"He's okay, I guess, but I liked some of Liz's other boyfriends better. Especially Roger, the one who let me ride in the back of his truck. He wanted to marry her, but she didn't want to stay in Florida for the rest of her life."
"I sure wish Liz could have come with you," Uncle Dan said. "I'd love to see her again."
He sighed, and neither of us said anything for a few minutes. Like my uncle, I wished with all my heart that Liz were sitting here in the truck with us. She seemed so far away, lost in the night, cruising along with Bob on a road I'd never seen.
"Your Aunt Thelma and I are delighted about having you with us, Tallahassee," Uncle Dan said finally. "You're our one and only niece. That makes you pretty special."
"Really?" I glanced at him, but he was looking straight ahead, concentrating on the traffic around us.
"Look over there," he said, pointing to the left. "We're crossing the Potomac River. See the Capitol and the Washington Monument? Aren't they pretty all lit up?"
I stared across the river, almost unable to believe I was seeing the most famous building in America. "They look like a movie set," I said. "Are they really real?"
Uncle Dan nodded. "Some Saturday, Thelma and I will bring you down to see the sights. We could go to the museums, too. Would you like that?"
"I guess so." I turned my head and watched the Washington skyline disappear behind us. "If we have time," I told him. "I won't be here very long, you know."
***
When we got to Hyattsdale, I was half-asleep, my head bobbing against Uncle Dan's shoulder.
"We're almost home, Tallahassee." Uncle Dan stopped at a red light. "This is Farragut Street," he said as he turned off Route One. "We live on Oglethorpe, right on the corner."
Pressing my nose against the window, I stared at the houses we were passing. Most of them were big and old-fashioned. They sat back from the street, surrounded by huge yards and bushes and tall trees. Some had towers on the side, and others had cupolas on the roof. Almost all of them had big front porches that made you think of old-fashioned summer days and ladies in long dresses sipping lemonade.
Here and there, stuck in between the big houses, were bungalows with dormered roofs and ramblers with picture windows. Most of them had swing sets in the yard and bicycles on the porch. They didn't make you think of anything except kids and dogs and boring suburban stuff.
Although I was hoping that Uncle Dan lived in a big house with a tower, he pulled into a driveway beside a plain gray bungalow and turned off the engine. "Here we are, Tallahassee," he said. "Let's get inside fast. Thelma's got a nice, hot dinner ready for us."
Clutching my door handle, I watched Uncle Dan walk around the front of the truck. The wind was thumping against the windows, but it wasn't just the cold that made me reluctant to open the door. In a few seconds I was going to come face to face with Aunt Thelma—the old grump, as Liz called her—and I felt like a little kid being sent to the principal's office. You know how that is—your insides are all tied up in knots, your mouth is dry, your legs shake because you know the principal isn't going to be happy to see you. She isn't going to like you.
"Come on, honey." Uncle Dan opened the door and took my arm to help me out of the truck. "We're home."
Shivering as the wind blasted my face, I let my uncle lead me up the walk toward the house that could never be home for me without Liz.
Chapter 3
AUNT THELMA WAS STANDING at the front door, waiting for us. She was short and plump, and her hair was a sort of artificial reddish blonde. Although she smiled at me, the little dog beside her barked fiercely.
"Hush, Fritzi." She picked up the dog, who continued to snarl at me. He was brown and white, and he had a pointed face. Like Aunt Thelma, he was kind of overweight.
"Well, well, so here you are, Tallahassee." Aunt Thelma said my name as if it were a foreign word, and when I moved toward her, thinking she might want to hug me, she stepped back into the house without even trying to touch me.
"I'll bet you're hungry," she said, leading us down a dark hall to the dining room. "They never give you enough food on an airplane."
"I didn't have anything except a bag of honey-roasted nuts and a root beer," I said. "Only first class got a meal."
"Well, I've got a nice stew all ready for you. Just sit down, and I'll have our plates ready in a jiffy."
I took the chair sitting by itself on one side of the table, and Uncle Dan sat at the head of the table. In the silence we could hear Aunt Thelma rattling things in the kitchen. Fritzi had followed her out there, but he was keeping an eye on me from the doorway. He growled very softly when he saw me looking at him.
