Just then the child and his mother came into the room. “Don’t you love that fireplace?” She said, “Luuuuuuve,” and her eyes got even bigger. “I bet you’re taking this apartment.”
“Well . . . we’re discussing it,” Phil said.
Discussing it? Terri thought they’d just made their decision.
“We’re probably not going to take it,” he went on.
Well, there goes the fireplace, Terri thought. Seeing her father give her a wink, she said, “We think it would be hard to heat because of the windows.”
“Oh, poo!” The woman waved her hands. “You can always wear another sweater. But can you always get a place right by a park, with a fireplace, and elegant windows?” She clapped her hand to her forehead. “What am I doing? Selling the place to you. Shut up, Nancy! Are you really turning it down? You aren’t desperate—?”
“We’re camping out right now,” Phil said.
“That’s wonderful! We’re staying in a motel, and it costs a fortune. If I ever get my life in order I’m taking Leif camping. I really think it’s a must-have experience for every child. Don’t you?” She appealed to Terri.
Terri, not happy to be classified as a child along with the little boy, only smiled faintly.
Her father put his hand on her shoulder. “Terr—what do you say we let this lady have the apartment?”
“Look,” the woman said, “you’re not just being nice—?”
Yes, he is, Terri thought.
Her father leaned against the wall, arms folded across his chest. “Terri and I are old hands at this apartment hunting game. We’ll probably have another place by tonight.”
“Are you sure? Are you absolutely sure?” She looked from one to the other, then grabbed their hands. “It must be a good omen meeting such terrific people on my first week here. I came here to go to college and—Oh, excuse me! My name is Nancy Briet.”
“Phil Mueller. And this is my daughter, Terri.”
Nancy Briet shook Phil’s hand, then Terri’s. “And this is Leif, as you already know.” She put her hand on her son’s head. “Phil. . . Terri. . . Can I call you that?” Her smile was brilliant. “As soon as I’m settled, I’m inviting you to dinner.”
“We’ll hold you to that,” Phil Mueller said. Everywhere they went, there were women who liked her father, and women her father liked. Terri mostly understood. If only, she sometimes thought, as she thought now, leaving the apartment, If only my mother . . . She pushed the useless thought away and considered Nancy Briet. Friendly, warm, but not gushy. Blonde, but not glamour blonde: underneath the red scarf, her hair had been loose and tangled. She liked her son and had mostly included Terri in the conversation. Points for Nancy Briet.
Would they see her again? Terri glanced at her father as he unlocked the trunk. He was whistling between his teeth. In the cab she put her arms around Barkley, who had waited patiently for them, and remembered her small self listening gravely to her father’s stories about Sally the Mouse who sometimes had a Bad Temper whenever her father, Mustafa the Mouse, wanted to do anything without her. Silly Sally didn’t understand that Mustafa also needed friends his own age. Didn’t she know that in the end they two would always go off together in their Mousemobile? And that would be that!
It was always fun settling into a new place. Out of the U-Haul (or in this case, storage) came their dear familiar things: Terri’s bed and bureau, their wooden-legged kitchen table with the cocoa-brown enameled top bordered with prancing horses, their TV and radios, her father’s special chair, and the old beat-up red couch they kept meaning to replace.
On Denver Street they found a second-floor apartment, not as nice as the place with the long windows, but it was mid-August already, time to settle down, and it would certainly do very well. The phone company promised service in two weeks; Barkley and Terri did their usual explorations, locating the nearest market and gas station, and all the little shops and stores. Phil, who had a new job trussing roofs, said, “Terri, are you going to need clothes for school?” He peeled off bills from the rubber-banded roll he kept in his back pocket.
Terri yawned. “Maybe I’ll do some shopping today.”
“You better go back to bed first,” her father said. “No use you getting up so early.”
Terri poked at her boiled egg. If she didn’t see her father at breakfast, it would be hours before she got to really talk to anyone. “Hi’s” and hellos to salespeople didn’t count. She’d be glad when school started.
“Don’t forget to buy meat for tonight,” Phil said, before he left.
“I won’t. Hey! Your lunch.” She handed him the lunch pail and thermos. He kissed the top of her head and left.
Later, after straightening up and making a vanilla cake for supper, she went out. She liked the new neighborhood. She didn’t see many kids her age around, but there was a little movie theater that was almost like a doll’s house, and up a hill behind an old abandoned church, there was a field overgrown with wild flowers and thorn apple trees: a perfect place for Barkley to run around and enjoy himself without bothering anyone else.
The days were draggy without school. Camping had been better. More kids around, and swimming to help pass the time. They were pretty well settled into the apartment. She had her room almost all fixed up. Windows looked down over a spare backyard and there was almost enough space on the walls for all her posters. “Up you go again,” she said, tacking up her favorite of the girl and the farmhouse.
Most of the posters were of animals and, maybe because they’d never had a house of their own, about ninety percent of them had a house somewhere in the picture. Terri’s favorite was a painting of a girl lying in a field of yellow grass with a book next to her, but not reading, just lying there on her stomach, her feet up, her chin in her hands. She was wearing a light blue dress the same color as the sky, and you could tell a wind was blowing from the wdy the grass bent. Far away behind the girl was an old silver-grey farmhouse. It was the sort of house, Terri thought, where they would have lots of old, nice, worn-out furniture, and tons of plants, and where a whole family lived—children, father, and a mother, too.
“Did we ever live on a farm?” she asked her father that night.
“A farm? Where’d you get that idea?”
Well, she didn’t know, maybe just from dreaming about the old silver farmhouse. “I thought maybe we did, with my mother.”
“Nope,” he said, and his face went blank. She called it his shut-the-door look. It always scared her a little. She wanted to see him smile again, so when he shut the door she didn’t kick it open, just rapped a little, a light knock.
“I think I’ll buy some goldfish,” she said. Tap . . . tap . . . are you there? “I saw some really cute ones in the pet shop.” She cleared the plates, tossed him a sponge to wipe the table.
“Goldfish,” he said. His face relaxed, his lips curved up into a smile. “They’re so dumb, Terr.” He made fish noises with his mouth. “Hey, I think they’re even dumber than guinea pigs.” And as if the subject was finished, he said, “That was terrific cake. I’ll take some to work tomorrow.”
She ran hot water into the sink, poured in detergent. “My guinea pigs weren’t dumb.”
“No? Wheeek! Wheeek! Wheeek!”
“Daddy!” A few years before, all she had wanted for her birthday were guinea pigs. Phil had bought her two females—that’s what they told him in the pet store—but pretty soon she had six guinea pigs and in a few weeks it became