"Thompson, Jim - Criminal, The" - читать интересную книгу автора (Thompson Jim)

"But, darling!" she said. "You don't mean you've been washing that perfectly adorable dress! And here I thought you'd just put on a little weight."
She smiled at me, staring at my dress as though she'd never seen one before.
I could understand that, naturally. It'd been so long since she wore a dress that she'd forgotten what they looked like.
"Were you going up to the school?" she said. "I _do_ hope Bob isn't in trouble again."
"Trouble?" I said. "No, that's the advantage of having a boy. You never have any trouble with them. I'm just walking up to the shopping center for a while."
"I'll bet you're going to get a permanent," she said. "Why don't you wait until it gets cold, Martha? Perhaps your hair will thicken up, then, and it'll take better."
"No, I don't think I'll get any more permanents," I said. "You go in those places and you get the same operators who've been dyeing some old bag's hair, and then they go right to work on you. Like the last time, remember? No, I guess we didn't go together; you were leaving the shop just as I came in. Anyway, they'd just finished dyeing this woman's hair, whoever she was, and I got the same operatot And my goodness, Fay! Stink! It took me days to get that awful smell out of my hair."
"I suppose it's all in what you're used to," she said. "I remember we had an old Negro woman working for us years ago, so naturally she used a black dye. And do you know, Martha? She couldn't stand the smell of red--of any other color."
"Well," I said, "I guess I'd better be getting along. It was certainly nice to see you again, Fay."
"You haven't seen anything of Josie, have you?" she said. "She had a sore throat so I let her stay home from school today, and the minute I turn my back she chases off somewhere."
"Oh, that's terrible," I said. "She's liable to get pneumonia running around without any clothes on."
"She's got clothes on"-- Fay got a little red in the face. "A kid doesn't need to be bundled up like an Eskimo on a nice fall day."
"Well, I'd be awfully careful with her," I said. "A person with a large--uh--chest like that, they catch pneumonia very easily."
"Why didn't Bob go to school today?" she said. "I wonder if he could have seen anything of Josie."
"Bob did go to school today," I said. "And I'm quite sure he wouldn't have seen anything of Josie if he hadn't gone."
"Well, he didn't pass by here," she said. "I'm sure I couldn't have missed him."
"He went the other way," I said, "like he used to. He wanted to walk part way to the train with his father."
"Well, I kind of wondered," she said. "I caught a glimpse of someone down in the canyon a while ago in a blue and white jacket."
"There's lots of blue and white jackets," I said. She shook her head, absently, peering up and down the street.
"That girl," she said. "Now, where could she have gone to?"
I started to give her some ideas on the subject, but, oh, well. When someone's worried about a child, you just don't do those things.
"Maybe she decided to go on to school after all," I said. "Do you suppose she'd've done that, just gone on without saying anything?"
"Well, now, I'll bet that's just what she did," Fay said, "She must have. And here I've been worrying my head off about her."
"Why don't you call the school and make sure?" I said.
"Oh, I guess I won't," she said. "I'm sure she went, the darned crazy kid! She'd be mad if I called there and had them check on her. She'd say, Why, mother, you ought to've known, and so on. And she probably wouldn't speak to me for the next week."
"I know what you mean," I said. "I know exactly what you mean, Fay. You do or say some little thing around Bob-just doing what a parent should do, you know--and he acts like you're public enemy number one or something."
"I'll tell you, Martha," she said. "If I'd cut up and talked back to _my_ mother, like Josie does to--"
"And _my_ mother," I said. "Why, Fay, it just simply never would have occurred to me to behave around my mother like Bob--"
"Martha," she said, "what about some coffee? I've got some of those nice fresh pecan rolls you always used to like so much."
"Why I'd love to," I said.
Well, I went in, and we had coffee and rolls and a nice little talk. Fay _can_ be a very nice person when she wants to, and I'd be the first to admit it.
It was almost noon before I remembered that I was supposed to have seen Miss Brundage at eleven.
I jumped up and said I simply had to go, and Fay said, oh, why didn't I let the shopping go until tomorrow. But I guess she knew where I was really going, so she just argued enough to be polite. As I say, Fay _can_ be nice.
I hurried on toward the school, and even if I was late for my appointment I can't say when I've felt so good. You wouldn't have thought I was the same woman that had been all fly-to-pieces a couple of hours ago.
It's like that with me. Bad beginning, good ending. Foul start, fine finish.
It's almost always like that with me.

4 Martha Talbert
I reached the school just as the noon bells were ringing, and if I didn't look a fright it wasn't my fault. I'd practically galloped every step of the way from Fay's house because there's just no sense in people being late for appointments, and I never am when I can possibly avoid it. Well, as I was saying, I know I must have looked a fright what with all that running and then having to climb three flights of stairs and squeezing past eight or nine hundred kids who were trying to beat each other to the cafeteria, but that certainly didn't give Miss Brundage any right to act like I was something the cat dragged in. She was coming out of her classroom--Bob's home room--as I started in, and she kept right on coming out. Barely nodding to me, kind of pushing me out of her way.
"I'm very sorry you couldn't keep our appointment, Mrs. Talbert," she said. "I'm afraid that, unless you can wait until after three . . ."
"Wait until after three!" I said. "Why, of course, I can't."
"Perhaps we'd better make it tomorrow, then. Between eleven and twelve. I believe I explained--didn't I?--that it was the only hour of the day I had free."
"Well, of all things!" I said. "You're free now, aren't you? You don't have anything to do now that I can see!"
"Yes," she said. "I do have something to do now. I have to eat my lunch."
She gave me a cool little nod and started down the hall and, honestly, it was all I could do not to grab her and shake her right out of her dress. Really, you know, you'd have thought she was the president of the United States or something and I was I-don't-know-what. And just what was all the fuss about, pray tell? It was my lunch hour, too, wasn't it? I hadn't had any lunch yet, either, and you didn't see me acting like the world was going to come to an end if I didn't eat right that minute.
"Now, just a minute, Miss Brundage," I said, and I ran and caught up with her. "If you _please_, Miss Brundage! You asked me to come here today, and I came, and now that I'm here I'm--"
"Our appointment was at eleven, Mrs. Talbert. I'm sure I explained--"
"Well, I couldn't get here at eleven," I said. "I got here just as fast as I could and I almost broke my neck doing it. I thought it was something very, very important the way you acted, and if I'd known it wasn't anything that really mattered, that you didn't want to bother with until you could take your own sweet time about it--well, believe me I had plenty of other things I could do. I'm not like some of you young girls with nothing to think about but getting your lunch on time and how you can doll yourselves all up like the president of the United States or something. I tell you teachers weren't like that, in my day. They knew how to handle their jobs, and they weren't always calling parents up every five minutes and writing notes and . . ."
I laid it into her. I told that young lady a few things she'd be a long time forgetting.
She stood staring at me, her mouth opening and closing, her face getting redder and redder.