All Dressed Up Read Online Free PDF

Charlie had
already driven off by the time she had the dress laid along her
rear seat.

 
    Chapter
Three

    Sarah was
helping Mom clear up dinner when she heard familiar music. Dad had
taken out his battered old guitar, sat down in his battered old
guitar-playing chair on the screened-in porch, and was tuning up
the instrument ready to sing. He had a voice just a tad more
tuneful than Bob Dylan’s, and an enormous repertoire of favorite
songs from folk to country to rock and roll, nothing more recent
than about 1989.
    He played for
his own pleasure – or sometimes as a way of opting out – and didn’t
usually expect an audience, but he would get one tonight, the
audience he intended. Emma had already gone to bed. Her bedroom
window looked out over the porch roof, and the sound of voice and
guitar would float up to her just the way Dad had planned. From
childhood, Emma had loved to drift to sleep with the sound of Dad
and his guitar in her ears.
    “I hope he
doesn’t play the wrong thing,” Mom murmured.
    “He won’t
tonight,” Sarah predicted. “Even Dad won’t tonight! But he’ll hum
all the wrongest possible things tomorrow when he’s not thinking
about it.”
    Dad had a very
associative brain when it came to music, was the problem. He
couldn’t drive through West Virginia without singing John Denver’s
Country Roads and even the frequently traveled New Jersey Turnpike
often led to renditions of Simon and Garfunkel’s America.
    Mostly he
didn’t have the slightest clue that he was doing it. When Sarah and
her long-time boyfriend Creep (not his real name) had broken up
earlier this year, Dad had hummed Fifty Ways to Leave Your Lover
for weeks, with Mom vainly trying to shush him whenever it slipped
out.
    You had to
laugh about it.
    Sarah had.
    But Emma
probably wouldn’t.
    “Tonight he’ll
play her favorites and it might help her to cry more,” Sarah told
Mom. “I don’t think she’s cried enough yet. She went tight and
cope-y too soon, the way she always does.”
    “And that’s
why I love him, you see,” Mom said, shy and bright as a girl. She
still seemed so young, sometimes, even to her daughters. She’d kept
her athletic figure almost absent-mindedly. Her whole look was
absent-minded. The ponytail of silver-threaded hair scraped back.
The shiny layer of sunscreen smeared on outdoorsy skin. The shorts
and jeans and tees. Even her name, Terri, was a young name.
“Because he doesn’t say a word, he just finds the right thing and
does it, and makes me believe that things might just be okay, after
all.”
    “Well, that’s
nice, Mom.”
    “Thank you,
dear.” Sarah liked her mother. And loved her. And saw her faults.
“Tight and cope-y too soon?” Mom echoed belatedly.
    “Yes, don’t
you think? She skips the grieving period.”
    Mom froze.
“You’re right. You are absolutely right. She skips the grieving
period.” It was a revelation! It was the answer to everything!
    Sarah
shrugged. “And my fees are so reasonable.”
    “Okay, we
won’t talk about it.” Mom knew when Sarah needed obedience.
    “Good girl,
Mom.” Sarah folded down the top of the last carton of Chinese
take-out leftovers and stacked it in the fridge, left the plates
and silverware to drain in the draining basket and put the
coffee-maker on.
    Dad had
started on Wichita Lineman. Mom went to the open door leading from
the lounge-room to the porch and stood there to listen. Sarah
slipped past her, picked up the book she’d left lying on a chair
arm last night and sat down. She suspected she wouldn’t take in the
story.
    Dad’s brother
Uncle Garth slouched in another ancient armchair with a mellow grin
on his face as he listened. Aunt Sandy, his wife, did her
cross-stitch. Billy had his game player locked in his hands, thumbs
working wildly, sound turned down so it didn’t compete with the
guitar.
    The house was
old but pretty. It had been a farmhouse once, and dated originally
from around 1910. Mom and Dad had bought