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

Slowly, she reached out, took the letter, and opened it.

My dearest Tully – I am so sorry. I know how afraid you are of being alone, of being left behind, but God has His plan for all of us. I would have stayed with you longer if I could have. Your grandfather and I will always be watching out for you from Heaven. You will never be alone if you believe in that. You were the greatest joy of my life.

Love, Gran

Were.

Gran was gone.

Tully stood outside the church, watching the crowd of elderly people stream past her. A few of Gran’s friends recognized her and came over to offer their condolences[90].

I’m so sorry dear…

…but she’s in a better place…

…with her beloved Winston.

…wouldn’t want you to cry.

She took as much of it as she could because she knew Gran would have wanted that, but by eleven o’clock, she was ready to scream. Didn’t any of the well-wishers see, didn’t they realize that Tully was a seventeen-year-old girl, dressed in black and all alone in the world?

If only Katie and the Mularkeys were here, but she had no idea how to reach them in Canada, and since they wouldn’t be home for two days, she had to endure this alone. With them beside her, a pretend family, maybe she would have made it through the service.

Without them, she simply couldn’t do it. Instead of sitting through the terrible, heart-wrenching memories of Gran, she got up in the middle of the funeral and walked out.

Outside, in the hot August sunlight, she could breathe again, even though the tears were always near to the surface, as was the pointless query, How could you leave me like this?

Surrounded by dusty old-model land yachts[91], she tried not to cry. Mostly, she tried not to remember, or to worry about what would happen to her.

Nearby, a twig snapped and Tully looked up. At first all she saw were the haphazardly parked cars.

Then she saw her.

Over by the property’s edge, where a row of towering maple trees delineated the start of the city park, Cloud stood in the shade, smoking a long slim cigarette. Dressed in tattered corduroy bell-bottoms and a dirty peasant blouse, parenthesized by a wall of frizzy brown hair, she looked rail-thin.

Tully couldn’t help the tiny leap of joy her heart took. Finally, she wasn’t alone. Cloud might be a little nuts[92], but when the chips were down, she came back. Tully ran toward her, smiling. She would forgive her mother for all the missing years, all the abandonments. What mattered was that she was here now, when Tully needed her most. “Thank God you’re here,” she said, coming to a breathless stop. “You knew I’d need you.”

Her mother lurched toward her, laughing when she almost fell. “You’re a beautiful spirit, Tully. All you need is air and to be free.”

Tully’s stomach seemed to drop. “Not again,” she said, pleading for help with her eyes. “Please…”

“Always.” There was an edge to Cloud’s voice now, a sharpness that belied the glassy look in her eyes.

“I’m your flesh and blood and I need you now. Otherwise I’ll be alone.” Tully knew she was whispering, but she couldn’t seem to find any volume for her voice.

Cloud took a stumbling step forward. The sadness in her eyes was unmistakable, but Tully didn’t care. Her mother’s pseudo-emotions came and went like the sun in Seattle. “Look at me, Tully.”

“I’m looking.”

“No. Look. I can’t help you.”

“But I need you.”

“That’s the fucking tragedy of it,” her mother said, taking a long drag on the cigarette and blowing smoke out a few seconds later.

“Why?” Tully asked. She was going to add, Don’t you love me? but before she could form the pain into words, the funeral let out and black-clad people swarmed into the parking lot. Tully glanced sideways, just long enough to dry her tears. When she turned back, her mother was gone.

The woman from social services was as dry as a twig. She tried to say the right things, but Tully noticed that she kept glancing at her watch as she stood in the hallway outside Tully’s bedroom.

“I still don’t see why I need to pack my stuff. I’m almost eighteen. Gran has no mortgage on this house – I know ‘cause I paid the bills this year. I’m old enough to live alone.”

“The lawyer is expecting us,” was the woman’s only answer. “Are you nearly ready?”

She placed the stack of Kate’s letters in her suitcase, closed the lid, and snapped it shut. Since she couldn’t actually form the words I’m ready, she simply grabbed the suitcase, then slung her macramé purse over her shoulder. “I guess so.”

“Good,” the woman said, spinning briskly around and heading for the stairs.

Tully took one last, lingering look around her bedroom, noticing as if for the first time things she’d overlooked for years: the lavender ruffled bed linens and white twin bed, the row of plastic horses – dusty now – that lined the windowsill, the Mrs. Beasley doll on the top of the dresser, and the Miss America jewelry box with the pink ballerina on top.

