Chapter 3. “Come on, Reva, pick up!” Pam Dalby, Reva’s cousin, sat across town in her family’s ramshackle house on Fear Street and listened to the ringing

A “MISUNDERSTANDING”

“C ome on, Reva, pick up!” Pam Dalby, Reva’s cousin, sat across town in her family’s ramshackle house on Fear Street and listened to the ringing telephone. “Come on!”

“Maybe she isn’t there,” Pam’s friend, Willow Sorenson, suggested.

“She’s there,” Pam said grimly. “I know she got home today. Why won’t she pick up the stupid phone?”

Willow shrugged and popped open a can of diet soda. “Doesn’t she have a servant or something that could pick up for her?” she asked.

“No way,” Pam answered. “No one but Reva’s allowed to pick up the phone when she’s home. The servants would get their heads handed to them if they tried.”

“Maybe you dialed the wrong number,” Willow offered. “Hang up and try again.”

Pam shook her head. She knew she hadn’t dialed wrong. Her cousin Reva just wasn’t answering.

It’s like she knows it’s me and she’s getting her kicks by pretending not to be there, Pam thought angrily. Well, two can play this game. I’ll just let it ring until Reva goes nuts and finally picks up just to stop it.

Leaning back in the lumpy easy chair, Pam tucked the phone against her shoulder. She picked up a long, cherry-red scarf that was draped over the chair’s arm.

Reva owes me a favor, she thought, running the scarf through her hands. She has got to come through this time.

Pam glanced around the living room. It needed painting, the furniture was all worn, and patches of floor showed through the threadbare rug. But fixing up the house was a luxury her family couldn’t afford.

So was college.

Pam sighed. Why couldn’t her side of the Dalby family be the rich ones?

She’d been accepted to a couple of colleges. But her grades weren’t good enough for a scholarship. To earn tuition money, she had taken a job in the Acme Insurance Company, typing and filing. Willow worked there, too, and they became friends.

“Hey!” Willow broke into Pam’s thoughts. “How long are you going to let that thing ring, anyway?”

“As long as it takes.”

Willow shook her head, then unwrapped a stick of gum and folded it into her mouth. The tiny gold hoop in her left nostril wiggled and glinted as she chewed.

Willow kept urging Pam to get her nose pierced, too. But Pam wasn’t sure she wanted to. It was okay for Willow. It seemed to go with her short, brassy blond hair and the tiny orange lightning bolt tattooed above her right collarbone.

Pam glanced at her own reflection in the mirror over the fireplace. Bright green eyes. Long blond hair pulled into a ponytail. A round, friendly face. The kind you saw in an ad for down-home cooking or handmade quilts. A nose-ring just didn’t seem to fit.

The phone kept ringing. “Pick up!” Pam urged. She twisted the red scarf around her hands. “I’ll strangle you with this if you don’t pick up, Reva!”

“This is getting ridiculous,” Willow muttered, snapping her gum impatiently. “Why don’t you—”

“Wait, I think somebody’s answering!” Pam interrupted, sitting up in the chair. First she heard a muffled whisper. Then finally, Reva said hello, sounding annoyed.

“Hi, Reva. It’s Pam.”

“Pam?” Reva actually sounded confused for a second. “Oh—Pam. Hang on a second.”

More muffled whispering, then Reva came back on the line. “Hi. I was just talking to my roommate, Grace. She’s spending the holiday with me.”

“That’s nice. I called to welcome you home,” Pam told her. “How’s Smith?”

“Please, don’t even mention college to me.” Reva sighed loudly. “It’s totally boring!”

“Really? I thought college life would be so much fun,” Pam said.

“You thought wrong,” Reva replied. “We actually have a curfew. We have to sign in and out of the dorm. Can you believe it? They treat us like babies. You’re lucky you’re in the real world, Pam.”

Sure, Pam thought bitterly. Like I had a choice.

“I mean, you’re working, making money, meeting people, having business lunches,” Reva continued.

Right. Five dollars an hour and a bologna sandwich from home. Pam bit her lip and forced herself not to snap at Reva. It was hard, though. Reva knew how much Pam wanted to go to college. She always enjoyed sticking a knife in someone’s sore spot.

“Well, listen, speaking of business,” Pam said, “there’s something I wanted to talk to you about.” She smoothed the scarf across her legs. It was beautiful—a soft, silky wool scarf, silkscreened with delicate golden snowflakes.

