"Duncan,.Lois.-.Summer.Of.Fear" - читать интересную книгу автора (Duncan Lois)

It seemed funny that night to see the table set with six places instead of five and to know that it would be that way every night from then on. Bobby got to the table first, as usual, and was sent back to wash the backsides of his hands. Peter went to bring in an extra chair from the kitchen, and I went upstairs to get Julia.
I rapped and said, "Dinner!" and Julia answered, "All right. I'm coming," so I went back down to the others and we waited.
We waited and waited, and finally Mother put the chops back into the oven to keep them warm and Dad said, "Are you sure she heard you?"
"She answered," I said. "She said she was coming."
"Girls," Bobby grumbled. "They're never on time for anything."
"At least, they wash the backs of their hands," I told him.
"So, you don't eat with the backs of your hands, do you?" Bobby countered.
"It's the backs that the other people at the table have to look at," Dad said, and they went into the usual routine which we all heard at least twice a week. When it was over Julia was still not down and the chops were beginning to smell as though they were burning.
"Maybe I'd better go up and check on her," Mother began. "She could have dozed back offЧ"
And then she was there, standing in the doorway. Julia.
I knew then why it had taken her so long. Julia had dressed for dinner. The dress she had chosen was pale yellow with a long, swirling skirt and bell sleeves. It was a lovely dress, a strangely familiar dress. I had an immediate feeling that I had seen one like it recently on someone else, someone it had looked really good on.
But it wasn't good on Julia. It seemed to hang wrong with the shoulder seams not quite in the right place so that her wrists extended too far below the end of the sleeves. It was tight across the chest, too, and the color was wrong. Julia was too sallow to wear that pale, butterfly shade of yellow.
But Mother got up and hugged her and said, "Honey, you look lovely," and Dad smiled and said, "It's been a long time since I've had the pleasure of seeing a girl at this table wearing anything but blue jeans. Have you met your cousins, Pete and Bobby?"
The boys grunted greetings, and Julia said something appropriate. Then everybody sat down and Mother went out and got the chops and we had dinner.
What did we talk about at that dinner? I'm trying to remember. Just ordinary things, I guess. Mother had found a letter waiting for her from a magazine that wanted a picture of young people playing on sleds. "Didn't we take some last winter?" she mused: "I'll have to check my negative file. Magazines buy half a year ahead, Julia, so the calls for winter pictures come in the summer." Dad remarked on some items in the evening paper. "Professor Jams is certainly staying active in his retirement. I see where he's giving one of his occult lectures at the University Women's Club." Bobby wanted to know if he could get a new grass-catcher for the lawn mower.
I contributed the story of Trickle's strange performance.
"I've never heard him growl before," I said. "I wonder if he's feeling bad or something."
"Maybe he's been eating grass," Bobby suggested. "That makes dogs sick."
"No, it doesn't," I told him. "Dogs eat grass because they're sick. It makes them better."
Julia didn't often enter the conversation, but she listened. Her eyes went from one of us to another, studying our faces as she took in our words.
It wasn't until Peter dropped his fork that she spoke up abruptly.
"Somebody's coming."
"What?" Peter said, startled.
"OhЧnothing." Julia looked embarrassed. "It's Just something the hill people say. A pussy superstition."
"How interesting!" Mother exclaimed. "I imagine you heard about all sorts of fascinating superstitions, living in that area of the Ozarks. Or were you there long enough to be exposed to them?"
"I heard them from my folks," Julia said. "They talked about them a lot. My father wanted atmosphere in his book. That's why they hired Sarah from the village. They used her to learn how the jakey folks talked."
"You make it sound like a foreign country," Peter said, interested despite himself.
"It was," Julia said. "Anyway, the parts where we were seemed that way. It's like nothing there has changed in a thousand years. People get born there and live their whole lives there just like their foreparents. Their idea of a trip to the big city is going into Pine Crest on Saturdays. You try to tell them there's a whole big world on the other side of the mountains, and they look at you like you're crazy."
"Your father must have liked it there," Dad inserted gently. "After all, he chose to live there."
"But not forever," Julia said. "Just long enough to write his book. He'd have been done with it by summer. We were coming back thenЧthis very summer, along about AugustЧ"
She let the sentence fall away, too painful to continue. We all shifted uncomfortably in a sudden search for a new direction in which to turn the conversation.
I grabbed at an old, reliable subject.
"What did you do on dates? Were there movies or bowling alleys or anything?"
"Nothing," Julia said. "Folks just sat and talked. That was courting. And if a girl wasn't married by eighteen she was an old maid for sure. Sarah was twenty-two, and you should of heard the things people'd say about herЧthat she was stuck-up and thought she was too good for any local fellows and waiting for a prince to come riding in and carry her off somewhere. After she came to work for us they wouldn't hardly talk to her. Not that she cared, of course."
"Did you have a backwoods boyfriend?" Peter asked her. It was such an unbelievable question to come from. Peter that we all turned to him in amazement. He avoided our eyes, keeping his trained on Julia.
"No. Not really."
"Not really? Or not any?"
"The boys there weren't my type," Julia said. "When I pick somebody he'll be ambitious. A college man, maybe."
She raised her eyes to meet his, and a deep flush began to rise in Peter's face. He dropped his own gaze to his plate and began fumbling around trying to put butter on a slice of bread he had already buttered.
"Can I have some more potatoes?" Bobby asked.
"How did the car run while we were away?" Dad asked Peter. "Were you still getting that chirping sound in the engine?"
The conversation was channeled off into other directions, and Julia slipped from it as easily as she had entered. When I look back I think that was the only real talking she did throughout the meal.
Bobby and I were clearing the table when the doorbell rang.
"That will be Mike," I said. "We're going to an early movie. Do you want to come with us, Bob? I forgot to ask earlier."
"Are you kidding?" Bobby asked incredulously. "With 'Kung Fu' on television?"
"I hope you're not planning to go out in those blue jeans," Mother said. "They have holes in the knees."
"They're my favorite jeans!" I protested. "I've just got them broken in!"
The bell rang again and I went to answer it. I let Mike in and went up to change clothes, because even though I was in the right and the jeans were perfectly appropriate for movie going, it wasn't worth the hassle of making an issue of the fact.
When I reached my room I saw Julia had started to unpack. Her suitcase stood open and the contents had been shoved about as though she had hurriedly dug through her things in order to locate the yellow dress. As I passed the case my foot struck something and sent it rolling across the floor. I bent to pick it up and discovered it was a small jar that looked as though it might contain some sort of cosmetic, although it did not have a label.
Curious, I unscrewed the top and saw that it held some sort of yellowish powder. It had an odd smell and I capped it again quickly, deciding then and there that one thing I wouldn't do with Julia was borrow her makeup. I stuck the jar back into the case, from which it had evidently fallen, and continued across the room to the closet.