Gran had decorated this room for the little girl who’d been dumped here all those years ago. Every item had been chosen with care, but now they’d all be boxed up and stored in the dark, along with the memories they elicited. Tully wondered how long it would be before she could think of Gran without crying.

She closed the door behind her and followed the woman through the now-quiet house, down the steps outside, to the street in front of house, where a battered yellow Ford Pinto was parked.

“Put your suitcase in the back.”

Tully did as she was told and got into the passenger seat.

When the lady started up the car, the stereo came on at an ear-shattering level. It was David Soul’s “Don’t Give Up on Us.” She immediately turned it down, mumbling, “Sorry about that.”

Tully figured it was as good a song to apologize for as any, so she just shrugged and looked out the window.

“I’m sorry about your grandmother, if I haven’t said that already.”

Tully stared at her weird reflection in the window. It was like looking at a negative version of her face, colorless and insubstantial. The way she felt inside, actually.

“By all accounts she was an exceptional woman.”

Tully didn’t answer that. She couldn’t have found much of a voice anyway. Ever since the encounter with her mother, she’d been dry inside. Empty.

“Well. Here we are.”

They parked in front of a well-kept Victorian home in downtown Ballard. A hand-painted sign out front read: BAKER AND MONTGOMERY, ATTORNEYS AT LAW.

It took Tully a moment to get out of the car. By the time she did, the woman was giving her a soft, understanding smile.

“You don’t need to bring your suitcase.”

“I’d like to, thanks.” If there was one thing Tully understood, it was the importance of a packed bag.

The woman nodded and led the way up the grass-veined concrete walkway to the white front door. Inside the overly quaint space, Tully took a seat in the lobby, close to the empty receptionist’s desk. Cutesy drawings of big-eyed kids lined the ornately papered walls. At precisely four o’clock, a pudgy man with a balding head and horn-rimmed glasses came to get them.

“Hello, Tallulah. I’m Elmer Baker, your Grandmother Hart’s attorney.”

Tully followed him to a small upstairs room with two overstuffed chairs and an antique mahogany desk littered with yellow legal pads[93]. In the corner, a standing fan buzzed and thumped and sent warm air spinning toward the door. The social worker took a seat by the window.

“Here. Here. Sit down, please,” he said, moving to his own chair behind the elegant desk.

“Now, Tallulah—”

“Tully,” she said quietly.

“Quite right. I recall Ima saying you preferred Tully.” He put his elbows on the desk and leaned forward. His buglike eyes blinked behind the thick magnifying lenses of his glasses. “As you know, your mother has refused to take custody of you.”

It took all her strength to nod, even though last night she’d practiced a whole monologue about how she should be allowed to live alone. Now, here, she felt small and much too young.

“I’m sorry,” he said in a gentle voice, and Tully actually flinched at the words. She’d come to truly loathe the stupid, useless sentiment.

“Yeah,” she said, fisting her hands at her sides.

“Ms. Gulligan here has found a lovely family for you. You’ll be one of several displaced teens in their care. The excellent news is that you’ll be able to continue in your current school placement. I’m sure that makes you happy.”

“Ecstatic.”

Mr. Baker looked momentarily nonplussed by her response. “Of course. Now. As to your inheritance. Ima left all her assets – both homes, the car, the bank accounts, and stocks – to you. She has left instructions for you to continue with the monthly payments to her daughter, Dorothy. Your grandmother believed it was the best and only way to keep track of her. Dorothy has proven to be very reliable at keeping in touch when there’s money coming.” He cleared his throat. “Now… if we sell both homes, you won’t have to worry about finances for quite some time. We can take care—”

“But then I won’t have a home at all.”

“I’m sorry about that, but Ima was very specific in her request. She wanted you to be able to go to any college.” He looked up. “You’re going to win the Pulitzer[94] someday. Or that’s what she told me.”

Tully couldn’t believe she was going to cry again, and in front of these people. She popped to her feet. “I need to go to the restroom.”

A frown pleated Mr. Baker’s pale forehead. “Oh. Certainly. Downstairs. First door to the left of the front door.”

Tully got up from her chair, grabbed her suitcase, and made her halting way to the door. Once in the hallway, she shut the door behind her and leaned against the wall, trying not to cry.