“You want to talk about business?” Reva asked skeptically. “What business?”

“My friend, Willow Sorenson—she works at the same place I do,” Pam continued. “Anyway, we took a crafts course together and we made something for Christmas.”

“Handmade gifts. How... charming.”

Pam ignored the sneer in Reva’s voice. “We didn’t make them to give away,” she said. “We want to sell them. And we thought maybe your father could put them in his stores.”

Reva cleared her throat. “Actually, Pam, Daddy doesn’t sell clay pots at Dalby’s.”

Pam gritted her teeth. Reva was such a snob. “It’s not clay pots,” she said, keeping the anger out of her voice. “Listen, how about if Willow and I drive over to your house?”

“Now?”

“We’ll only stay ten minutes,” Pam assured her. “We’re really anxious to show these to you.”

“Well, okay. Sure, why not? You can meet my roommate, Grace,” Reva said.

“Great! Thanks, Reva. We’ll be right over.” Pam hung up and jumped from the chair. “Come on. Let’s get going,” she said to Willow.

“The princess actually agreed to see us, huh?” Willow asked sarcastically.

Pam nodded as she and Willow began gathering the long scarves from the coffee table and carefully folding them into shopping bags. “I wish we didn’t have to talk to her at all,” she declared. “But Reva’s father does almost anything she asks. And if she likes our scarves, then Uncle Robert will definitely take them. Reva is our best chance.”

Willow picked up a bag and grabbed her car keys. Pam took the other bag and followed her out the door. They climbed into Willow’s battered blue VW Rabbit and drove down Fear Street.

“Where does she live?” Willow asked.

“North Hills,” Pam told her. “Where else?”

“Very fancy,” Willow commented. “I always wondered what it would be like to live there.”

Pam grinned. “If we make a bundle on these scarves, maybe you’ll get a chance to find out.”

“Yeah!” Willow agreed. “Hey, and if the scarves are a hit, people will want more of our designs. Not only scarves, but clothes, too!”

“We could actually start our own design company,” Pam agreed excitedly. “We’d be the designers and hire people to do the work for us.”

“And we’d never have to set foot in the Acme Insurance office again,” Willow added with a laugh. “I can’t wait to kiss that place good-bye. Let’s hope your cousin really likes the scarves.”

“She will,” Pam assured her. “If there’s one good thing about Reva, it’s her taste.”

Five minutes later, the girls pulled to a stop in the curved drive in front of the Dalby mansion. Chatting excitedly about everything they’d do with the money their scarves would bring in, they carried the shopping bags to the front door and pushed the bell.

Pam smoothed a strand of hair back, wishing she’d taken the time to brush it out. Being at Reva’s house always made her feel slightly grubby.

Stop thinking like that, she told herself. Reva is no better than you are. She just has more money.

After a moment, a maid pulled the door open slightly and peered out at them. “Yes?”

“Hi. Remember me? I’m Pam, Reva’s cousin,” Pam told her. “She’s expecting us.” She picked up her shopping bag and waited for the maid to pull the door all the way open.

But the maid didn’t move. “I’m sorry. There must be some mistake,” she said.

“What do you mean?” Pam asked.

“I mean Miss Dalby isn’t home.”

“What? I just talked to her ten minutes ago,” Pam protested. “She knew we were coming.”

“I don’t know anything about that,” the maid informed her. “All I know is that Miss Dalby and her friend left five minutes ago.”

“But she told us to come over!” Pam insisted.

The maid shook her head. “Maybe you misunderstood her. I’ll be sure to tell her you were here.” She closed the door, leaving Pam and Willow alone on the cold stone porch.

Willow tossed her head. “Looks like the princess had something more important to do than talk to us.”

“Right.” Pam’s face burned with anger. “There was no ‘mistake’!” she cried, as she and Willow started back toward the car. “And I didn’t ‘misunderstand’ anything! Reva knew we were coming. She just wanted to put me in my place. Why does she always do this to me?”

Willow turned and glanced back at the mansion, her pale blue eyes narrowed. “Don’t worry,” she muttered. “We’ll find a way to pay her back.”

Pam stared at her. “What? What did you say?”

“Nothing.” Willow cracked her gum and smiled grimly. “Nothing at all.”

Дата добавления: 2015-07-20