Secret Lives. Berthe Amoss

to you and you’re not nice to them. You just don’t care!”

      I just stood there with my mouth open. I started to be mad, but the truth of what he’d said sunk in. I knew what he meant. I really didn’t care. Not about Pumpkin or Aunt Eveline or anyone. Except—myself. I burst into tears.

      “Aw, Addie, come on, now. Don’t cry! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry!” Tom pushed a crumpled, only half-dirty handkerchief in my face. I cried all the more. First, because he had turned nice and I couldn’t help it; then, because I realized I was having a good time.

      “I’m sorry, Tom. I shouldn’t have said that about Pumpkin. Maybe she will be beautiful someday. I’m so sorry, Tom!” A flood of tears.

      “Addie, I know you are! Don’t cry! Look, look, here’s something for you.” Tom was handing me a piece of bubble gum. He grinned when he saw I’d stopped crying long enough to see what he had. “Chew it,” he said. “You can’t chew and cry at the same time!” Tom has a nice smile. It reminded me just a very little bit of Edmond. I smiled back. He put his arm around me and pulled me to him. I sighed and put my head on his shoulder. He held me tight and put his mouth close to my ear and whispered, “Addie?”

      “What?” I asked, breathless.

      “It makes me feel good to know—to know Pumpkin came back to me.”

      Pumpkin wiggled herself between us and kissed me. Oh, Edmond, my darling! Forgive me for being unfaithful!

Chapter VI

      A few days later, it was Aunt Kate’s birthday and the whole family was coming to dinner. Aunt Toosie and Uncle Henry had invited an out-of-town friend called Edgar, and Aunt Eveline was fussing about having a “guest,” which was dumb because there were already a dozen guests invited, relatives so far removed, no one could remember where they fit into the family.

      “Malvern is a guest, too, Eveline,” Aunt Toosie said peevishly. “If you only wanted family, why did you have to ask him?”

      Sandra Lee and I were weaving the garland of four-o’clocks and butterfly lilies to go around Aunt Kate’s plate, and Sandra Lee stopped to give her opinion. “Yes,” she said, “why ask Tom’s Uncle Malvern?”

      I gave Sandra Lee a look that said children should be seen and not heard.

      “I invited Tom’s uncle and his mother as well,” Aunt Eveline said. “After all, Malvern and Mable are close friends of this family, and they live next door. They’re really not guests at all.”

      “Don’t tell me Mable’s coming!” Aunt Toosie cried.

      “Mable declined.”

      “Of course she did! She hasn’t set foot out of that house since Louis left home. She’s Malvern’s slave! Tom’s at school all day and—”

      “Yes, and he leaves his dog at our house,” said Miss Butinsky.

      “My house,” I said.

      “Please, girls!” Aunt Eveline said. “Now, Toosie, Malvern is working on his perpetual motion machine.”

      “You mean he’s working on seeing how much alcohol the human body can take! And Mable waits on him hand and foot—cooking and scrubbing the house.”

      “She might try scrubbing Tom for a change,” Sandra Lee butted in again.

      “Just what is meant by that?” I asked. “At least Tom doesn’t grease up his hair like some people I know.”

      “Harold does not ‘grease up his hair.’ He smooths it down with a very expensive, nongreasy tonic!”

      “It smells like old bubble gum!” I said. “It stinks like an old train station!”

      “Adelaide!” cried Aunt Eveline, all excited. “I cannot abide that word! There will be no further discussion, and you’re, bruising the butterfly lilies you have clutched in your hand.”

      “How does this look, Aunt Eveline?” asked Sandra Lee sweetly, standing back from the garland we’d both made.

      “Lovely, dear! Addie, please go into the garden and pick fresh lilies to replace those you’ve crushed.”

      I tried to catch Sandra Lee’s eye on my way out so she’d see how I felt about her, but she had her eyes demurely cast down.

      “I just haven’t liked Malvern ever since he went to—” began Aunt Toosie again.

      “Don’t dawdle, Addie, dear,” Aunt Eveline interrupted in the loud voice she uses to drown out interesting things I’m not supposed to hear. “Toosie, I’m certain Malvern will be the life of the party.”

      At one o’clock, we all sat down in the cabbage dining room. Aunt Kate’s place looked special with the garland Sandra Lee and I had made, and a pile of presents to be opened before soup was ladled out of the tureen. Aunt Kate slowly unwrapped each present, saving for last the annual box of monogrammed handkerchiefs from Aunt Eveline.

      “Exactly what I wanted, my dear!” she said, although she had a drawerful upstairs.