Foster care[95] could not be her future.

She glanced down at the date on her Bicentennial wristwatch.

The Mularkeys would be home tomorrow.

Chapter seven

The drive home from British Columbia seemed to take forever. The air conditioner in the station wagon was broken, so warm air tumbled from the useless vents. Everyone was hot and tired and dirty. And still Mom and Dad wanted to sing songs. They kept bugging the kids to sing along.

Kate couldn’t stand how lame it was. “Mom, will you please tell Sean to quit touching my shoulder?”

Her brother burped and started laughing. The dog barked wildly.

In the front seat, Dad leaned forward and turned on the radio. John Denver’s voice floated through the speakers with “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.”

“That’s all I’m singing, Margie. If they don’t want to join in… fine.”

Kate returned to her book. The car bounced so much the words danced on the page, but that didn’t matter; not with as many times as she’d read The Lord of the Rings.

I am glad you are here with me. Here at the end of all things.[96]

“Katie. Kathleen.”

She looked up. “Yeah?”

“We’re home,” her dad said. “Put that dang book down and help us unload the car.”

“Can I call Tully first?”

“No. You’ll unpack first.”

Kate slapped her book shut. For seven days she’d been waiting to make that call. But unloading the car was more important. “Fine. But Sean better help.”

Her mother sighed. “You just worry about yourself, Kathleen.”

They piled out of the smelly station wagon and began the end-of-vacation ritual. By the time they finished, it was dark. Kate put the last of her clothes into the pile on the laundry room floor, started the first load, then went to find her Mom, who was sitting on the sofa with Dad. They were leaning against each other, looking dazed.

“Can I call Tully now?”

Dad consulted his watch. “At nine-thirty? I’m sure her grandmother would really appreciate that.”

“But—”

“Goodnight, Katie,” her dad said firmly, looping his arm around Mom and pulling her close.

“This is so not fair.”

Mom laughed. “Whoever told you life would be fair? Now go to bed.”

For almost four hours Tully stood at the corner of her house, watching the Mularkeys unload their car. She’d thought about running up the hill a dozen times, just showing up, but she wasn’t ready for the boisterousness of the whole family just yet. She wanted to be alone with Kate, someplace quiet where they could talk.

So she waited until the lights went out and then crossed the street. In the grass beneath Kate’s window, she waited another thirty minutes, just to be sure.

Off to her left somewhere, she could hear Sweetpea nickering at her and pawing at the ground. No doubt the old mare was looking for company, too. During the camping trip a neighbor had fed the horse, but that wasn’t the same as being loved.

“I know, girl,” Tully said, sitting down. She wrapped her arms around her bent legs, hugging herself. Maybe she should have called instead of stalking them like this. But Mrs. Mularkey might have told her to come by tomorrow, that they were tired from their long drive, and Tully couldn’t wait anymore. This loneliness was more than she could handle by herself.

Finally, at eleven o’clock, she stood up, brushed the grass off her jeans, and threw a piece of gravel at Kate’s window.

It took four tosses before her friend stuck her head out the window. “Tully!” Kate ducked back into her room and slammed the window shut. It took less than a minute for her to appear at the side of the house. Wearing a Bionic Woman[97] nightshirt, her old black-rimmed glasses, and her retainer, Kate ran for Tully, arms outstretched.

Tully felt Kate’s arms wrap around her and for the first time in days, she felt safe.

“I missed you so much,” Kate said, tightening her hold.

Tully couldn’t answer. It was all she could do not to cry. She wondered if Kate knew, really knew, how important their friendship was to her. “I got our bikes,” she said, stepping back, looking away so Kate wouldn’t see her moist eyes.

“Cool.”

Within minutes they were on their way, flying down Summer Hill, their hands outstretched to catch the wind. At the bottom of the hill, they ditched their bikes in the trees and walked down the long and winding road to the river. All around them trees chattered among themselves; the wind sighed, and leaves fluttered down from branches in an early sign of the coming autumn.

Kate flopped down in their old spot, her back rested against the mossy log, her feet stretched out in the grass that had grown tall in their absence.

Tully felt an unexpected pinch of nostalgia for their youth. They’d spent most of one summer here, taking their separate, lonely lives and braiding them into a rope of friendship. She lay down beside Kate, scooting close enough that their shoulders were touching. After the last few days, she needed to know that her best friend was finally beside her. She positioned her transistor radio nearby and turned up the volume.

