Summer of Fear

  But when tomorrow came, nobody had forgotten anything. Dad sent Bobby out with a rope to tie Trickle to the elm tree.

  On Monday of the following week we had the memorial service for Aunt Marge and Uncle Ryan, and on Tuesday the boxes containing their personal possessions arrived from Springfield. Dad and Peter carted them up to the attic and stored them there for the day when Julia might feel like opening them and going through the contents.

  “Not now,” she said. “I just can’t do it now.”

  Dad said, “Of course not, honey. Nobody expects you to do anything right now except eat and sleep and try to get used to your new family.”

  They were standing in the hallway outside the door to the family room, and I was seated on the floor, cutting out the material for my new dress. Their voices came to me as clearly as though they were in the same room.

  “That part isn’t hard,” Julia said. “You’re so good to me, Tom, I’m used to you already.”

  The scissors slipped from my hand and tumbled soundlessly into a mound of pink cloth. Had that been Julia speaking, my cousin Julia? That throaty voice, rich with warm affection…could it have been the same one that had risen in fury—You vicious, rat-fanged varmint!—a shriek of rage that had shrilled through the front yard?

  And—“Tom”! She had called my father “Tom.” Why not “Uncle Tom,” since she called my mother “Aunt Leslie”? True, it was Mom who had been her mother’s sister, but I had called Julia’s father “Uncle Ryan.” “Tom” sounded so strange from the lips of a girl barely older than myself. It was so oddly familiar, almost rude.

  But my father didn’t seem to find it odd. He laughed, a pleased little laugh, and I could picture him ruffling her hair, the way he did mine when he was feeling fond and friendly.

  “We’re not being ‘good,’ ” he said, “we’re just ‘being family.’ We love you, Julie, and we want you to be happy.”

  Julia went upstairs then and Dad came in, looking for the paper. He gave me a playful tap with his foot as he went by and then paused and said, “What’s that you’re making?”

  “A dress,” I said, “for the dance. It’s at the end of this week.”

  “Pink?” Dad said. “Since when does a carrottop like you start wearing pink? I thought it was against the law or something.”

  “Why shouldn’t I wear something different once in a while?” I said irritably. “The material was on sale and it’s pretty, so I bought it.”

  “I wasn’t saying not to,” Dad said, locating the paper and settling himself into a chair to read it. “It’s fine with me whatever you wear. You’re the one who always screamed if somebody gave you something pink.”

  He was right. I had never worn pink. I didn’t think it went with orange hair and freckles. I sat staring down unhappily at the soft piles of bright-colored material. I couldn’t imagine why I’d bought it. There had been other colors just as pretty that would have looked fine on me. And the pattern—why had I chosen a style so full up top? It was sure to sag, and altering it would take forever. In order to have it in time for the dance, I would have to make the dress according to the pattern, and go looking as though I were wearing somebody’s hand-me-down that didn’t fit.

  As it turned out, I shouldn’t have wasted the time worrying. I never wore the pink dress, and I didn’t go to the dance.

  When I woke on Friday morning I knew something was wrong, but I wasn’t sure exactly what it was. I squirmed uncomfortably in my bed, feeling hot and unpleasant and strangely scratchy. I would have liked to have closed my eyes and gone back to sleep, but the morning sunlight reached from the window across the room and fell, light and lemony, across my face. It was its touch upon my eyelids that had wakened me, and I knew it wouldn’t permit me to fall asleep again.

  With a sigh I got out of bed and stumbled groggily across the room to the bathroom. I reached for my toothbrush, glanced into the mirror over the basin and froze. The face that looked back at me wasn’t my own. It was a grotesque mask, bloated and red and ghastly!

  For a moment I couldn’t move or speak. I simply stood there staring. Then I gave a strangled gasp and closed my eyes. It can’t be true, I thought. It must be a bad dream, a nightmare, every girl’s worst fear come true—to rise in the morning and find that in the night you had changed into some sort of hideous creature, inhuman and repulsive!

