"Nixon, Joan Lowery - The Other Side Of Dark" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nixon Joan Lowery)

"So," she says, bouncing a little on her toes, "if Dr. Peterson allows it, tomorrow morning I'll put you through your paces. Then, after you return to your home, you can keep up the good work. Do you have a swimming pool?"
"No."
"Exercise cycle?"
"I don't think so."
"Rowing machine? Oh, never mind. Of course, you don't have any of the things you'll need. No one ever does. Well, I'll just trot off and see what we can do about it."
Without another word she charges from the room. Alice smiles sheepishly and whispers to me, "She's really awfully good. One of the best."
A white-coated orderly with shaggy yellow hair comes in with a lunch tray. His gap-toothed grin is friendly as he arranges the tray on the table by my bed and swings it around in front of me.
"Thanks, Monty," Alice says.
"No problem," Monty says, and dashes off before Alice can hoist me up and plump up my pillows.
There's nothing special on the tray, but. I'm hungry. I don't pay much attention to what I'm eating. I'm tired, and after I've finished my lunch, I push the table away, lie back, and go to sleep.
The dreams don't make sense as they lap one into another, trailing through the afternoon. I wake to long shadows in a room lit with late orange sunlight.
The light touches Donna in her chair, brushing brightness into her hair and on her cheek. Her head is bent as she reads a newspaper, and a little worry wrinkle flickers on her forehead.
I stretch lazily, arching my back, and Donna looks up.
"You're purring," she said. "I remember how Mom said you were like a little cat the way you stretched. You always used to purr."
"I must have slept a long time."
Donna sighs and hands me the newspaper. "I wish I hadn't let that reporter interview you."
I wiggle up, sitting cross-legged, the newspaper on my lap. There, on the front page, are two photographs of meЧone my class picture when I was thirteen and in the seventh grade and the other the picture Brand! took this morning. Two girls, so very different, yet they're both me. One I recognize, but the other is someone I don't even know. I keep staring at the photos until Donna says, in the same tone of voice she'd use if she'd found a roach in the bathtub, "She even used that "Sleeping Beauty' stuff."
For the first time I read the headline over the pictures and story: SLEEPING BEAUTY AWAKES TO NEW WORLD. "Does she write what I said about her messy hair?" I ask Donna.
Donna groans. "Read it."
So I do. Brandi's story is not too bad, just a little dramatic, and she did put in the part about her hair, only she didn't use the word messy. She made everything seem more exciting than it was, especially the part about how I was the only one who could identify my mother's murderer.
I throw the newspaper on the bed and complain to Donna, "She didn't write things the way they happened. She makes it sound like any minute now I'm going to remember who I saw. But I can't! I want to, and I'm trying, but I still can't!"
"It's my fault that story was written," Donna says. "I should have sent her away."
"Don't blame yourself. It's not your fault." I sneak another look at the girls in the photographs. "I wonder where she got my seventh-grade picture."

"Not from Dad or from me," Donna says. "She might have got it from your school or from one of your friends."
"Maybe Jan." I study the picture the reporter took. Am I really as grown-up as I look in that second picture? Donna sighs and mumbles something else about making a mistake, so I quickly say, "It doesn't matter. It's just a dumb story. I bet nobody will even read it,"
"Of course, they'll read it!" Donna says. "And what worries me is what ifЧ"
I wait a moment, watching worry pucker her forehead and turn down the corners of her lips. When she doesn't finish what she was saying I ask, "What if what?"
"Nothing," Donna says.
"You were going to say something. Don't just stop like that. I want to know what's bothering you."
Donna tries to smile. "Stacy, my thoughts were just wandering around. I don't even remember what I had in mind."
"ButЧ"
She stands up and hugs me. "I've got to get home and put something together for dinner. Dennis made dinner the last three nights, and I promised I'd take my turn tonight. He comes home starving to death, and I need to stop by the grocery store and get lettuce because we're out . . ."
Donna is talking nonstop, not letting me get in another word. I remember that technique of hers, and I have to smile. Okay. She doesn't have to tell me now what she has in mind. She'll come out with it sooner or later.
"Dad will be here to see you tonight," she says as she reaches the door. "And I'll be back tomorrow morning. Bye, Stacy." The door closes before I have a chance to answer.
I turn on the bedside lamp, take another quick look at the photographs, and go to the bathroom mirror. As I comb my hair I study my face. This is me, Stacy McAdams, and I have to start getting used to it. This is how other people see me. This is how people who read the newspaper will see me. This is howЧ
I suck in a deep breath and hang onto the edge of the basin as what Donna meant suddenly socks me. Brand! wrote that I could identify the murderer. What if the killer reads that? What will he do?
"Somebody help me!" I whisper to the girl in the mirror. "I've got to be able to see his face!"


Chapter Four

The bones in my legs are like Jell-O, and chills shiver up and down my spine. Somehow I make it back to the chair and drop into it, trying to think, wondering what I can do.
A voice makes me jump. "That Sleeping Beauty stuff was cornball."
"Dr. Peterson! I didn't hear you come in."
"Obviously. What makes you so jumpy? Did you think I was another reporter?"
"No. I just had a lot on my mind. IЧ" I look right into his eyes. "I was scared. I am scared."
He sits on the bed and rests his elbows on his legs, leaning toward me. "I didn't know that reporter had been allowed to visit you," he says. "We have someone new on the front desk, and she didn't understand the situation. I'm sorry it happened. No one else from the media will be allowed to see you while you're here."
"It's not your fault."
"Your sister chewed us all out." He smiles.