“Hell Week with Bugs was even worse than usual,” Kate said. “I did talk Sean into eating a slug, though. It was worth the week’s allowance I lost.” She giggled. “You should have seen his face when I started laughing. Aunt Georgia tried to talk to me about birth control[98]. Can you believe it? She said I should—”

“Do you even know how lucky you are?” The words were out before Tully could stop them, spilling like jelly beans from a machine.

Kate shifted her weight and turned, until she was lying sideways in the grass, looking at Tully. “You usually want to hear everything about the camping trip.”

“Yeah, well. I’ve had a bad week.”

“Did you get fired?”

“That’s your idea of a bad week? I want your perfect life, just for a day.”

Kate drew back, frowning. “You sound pissed at me.”

“Not at you.” Tully sighed. “You’re my best friend.”

“So, who are you mad at?”

“Cloud. Gran. God. Take your pick.” She took a deep breath and said, “Gran died while you were gone.”

“Oh, Tully.”

And there it was, what Tully had been waiting for all week. Someone who loved her and was truly sorry for her. Tears stung her eyes; before she knew it, she was crying. Big, gulping sobs that wracked her body and made it impossible to breathe, and all the while, Kate held her, letting her cry, saying nothing.

When there were no tears left inside, Tully smiled shakily. “Thanks for not saying you felt sorry for me.”

“I am, though.”

“I know.” Tully lay back against the log and stared up at the night sky. She wanted to admit that she was scared and that as alone as she’d sometimes felt in life, she knew now what real loneliness was, but she couldn’t say the words, not even to Kate. Thoughts – even fears – were airy things, formless until you made them solid with your voice, and once given that weight, they could crush you.

Kate waited a moment, then said, “So what will happen?”

Tully wiped her eyes and reached into her pocket, pulling out a pack of cigarettes. Lighting one up, she took a drag and coughed. It had been years since she’d smoked. “I have to go into foster care. It’s only for a while, though. When I’m eighteen I can live alone.”

“You’re not going to live with strangers,” Kate said fiercely. “I’ll find Cloud and make her do the right thing.”

Tully didn’t bother answering. She loved her friend for saying it, but they lived in two different worlds, she and Kate. In Tully’s world, moms weren’t there to help you out. What mattered was making your own way.

What mattered was not caring.

And the best way not to care was to surround yourself with noise and people. She’d learned that lesson a long time ago. She didn’t have long here in Snohomish. In no time at all, the authorities would find her and drag her back to her lovely new family, full of displaced teens and the people paid to house them. “We should go to that party tomorrow night. The one you wrote about in your last letter.”

“At Karen’s house? The summer’s-end bash-o-rama[99]?”

“Exactly.”

Kate frowned. “My folks would have a cow[100] if they found out I went to a kegger.”

“We’ll tell them you’re staying at my house across the street. Your mom will believe Cloud is back for a day.”

“If I get caught—”

“You won’t.” Tully saw how worried her friend was, and she knew she should stop this plan right now. It was reckless, maybe even dangerous. But she couldn’t stop the train. If she didn’t do something drastic, she’d sink into the gooey darkness of her own fears. She’d think about the mother who’d so often and so repeatedly abandoned her, and the strangers with whom she’d soon live, and the grandmother who was gone. “We won’t get caught. I promise.” She turned to Kate. “You trust me, don’t you?”

“Sure,” Kate said slowly.

“Great. Then we’re going to the party.”

“Kids! Breakfast is ready.”

Kate was the first one to sit down.

Mom had just put a plate of pancakes down on the table when there was a knock at the door.

Kate jumped up. “I’ll get it.” She ran for the door and yanked it open, feigning surprise. “Mom, look. It’s Tully. Gosh, I haven’t seen you in forever.”

Mom stood near the table, wearing her zip-up, floor-length red velour robe and pink fuzzy slippers. “Hey, Tully, it’s good to see you again. We missed you on the camping trip this year, but I know how important your job is.”

Tully lurched forward. Looking up, she started to say something, but no sound came out of her mouth. She just stood there, staring at Kate’s mom.

“What is it?” her mother said, moving toward Tully. “What’s going on?”

“My gran died,” Tully said softly.

“Oh, honey…” Mom pulled Tully into a fierce hug, holding her for a long time. Finally, Mom drew back, put an arm around Tully, and led her to the sofa in the living room.