  It’s the lighting, I told myself frantically, or the mirror or something! I kept my eyes closed a few seconds more and then opened them, and it wasn’t a dream and it wasn’t the lighting. The beady little eyes, peering out from slits in the swollen face, were my eyes, and the curly mass of bright-colored hair that framed the face was also mine.

  With a little sob I turned away from the mirror and rushed out of the bathroom.

  “What is it?” Julia was sitting up in bed, rubbing the sleep out of her eyes. “Is something the matter?”

  “Yes,” I choked. “Yes—something is.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t look at me,” I said. “I don’t want anybody to look at me!”

  I opened the bedroom door and ran out into the hall and down the stairs.

  “Mom!” I cried. “Mom!”

  She was in the kitchen, standing at the stove, with her back to the doorway. As I rushed in, she turned and her eyes widened.

  “Good lord,” she exclaimed, “what’s happened to you?”

  “I don’t know,” I said shakily. “Mom, I’m scared! What is it?”

  “It looks like hives.” She shoved the frying pan off the burner and came over to look at me more closely. “Yes, I’d swear it’s hives. I had an aunt who used to get them whenever she ate strawberries.”

  “What can I do about them?” I asked. “How do you get rid of them?”

  “I’ll call Dr. Morgan,” Mom said. “I think he’d better look at you. If it is hives there may be something you can take for them, and if it isn’t, we want to know what you do have. Go get some clothes on and I’ll call and see if he’ll see you before regular office hours.”

  So I went back upstairs to get dressed and found Julia still in bed, lying on her back, staring at the ceiling. I hurried past her, not speaking, and hauled some clothes out of the dresser and went into the bathroom. There I received another shock. The ugly red splotches weren’t confined to my face. I had them all over my body, some of them studded with great white lumps that resembled mosquito bites but were much larger, and my feet were so swollen that I couldn’t wedge them into my shoes.

  I stuck my feet into a pair of floppy bedroom slippers and went back down to the kitchen. Bobby was there now, shoveling down cereal, and he let out a low whistle and said, “What’s the matter with your face?”

  “Mom thinks it’s hives,” I told him, trying not to cry.

  “I talked to the nurse,” Mom said. “Dr. Morgan will see you, but they want you to come in the side door so you won’t expose the people in the waiting room if this turns out to be something contagious. Come on, I’ll drive you over.”

  An hour later we were home again, assured that I wasn’t contagious. What I had was hives, as Mom had suspected, and Dr. Morgan had prescribed a medication that was to be taken every four hours and had told me to take baths with baking soda in the water.

  “It’s an allergic reaction,” he said. “Can you think of anything unusual you may have eaten in the past twenty-four hours? Have you taken any medications? It’s strange that you have no history of anything like this before.”

  “No,” I told him miserably. “I’m not taking medicine and I haven’t eaten anything I haven’t eaten a hundred times before. How long will I be this way?”

  “Not long, I hope,” he said kindly. “This medicine is usually quite effective. Twenty-four hours should do it. If it doesn’t, call me and I’ll change the dosage.”

  “Twenty-four hours!” I cried. “But there’s a dance tonight! I’ve been counting on going for weeks!”

  “That’s a shame,” Dr.
Morgan said, “but it’s not the end of the world, now, is it? At your age, there’s always another dance.”

  I could have kicked him. In fact, I really might have if my poor swollen feet hadn’t been wedged so uncomfortably into the slippers.

  When we got home, Julia was finally up and dressed, and I broke the news to her as soon as I saw her.

  “I have hives,” I told her, “and they’re not going to get better before tomorrow, so the dance is off. I’m going to call Mike at work and leave a message for him at the pool office. I don’t want him to see me like this.”

  “I’ve seen people like that before,” Julia said. She regarded me with interest. “The mountain people call it ‘the crud.’ What does it feel like? Does it hurt much?”

  “No,” I said, “but it itches like crazy.” I turned to Mom. “Where do you keep the baking soda?”