"Usually dogs like me," I said to Uncle Dan.
"Oh, don't pay any attention to Fritzi," he replied. "Children make him nervous."
"I'm not a child," I said. "I'm an adolescent."
"Here comes dinner," he said.
Aunt Thelma put plates in front of Uncle Dan and me and brought one more for herself.
Taking an enormous bite out of a biscuit, Uncle Dan turned to me. "I hope you brought your appetite with you, Tallahassee. Thelma's just about the best cook in the world."
"Liz is a good cook, too," I said, which was a lie. For years we had lived on frozen pizzas and Quarter Pounders from McDonald's.
Aunt Thelma smiled at me. "I'm so glad Liz finally met a nice man. It's about time she settled down."
"Settle down?" I swallowed a mouthful of stew. "Liz will never settle down."
"She's going to marry this man, isn't she?" Aunt Thelma's face reddened slightly.
"I hope not." I thought of Liz and Bob married, living in a boring little house, maybe having a baby or something. "Liz doesn't ever want to get married. She'd never trap herself that way."
Aunt Thelma and Uncle Dan looked at each other. When they didn't say anything, I added, "She says men always end up expecting you to wash their shirts and do the ironing and cook dinner every night. Liz could never do that."
The only sound was the click, click of Fritzi's toenails on the kitchen floor, and I had a feeling I must have said something wrong. Scooping up a big forkful of stew, I busied myself chewing while Aunt Thelma stared at me, her mouth too full of biscuit to say anything.
Uncle Dan turned to her. "Tallahassee tells me Liz is hoping to get into the movies. This fellow Bob knows some people in the film industry. Isn't that right?" He smiled at me, inviting me to help channel the conversation into safer waters.
"She's going to be a big star," I told Aunt Thelma proudly. "Bob says she has the looks and the talent."
"Really?" Aunt Thelma shot Uncle Dan a look. "Remember how she used to go into Washington and play her guitar at Dupont Circle? That's where all the trouble started."
Uncle Dan shifted his position as if his chair had suddenly gotten uncomfortable. "Liz had a lovely voice," he said a little stiffly.
"No training, though. No discipline." Aunt Thelma took a forkful of stew, chewed it thoughtfully, and turned to me. "How about you, Tallahassee? Do you sing?"
"Liz says I'm just like my father—the only way I can carry a tune is in a bucket." As they exchanged another glance, something occurred to me. "Did you ever meet him? My father?"
I laid down my fork, anxious to hear what they had to say. All my life my father had been a mystery to me. Whenever I'd asked Liz about him, she'd laughed and made up stories. Sometimes she told me he was a dangerous criminal, a drug dealer, or a bank robber. Other times he was a count from a foreign country or a circus clown. Once in a while he was just an ordinary person, too boring to talk about. All I really knew was that he had red hair and big teeth like mine, and he couldn't sing.
Uncle Dan bent his head over his plate and busied himself sopping up gravy with his biscuit, but Aunt Thelma shook her head. "Liz left here before you were born, Tallahassee."
In the silence following her answer, the clock on the living-room wall chimed and the wind rattled the windowpanes. But as I looked from one to the other, I was s
ure they knew more than they were saying. I swallowed the last mouthful of stew and promised myself that I would poke and pry till I found out what they were hiding.
"My, it sounds like it's getting cold out there." Aunt Thelma shivered and drew her sweater a little tighter. "How about dessert?" she asked. "I baked a nice cherry pie just for you, Tallahassee."
When we were finished, Aunt Thelma turned to me. "You've had a long day. I imagine you're ready for bed."
I started to argue with her. After all, it was only eightthirty, and I usually stayed up as late as I liked. But I was exhausted—not just from the trip but from having to talk all night with strangers. The kind of conversation we'd been having can really wear a person out.
Saying good-night to Uncle Dan, I picked up my box and my backpack and followed Aunt Thelma upstairs.
Chapter 4
"THIS IS LIZ'S old room." Aunt Thelma opened a door at the end of the hall, letting a wave of cold air rush past us. "It's pretty much as she left it. Dan never had the heart to clean it out."
I looked past her, at the pictures of horses tacked all over the walls. Some were cut from magazines, but most of them were hand drawn.