“Turn off the griddle, Katie,” Mom said without even looking back.

Kate turned off the griddle and then followed them to the living room. She hung back, standing in the curl of the archway that separated the two rooms. Neither of them seemed to care that she was there.

“Did we miss the funeral?” Mom asked gently, holding Tully’s hand.

Tully nodded. “Everyone said they were sorry. I officially hate those words now.”

“People don’t know what to say, that’s all.”

“My favorite part was the ever popular ‘she’s in a better place.’ As if dead is better than being with me.”

“And your mom?”

“Let’s just say she doesn’t call herself Cloud for nothing. She came and went.” Tully glanced at Kate and added quickly, “But she’s here for now. We’re staying across the street.”

“Of course she is,” Mom said. “She knows you need her.”

“Can I spend the night there tonight, Mom?” Kate asked; her heart was beating so hard and fast, she was sure her mom could hear it. She tried to look completely trustworthy, but since she was lying, she expected her mother to see through it.

Mom didn’t even look at Kate. “Of course. You girls need to be together. And you remember this, Tully Hart: You’re the next Jessica Savitch[101]. You will survive this. I promise.”

“You really think so?” Tully asked.

“I know so. You have a rare gift, Tully. And you can be certain that your gran is in Heaven watching out for you.”

Kate felt a sudden urge to butt in, to step forward and ask her mother if she believed she could change the world. She even went so far as to move forward and open her mouth, but before she could form the question, she heard Tully say,

“I’ll make you proud, Mrs. M. I promise I will.”

Kate paused. She had no idea how she could make her mother proud; she wasn’t like Tully. Kate had no rare gift.

The thing was, though, her own mother should think she did and should point it out. Instead, her mother – like everyone else – was caught in the gravitational pull of Tully’s sun.

“We’re both going to be reporters,” Kate said, more harshly than she intended. At their startled looks, she felt like an idiot. “Come on,” she said, forcing a smile this time. “We should eat before everything is ruined.”

The party was a bad idea. Taunting-Carrie-at-the-prom bad.

Tully knew it but couldn’t turn back. In the days since Gran’s funeral and Cloud’s encore abandonment, her grief had been slowly replaced by anger. It darted through her blood like a predator, puffing her up with emotions that couldn’t be tamped down or contained. She knew she was being reckless, but she couldn’t change her course. If she slowed down, even for a moment, her fear would catch up with her and the plan was in motion now. They were in her mother’s old bedroom, supposedly getting ready.

“Ohmigod[102],” Kate said in an awed voice. “You gotta read this.”

Tully marched over to the poorly decoupaged water bed, grabbed the paperback novel out of Kate’s hands, and threw it across the room. “I can’t believe you brought a book.”

“Hey!” Kate tried to sit up; waves rolled around her. “Wulfgar was tying her to the end of the bed. I have to find out—”

“We’re going to a party, Kate. Enough with the romance novels. And just for the record, tying a woman to a bed is S-I–C-K.”

“Yeah,” Kate said slowly, frowning. “I know, but—”

“No buts. Get dressed.”

“Okay, okay.” She shuffled over to the pile of clothes Tully had laid out for her earlier – a pair of Jordache[103] jeans and a clingy bronze halter top. “My mom would die if she knew I was going out in this.”

Tully didn’t respond. Truthfully she wished she hadn’t heard. Mrs. M. was the last person she wanted to think about right now. She focused instead on getting dressed: jeans, pink tube top, and navy platform lace-up sandals. Bending over, she brushed her hair for maximum Farrah volume, then sprayed it with enough Aqua Net to stop a bug in flight. When she was sure she looked perfect, she turned to Kate. “Are you—”

Kate was dressed for the party and back on the bed reading again.

“You are so pathetic.”

Kate rolled onto her back and smiled. “It’s romantic, Tully. I’m not kidding.”

Tully grabbed the book again. She wasn’t sure why, but this really pissed her off. Maybe it was Kate’s glossy idealism; how could she see Tully’s life and still believe in fairy-tale endings? “Let’s go.”

Without waiting to see if Kate was following, Tully went out to the garage and opened the doors and then slid into the cracked black driver’s seat of her grandmother’s Queen Victoria[104], ignoring the way the stuffing poked into her back. She slammed the door shut.