Кристин Ханна – Rirefly Lane / Улица Светлячков. Книга для чтения на английском языке (страница 11)
Kate shrugged. “Over by the old bridge is Missouri Street. Maybe some pioneer was homesick. Or lost.”
“Or maybe it’s
Kate shivered at the power of that. “Before you moved here, I thought it was just a road that went nowhere.”
“Now it’s our road.”
“We can go all kinds of places when we grow up.”
“Places don’t matter,” Tully said.
Kate heard something in her friend’s voice, a sadness she didn’t understand. She turned sideways. Tully was staring up at the sky.
“Are you thinking about your mom?” Kate asked tentatively.
“I try not to think about her.” There was a long pause, then she dug into her pocket for a Virginia Slims cigarette and lit up.
Kate was careful not to make a face about the smoking.
“You want a drag?”
Kate knew she had no choice. “Uh. Sure.”
“If my mom were normal – not sick, I mean – I could have told her about what happened to me at the party.”
Kate took a tiny drag, coughed hard, and said, “Do you think about it a lot?”
Tully leaned back against the log, taking the cigarette again. After a long pause, she said, “I have nightmares about it.”
Kate wished she knew what to say. “What about your dad? Can you talk to him?”
Tully wouldn’t look at her. “I don’t think she even knows who he is.” Her voice fell. “Or he heard about me and ran.”
“That’s harsh.”
“Life is harsh. Besides, I don’t need them. I’ve got you, Katie. You’re the one that helped me through it.”
Kate smiled. The sharp tang of smoke filled the air between them, stung her eyes, but she didn’t care. What mattered was being here, with her new best friend. “That’s what friends are for.”
That next night Tully was on the last chapter of
She slammed the book down and went out into the living room, where her mother sat sprawled on the sofa, taking a bong hit[67] as she watched
“You’re right by the door.”
Her mother shrugged. “So?”
“Hide your bong.”
Sighing dramatically, Cloud leaned over and put her bong beneath the end table beside the couch. Only a blind person would miss it, but that was as good as Cloud was likely to do.
Tully smoothed the hair away from her face and opened the door.
A small, dark-haired woman stood there, holding a foil-covered casserole dish. Electric-blue eye shadow accentuated her brown eyes, and rose-hued blush – applied with too heavy a hand – created the illusion of sharp cheekbones in her round face. “You must be Tully,” the woman said in a voice that was higher somehow than expected. It was a girl’s voice, full of enthusiasm, and it matched the sparkle in her eyes. “I’m Kate’s mom. Sorry to come without calling, but your line has been busy.”
Tully pictured the phone by her mother’s bed off the hook. “Oh.”
“I brought you and your mom a tuna casserole for dinner. I imagine she doesn’t feel much like cooking. My sister had cancer a few years ago, so I know the drill.” She smiled and stood there. Finally, her smile faded. “Are you going to invite me in?”
Tully froze.
“Thank you.” Mrs. Mularkey moved past her and went into the house.
Cloud lay on the sofa, sort of spread-eagled; she had a pile of marijuana on her stomach. Smiling blearily, she tried to sit up and failed. The failure made her shoot out a few swear words and then laugh. The whole house reeked of pot.
Mrs. Mularkey came to a stop. Confusion pleated her forehead. “I’m Margie from next door,” she said.
“I’m Cloud,” Tully’s mother said, trying again to sit up. “It’s cool to meet you.”
“And you.”
For a terrible, awkward moment, they just stared at each other. Tully had no doubt at all that Mrs. Mularkey’s sharp eyes saw everything – the bong under the end table, the bag of Maui-wowie[69] on the floor, the overturned, empty wineglass, and the pizza boxes on the table. “Also, I wanted to let you know that I’m home most days, and I’d be happy to drive you to the doctor’s office or run errands. I know how chemo can make you feel.”
Cloud frowned blearily. “Who’s got cancer?”
Mrs. Mularkey turned to look at Tully, who wanted to curl up and die.
“Tully, show our cool neighbor with the food where the kitchen is.”
Tully practically ran for the kitchen. In that pink hell, junk food wrappers covered the table, dirty dishes clogged the sink, and overflowing ashtrays were everywhere; more evidence of her pathetic life for her best friend’s mother to see.
Mrs. Mularkey walked past her, bent over the oven, put the casserole onto the rack, then shut the door with her hip and then turned to study Tully. “My Katie is a good girl,” she said at last.
“She’s been praying for your mother to recover from her cancer. She even has a little altar set up in her room.”
Tully looked at the floor, too ashamed to answer. How could she explain why she’d lied? No answer would be good enough, not for a mother like Mrs. Mularkey, who loved her kids. At that, a wave of jealousy joined the shame running through her. Maybe if Tully had had a mother who loved her she wouldn’t find it so easy – so necessary – to lie in the first place. And now she’d lose the one thing that mattered to her: Katie.
“Do you think lying to your friends is okay?”
“No, ma’am.” So intently was she staring at the floor that she was startled by a gentle touch on her chin that forced her to look up.
“Are you going to be a good friend to Kate? Or the kind that leads her to trouble?”
“I’d never hurt Katie.” Tully wanted to say more, maybe fall to her knees and swear to be a good person, but she was so close to tears she didn’t dare move. She stared into Mrs. Mularkey’s dark eyes and saw something she never expected: understanding.
In the living room, Cloud stumbled over to the television and changed the channel. Tully could see the screen through the rubble of the messy room: Jean Enersen[70] was reporting on the day’s top story.
“You do it, don’t you?” Mrs. Mularkey said quietly, as if she worried that Cloud might be eavesdropping. “Pay the bills, grocery-shop, clean the house. Who pays for everything?”
Tully swallowed hard. No one had ever seen through her life so clearly before. “My grandmother sends a check every week.”
“My dad was a fall-down drunk and the whole town knew it,” Mrs. Mularkey said in a soft voice that matched the look in her eyes. “He was mean, too. Friday and Saturday nights, my sister, Georgia, would have to go to the tavern and drag him home. All the way out of the bar he’d be smacking her and calling her names. She was like one of those rodeo clowns, always stepping between the bull and the cowboy. By the end of my junior year I figured out why she ran with the fast crowd and drank too much.”
“She didn’t want people to look at her like she was pitiful.”
Mrs.Mularkey nodded. “She hated that look. What matters, though, isn’t other people. That’s what I learned. Who your mom is and how she lives her life isn’t a reflection of
“How do I know what I want?”
“You keep your eyes open and do the right thing. Go to college. And trust your friends.”
“I do trust Kate.”
“So you’ll tell her the truth?”
“What if I just promise—”
“One of us is going to tell her, Tully. It should be you.”
Tully took a deep breath and released it. Though telling the truth went against every instinct she had, she had no choice, really. She wanted Mrs. Mularkey to be proud of her. “Okay.”
“Good. So I’ll see you for dinner tomorrow night. Five o’clock. It’ll be your chance to start over.”
The next night, Tully changed her clothes at least four times, trying to find exactly the right outfit. By the time she was actually ready, she was so late that she had to run all the way across the street and up the hill.
Kate’s mom opened the door. She wore a pair of purple gabardine bell-bottoms[71] and a striped V-neck[72] sweater with angel sleeves. Smiling, she said, “I warn you, it’s loud and crazy in here.”