"When Liz was your age, she was totally horse crazy," Aunt Thelma said. "Then she discovered boys."
"Really?" I examined some of Liz's drawings. In every school I'd ever gone to, there was always a girl who drew horses. It was funny to think that here in Hyattsdale Liz had been that girl.
"Do you like horses?" Aunt Thelma turned to me, her eyes probing mine. What she really wanted to ask, I was sure, was "Are you just like your mother?"
I was tempted to tell her that I had skipped horses and gone straight to boys, but it wouldn't have been true. Instead, I shrugged my shoulders. "They're all right, I guess." Actually, I'd never thought much about horses, one way or the other.
Aunt Thelma contemplated the pictures silently for a moment. Then she cleared her throat and turned to me. "Tallahassee, I want to make a few things clear right from the start," she began, as if she were delivering a speech she had rehearsed, and I braced myself for bad news.
"While you are here with us, I expect you to obey Dan and me and to do what we tell you. I don't know what kind of life you led in Florida, but here we have rules."
While she droned on and on about bedtimes and television and keeping my room clean, I stared uncomfortably at the little hooked rug on the floor. Liz had never cared when I went to bed or how much TV I watched or what my room looked like. Usually I didn't even have a room—I slept on the couch or something. The more Aunt Thelma said, the worse Hyattsdale sounded, and I hoped I wouldn't have to stay long. Otherwise, I was sure I'd end up running away, just like Liz.
"I want your visit to be a pleasant experience for all of us." Aunt Thelma finally stopped talking and turned down the bedspread. Fluffing up the pillow, she said, "You get a good night's sleep now, Tallahassee."
She paused in the doorway as if she were going to say something else. Changing her mind, she gave me a tiny smile and went back downstairs.
Alone in Liz's cold little room, I opened my backpack and pulled out my nightgown. While I undressed, I studied Liz's horses. Their heads were too big, I decided, and their legs were too long. In real life, they wouldn't have been able to walk without falling down, but most of them were leaping over fences, manes and tails flowing in the wind. Despite their anatomical problems, they had a lot of life and spirit, I thought, kind of like Liz herself.
Before I got into bed, I glanced at Melanie's box. It was sitting on the bureau, its lid slightly askew. Opening it, I picked Melanie up.
"Still smiling, Melon Head?" I gave her a little shake. "If you had any brains at all, you'd be bawling your head off."
I started to toss her back into the box, but she was still smiling and holding her arms out as if she expected to be loved. "Oh, okay," I told her. "You can sleep with me. But just tonight, stupid. Don't start thinking I like you or anything."
Shivering in my cold bed, I wondered where Liz was now. Would she still be in Florida or would she be in Mississippi already? For the first time in my whole life, I wished I'd paid more attention in geography. Maybe Uncle Dan had a map, I thought, and he'd let me put little thumbtacks in it every time I got a postcard from Liz. That way, I could imagine being in all the places she was passing through on the mother stealer's motorcycle.
***
The first time you go to sleep in a strange place, every little noise wakes you up. First it was Fritzi's toenails out in the hall, then it was a train whistle, then it was Uncle Dan's and Aunt Thelma's voices coming right through the wall between our rooms.
"She has to know who's boss, right from the start," I heard Aunt Thelma say. "Otherwise we'll have another Liz on our hands. I'm forty years old, Dan, and I can't go through that again. It was bad enough the first time."
"Tallahassee seems like a real nice kid," Uncle Dan rumbled. "That smile of hers reminds me so much of Liz. And some of her mannerisms. Did you notice the way she flips her hair out of her face? It was like seeing Liz all over again at that age."
"That's just it, Dan. We don't want Liz all over again! You thought she was a nice kid, too, and look how she turned out. Almost thirty and still acting like a teenager. Riding off to California on a motorcycle to be a movie star. How immature can you get?"
"I don't see any harm in it, Thelma. Liz has so much talent. If anybody can make it out there, she can."
"She has responsibilities, Dan. And if she doesn't shoulder them, who will?" Aunt Thelma's voice was rising. "You and me, Dan, that's who! I knew when Tallahassee was born we'd end up raising her. I'm just surprised it took this long."
