment. She wished that she’d been able to go on the vacation with them; turning down the invitation had been one of the most difficult things she’d done. But between her all-important summer job and Gran’s declining health, she’d had no real choice.

She glanced down at her friend’s note, rereading the words she’d already memorized. Playing hearts[89] at night and roasting marshmallows, swimming in the freezing lake…

She forced herself to look away. It didn’t do any good in life to pine for what you couldn’t have. Cloud had certainly taught her that lesson.

She put her own letter in an envelope, addressed it, then went downstairs to check on Gran, who was already asleep.

Alone, Tully watched her favorite Sunday night television programs—All in the Family, Alice, and Kojak—and then closed up the house and went to bed. Her last thought as she drifted lazily toward sleep was to wonder what the Mularkeys were doing.

The next morning she woke at her usual time, six o’clock, and dressed for work. Sometimes, if she arrived early enough at the office, one of the reporters would let her help with the day’s stories.

She hurried down the hall and tapped on the last door. Though she hated to wake her grandmother, it was the house rule. No leaving without a goodbye. “Gran?”

She tapped again and pushed the door open slowly, calling out, “Gran… I’m leaving for work.”

Cool lavender shadows lay along the windowsills. The samplers that decorated the walls were boxes without form or substance in the gloom.

Gran lay in bed. Even from here, Tully could see the shape of her, the coil of her white hair, the ruffle of her nightdress… and the stillness of her chest.

“Gran?”

She moved forward, touched her grandmother’s velvet, wrinkled cheek. The skin was cold as ice. No breath came from her slack lips.

Tully’s whole world seemed to tilt, slide off its foundation. It took all her strength to stand there, staring down at her grandmother’s lifeless face.

Her tears were slow in forming; it was as if each one were made of blood and too thick to pass through her tear ducts. Memories came at her like a kaleidoscope: Gran braiding her hair for her seventh birthday party, telling her that her mommy might show up if she prayed hard enough, and then years later admitting that sometimes God didn’t answer a little girl’s prayers, or a grown woman’s, either; or playing cards last week, laughing as Tully swept up the discard pile – again – saying, “Tully, you don’t have to have every card, all the time…”; or kissing her goodnight so gently.

She had no idea how long she stood there, but by the time she leaned over and kissed Gran’s papery cheek, sunlight had eased through the sheer curtains, lighting the room. It surprised Tully, that brightness. Without Gran, it seemed this room should be dark.

“Come on, Tully,” she said.

There were things she was supposed to do now; she knew that. She and Gran had talked about this, done things to prepare. Tully knew, though, that no words could have really prepared her for this.

She went over to Gran’s nightstand, where a pretty rosewood box sat beneath the photo of Grandpa and alongside the battalion of medications.

She lifted the lid, feeling vaguely like a thief, but Gran expected this of her. When I go Home, Gran always said, I’ll leave you something in the box Grandpa bought me.

Inside, laying atop the cluster of inexpensive jewelry that Tully could rarely remember her Grandmother wearing, was a folded piece of pink paper with Tully’s name written on it.