  “I’ll get it for you.” She frowned thoughtfully. “I hate to see Julia miss this dance, Rae, just because you aren’t going to be able to go. Isn’t there some way she can go without you? It’s such a nice chance for her to meet some young people. Couldn’t she go with Carolyn and her date?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I guess she could. I’ll call Carolyn and ask her.”

  “Please, don’t,” Julia said. “I’ve never met Carolyn’s boyfriend, and I wouldn’t feel right imposing on them like that. Don’t worry about it, Rachel. I really don’t mind missing it. I’m not a very good dancer anyway.”

  And so it was settled, or I thought it was settled. I spent the day shut in the bedroom reading and trying not to scratch, or in the bathtub soaking in baking soda. Every four hours I took a dose of medicine, and a few minutes later I would go and look in the mirror to see what result it was having. I suppose I had in the farthest back corner of my mind the tiniest ray of hope that the medicine would produce some miracle and that the transformation that had occurred in such a short time would un-occur just as quickly. It didn’t.

  At five thirty I had just gotten out of the bathtub for what must have been the eighth time and was fastening my robe when there was a rap at the bedroom door and Pete’s voice said, “Hey, Rae, can I talk to you a minute?”

  “I guess so,” I said without enthusiasm. The fewer people I saw at this point, the happier I was.

  I went over to the door and opened it a crack, and he shoved it the rest of the way open and came in.

  “Wow!” he said, doing a double take. “You really do look bad! I thought Bobby was exaggerating.”

  “Thanks a lot,” I said, not inviting him to sit down. “What is it you want?”

  “Well.” He seated himself on the end of one of the beds anyway. “I wanted to ask you—can we shut the door?”

  “Why?” I asked curiously.

  “I just want to talk privately a minute, that’s all.”

  I pushed the door closed and turned back to him. He was staring at the rug and drumming his fingers on his kneecaps, the way he did when he was feeling embarrassed.

  “Look,” he said finally. “Look, the whole thing I wanted to ask you was—well, can’t Julia go to the dance tonight even if you can’t?”

  “Mom suggested that,” I said, “and I told Julia I’d call Carolyn and see about her going with her and Rick. She didn’t want me to. She said she’d never even met Rick and it would make her feel funny.”

  “Do you think Mike would take her?” Peter asked hesitantly. “I mean, he’s probably already got tickets and it’s too late for him to have any other plans. I could sit with them between sets, and then afterward I could bring Julia home.”

  “He would probably do it if I asked him,” I said, “but I hate to put him on the spot like that. Julia’s our cousin, not his. It would be one thing if I were going too, but she’s not all that easy to talk to, and with nobody there to help the conversation along, he could feel like he’s stuck with her.”

  “Nobody will feel stuck with Julia,” Peter said firmly. “Girls don’t have to gossip all the time to be good company. Besides, like I said, I’ll sit with them when I’m not playing and give Mike a chance to wander around and talk to people. And he won’t have to drive her home or anything.”

  “Well—” I said slowly. I didn’t like the idea, but I didn’t want to be a brat about it either. Mike was always a good sport about things that pertained to family. We had often taken Bobby with us to movies, and once when Dad was out of town on business, he had even suggested taking my mother.

  “Please,” Peter said quietly. It wasn’t a word that Peter used very often.

  The tone of his voice startled me, and I glanced at him sharply. He was still staring down at the rug, and his face was flushed.

  “Look, Sis,” he said awkwardly, “this really matters to me. I—I want Julia there tonight. I want her to hear me play. I mean, it’s one thing I can do, you know—play the bass. I want her to see me up there doing my thing, and people applauding and—well—you know.”

  I did know. Quite suddenly I knew a lot more about Peter than he had meant to tell me. With effort, I restrained myself from reaching over to tousle the awful orange hair, so like my own, which he must hate just as much as I did. I wanted to hug his skinny shoulders and say, You don’t have to work so hard to impress people.

  Instead I said, “Okay.”

  “You mean, you’ll ask Mike?”‘

  “I said ‘okay,’ didn’t I?”