"Having her here for a little visit is hardly what I'd call raising her."
"Do you really think Liz will send for her?" Aunt Thelma asked loudly. "I'll be surprised if we ever hear from your sister again!"
"Hush, Thelma. You'll wake up Tallahassee." Uncle Dan's voice dropped, and I heard the bed creak.
Then Aunt Thelma said in a softer voice, "I just don't want Liz to take advantage of you, Dan. I don't want her breaking your heart all over again."
I lay still, wanting to hear more, but—at the same time—wishing I hadn't heard any of it. On the wall opposite me, Liz's horses glimmered in the faint light, and I shivered, feeling cold all the way to my bones. Suppose Aunt Thelma was right and Liz was gone for good? California was a big state, and she hadn't given me an address. Just a promise that she'd write to me every day.
Holding Melanie tight, I remembered our old cat, Bilbo. Liz had always claimed to love him, but when she started dating a guy who hated cats, Bilbo conveniently disappeared. She claimed she didn't know where he'd gone, but I suspected she'd taken him somewhere in the car and dumped him far away while I was in school.
It wouldn't have been so bad if she had at least missed Bilbo. But she didn't. Not a bit. "What's gone is gone," she used to say whenever I asked her about him. "Out of sight, out of mind."
It was the same with the boyfriends she'd had before she met Bob—even Roger, who used to take us snorkeling and waterskiing every weekend. Once she broke up with them, she never thought of them again.
Lying there hugging Melanie, I wondered if Liz would forget about me. I could just see her walking along a beach somewhere in California, laughing and talking, never even wondering how I was doing. Then she would receive a telegram from Aunt Thelma telling her I had died of pneumonia. She would stare at the message. "Tallahassee?" she would ask herself. "I don't know anybody named Tallahassee. I thought that was a city, not a person." Then she would shrug, crumple the telegram into a ball, and toss it into the Pacific.
Chapter 5
AUNT THELMA WOKE me up on Saturday morning. "It's almost nine-thirty," she said. "And we need to go shopping."
I huddled under the covers. "Me and Liz always sleep late on Saturdays," I said, not even bothering to smile at her or even sound nice. I knew how she felt about me now. And Liz, too
.
"What did I tell you last night about rules?" Aunt Thelma sounded just as grumpy as I felt. "I expect you to be up and dressed by nine o'clock on weekends." She folded her arms across her chest and frowned like a prison matron in an old movie.
When I didn't move, she yanked the covers off, tumbling poor old Melanie to the floor and exposing me to the cold air. "Get dressed right this minute. Your breakfast is on the table, and your uncle and I are ready to go to the mall."
I jumped out of bed shivering and glared at her. "Why do we have to go to the mall?"
"You don't have any winter clothes, not even a jacket. I can't send you off to school with nothing to wear but those skimpy little things you brought with you from Florida."
"If my mother thought I'd need warm clothes, she'd have gotten them for me!" I felt tears springing to my eyes, so I yelled to keep her from noticing. "I heard every word you said about me and Liz last night, and no matter what you think, she's a very responsible person. I'll only be here a little while, so don't waste your money on clothes for me! I won't need them in California!"
Aunt Thelma's face turned a deep red. "Don't you dare sass me, Tallahassee Higgins! I won't put up with it!"
"What's going on?" Uncle Dan paused in the doorway and looked from me to Aunt Thelma and back again.
"Just tell her to get dressed." Aunt Thelma turned away, her shoulders square, her back straight. "We have to go shopping. She can't run around here in summer clothes."
As she clumped heavily down the steps, Uncle Dan put his arm around my shoulders and gave me a little hug. "You must be freezing to death, honey. Get dressed before you catch pneumonia or something."
"She hates me," I sobbed. "She hates me and Liz."
"You heard us talking last night, didn't you?" Uncle Dan asked softly.
I nodded and hid my face in my hands. I hardly ever cry and I hate people to see me when I do. "But it's not true," I sobbed. "Liz would never go off and leave me."
"Of course she wouldn't, honey." Uncle Dan patted my head. "Your aunt gets all riled up sometimes and talks nonsense. She had no business scaring you like that." He offered me his handkerchief. "Stop crying now and forget all about it. Okay?"