"Oates, Joyce Carol - We Were the Mulvaneys" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oates Joyce Carol)

Still, Marianne's hands shook, at the first sighting of menstrual blood she'd feel faint, mildly panicked, recalling her first period, the summer of her thirteenth birthday, how frightened she'd been despite Corinne's kindness, solicitude.

I'm fine. I'll take care of myseif In her bureau drawer a supply of "thin maxi-absorbent sanitary pads" and snug-fitting nylon panties with elastic bands. She realized she'd been feeling cramps for hours. That tight clotted sensation in the pit of the belly she'd try to ignore until she couldn't any longer. And a headache coming on-ringing clanging pain as if pincers were squeezing her temples.

It was all routine. You can deal with routine. Ask to be excused from active gym class tomorrow, which was a swim class, fifth hour. After school she'd attend cheerleading drill but might not participate, depending upon the cramps, headache. Always in gym class or at cheerleading drill there was someone, sometimes there were several girls, who were excused for the session, explaining with an embarrassed shrug they were having their periods.

Some of the girls with steady boyfriends even hinted at, or informed their boyfriends, they were having their periods-Marianne couldn't imagine such openness, such intimacy. She'd never been that close to any boy, had had countless friends who were boys yet few boyfriends, with all that implied of specialness, possessiveness. Sharing secrets. No, not even her brothers, not even Patrick she adored.

Her cheeks burned at the mere thought. Her body was her own, her private self. Only Corinne might be informed certain things but not even Corinne, not even Mom, not always.

She shook out another two aspirin tablets onto her sweaty palm, and washed them down with water from the bathroom faucet. In the medicine cabinet were many old prescnption containers, some of them years old, Corinne's, Michael Sr.'s, there was one containing codeine pills Dad had started to take after his root canal work of a few months ago then swore off, in disgust-"Nothing worse than being fuzzy-headed."

Well, no. Marianne thought there could be lots worse.

Still, she took only the aspirin. Her problem was only routine and she would cope with it with routine measures.

Marking the date, February 15, on her Purrifect Kittens calendar.

She'd been a tomboy, the one they called Cute-as-a-Button. Climbing out an upstairs window to run on tiptoe across the sloping asphalt roof of the rear porch, waving mischievously at Mule and P.J. below. Her brothers were tanned, bare-chested, Mule on the noisy Toro lawn mower and P.J. raking up debris. Look who's up on the roof! Hey get down, Marianne! Be careful! The looks on their faces!

Roof-climbing was strictly forbidden at the Mulvaneys', for roofs were serious, potentially dangerous places. Dad's life was roofs, as he said. But there was ten-year-old Button in T-shirt and shorts, showing off like her older brothers she adored.

It was a good memory. It came out of nowhere, a child climbing through a window, trembling with excitement and suspense, and it ended in a blaze of summer sunshine. She'd ignored the boys calling to her and stood shading her eyes like an Indian scout, seeing the mountains in the northeast, the wooded hills where strips of sunshine and shadow so rapidly alternated you would think the mountains were something living and restless.

And Mt. Cataract like a beckoning hand, for just Button to see.

Here. Look here. Raise your eyes, look here.

In the warmly lit kitchen rich with the smell of baking bread there stood Corimie leaning against a counter, chatting with a woman friend on the phone. Her blue eyes lifting to Mananne's face, her quick smile. The radio was playing a mournful country-rock song and Feathers, incensed as by a rival male canary, was singing loudly in rebuttal, but Corinne didn't seem to mind the racket. Seeing Marianne grab her parka from a peg in the hail she cupped her hand over the receiver and asked, surprised, "Sweetie? Where are you going?"

"Out to see Molly-O."

"Molly-O? Now?"

That startled plea in Corinne's voice: Don't we prepare Sunday supper together, super-casserole? Isn't this one of the things Button and her Mom do?

Outside it was very cold. Twenty degrees colder than that afternoon. And the wind, bringing moisture io her eyes. It was that slatecolored hour neither daylight nor dark. The sky resembled shattered oyster shells ribboned with flame in the west, but at ground level you could almost see (sometimes Mananne had stared out the window of her bedroom, observing) how shadows lifted from the snowy contours of the land, like living things. Exactly the bluish-purple color of the beautiful slate roof Michael Sr. had installed on the house.

In the long run, Dad said, you get exactly what you pay for.

Quality costs.

Marianne's heart was pumping after her close escape, in the kitchen. There would be no avoiding Mom when they prepared supper. No avoiding any of them, at the table.

Yet how lucky she was, to have a mother like Corinne. All the girls marveled at Mrs. Mulvaney, and at Mr. Mulvaney who was so much fun. Your parents are actually kind of your friends, aren't they? Amazing. Trisha's mother would have poked her way into Mari- anne's room by now asking how was the dance? how was your date? how was the party? or was it more than one party? did you get much sleep last night?-you look like you didn't. Another mother would perhaps have wanted to see Marianne's dress again. That so-special dress. Even the satiny pumps. Just to see, to reminisce. To examine.

One of the rangy barn cats, an orange tiger with a stumpy tail, leapt out of a woodpile to trot beside Marianne as she crossed the snow-swept yard to the horse barn. He made a hopeful mewing sound, pushing against her legs. "Hi there, Freckles!" Marianne said. She stooped to pet the cat's bony head but for some reason, even as he clearly wanted to be petted, he shrank from her, his tail rapidly switching. He'd come close to clawing or biting her. "AU right then, go away," Marianne said.

How good, how clear the cold air. Pure, and scentless. In midwinter, in such cold, the fecund smells of High Point Farm were extinguished.