  “Rae, thanks.” He let his breath out in a deep sigh, and for the first time since the conversation started he looked up and met my eyes. “A first cousin isn’t all that close, right, Rae? I mean, it’s hardly blood-related.”

  “It is very blood-related, Pete. I mean, come on, she’s family! It’s illegal for cousins to get married,” I told him.

  “Marry! Who’s talking about marriage? At least—well, if something like that came up, it would be pretty far in the future, after college and everything. You don’t worry about that sort of thing until you have to.”

  He got up and crammed his hands into his pockets and squared his shoulders. In his mind he was already at the dance, standing on the stage, playing his bass. Across the dance floor Julia was seated at a table, her gaze glued upon him, those huge dark eyes shining and wide.

  “Pete?” I said as he reached the door. He turned back to me. “Do I really look as bad as—as—I think I do?”

  Peter stood silent a moment, deciding whether to be kind or to be honest. Honesty won.

  “Yep. I’m sorry, but it’s pretty bad. Like you’ve dyed your face red and have lumps of chewing gum under your skin.”

  “Thanks,” I said flatly, and wondered how I could ever have thought of hugging him.

  I caught Mike at home. He had gotten the message I left for him at the pool office but hadn’t taken it seriously. Now I told him I definitely wasn’t going, but that Julia would still like to.

  He was regretful but cooperative.

  “I don’t mind taking you with lumps,” he said, “but if you don’t want to make an appearance, that’s okay too. As long as Pete will take over at the end of the evening, I don’t mind hanging out with Julia for a while.”

  “The doctor says I’ll probably be okay by tomorrow,” I told him. “We can plan to do something then.” I tried not to sound as forlorn as I felt. Rachel, you good sport, I told myself, you’re really one outstandingly unselfish girl!

  Later, at the dinner table, that sportsmanship was really put to the test. Julia asked if she could borrow my new dress for the evening.

  “I thought you were going to wear your yellow one,” I said. “The one you wore your first night here.”

  Julia wrinkled her nose. It was an expression she had picked up from Carolyn.

  “That thing?” she said with a note of disgust in her voice.

  “It’s a pretty dress.”

  “Not on me, it isn’t.” She shook her head decidedly. “It’s not my type and it doesn’t fit right. The color’s wrong too; it makes me look greenish.”
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  I felt like saying, “Why did you buy it then?” I felt like slamming the water glass down on the table and shouting, “No! No, you can’t wear my new dress! I haven’t even worn it yet myself!” I felt like doing a lot of things, all of them loud and rude and awful, but I sat and listened to Mom saying, “Why, I’m sure Rae wouldn’t mind, since she won’t be wearing it. Do you think it will fit?”

  “I think it will,” Julia said. “Rachel, can I?”

  They were all looking at me, waiting expectantly—Mom, Dad, Peter, even Bobby, who was waiting for the question to be settled so he could ask for more potatoes. There was nothing I could say except what they wanted me to say.

  “Yes,” I told her.

  When I saw her actually wearing the dress, however, it was almost more than I could bear. It did fit Julia—as though it had been made for her. The loose-fitting top was not loose on her but fit perfectly across the soft curve of her breasts. The shoulder seams fell at the right places and the short swirled skirt showed her long, shapely legs to unbelievable advantage. And the color—the color was Julia; the hot pink reflected in her cheeks and made her eyes glow like two deep, dark, mysterious ponds.

  Her lips curved slightly and she asked, “How do I look?”

  “Beautiful,” Mom said softly. “You look just beautiful. I can remember your mother at your age, dressed for a summer dance. She was beautiful too, but so very different—”

  “Leslie,” Dad interrupted gently, “do you really think this is the time?” and Mom said, “No. No, of course it isn’t. Julia, darling, I’m sorry. How thoughtless of me! This is supposed to be a happy evening for you and here I am, reminding you—”

  “That’s all right,” Julia told her.

  It was all right. I looked into her eyes, and it was there, the look I’d seen that first morning when I had woken up and glanced across and she had been lying on her back, gazing up at the ceiling. It was a quiet look, peaceful, pleased. A look of self-confidence that left no room for grief.