Pacific Avenue Read Online Free PDF Page B

I’d
thought.
    She wandered to the last table in the Faire and kept
going, walking straight as a chalk line now, right to the edge of the cliff
behind the lighthouse. I pushed money into the vendor’s hand and didn’t wait
for a bag or even a receipt. Wadding the sweater up, I followed Kathy at a
little distance.
    Don’t be melodramatic, I told myself. She’s looking at the ocean. Everyone does it
when they first get here.
    She stood there way too long for a sightseer, staring
out to sea. She’d have been peering into some window in Japan if she could have
seen five thousand miles. And she almost looked like she could.
    I kept an eye on her, worrying and trying to talk
myself out of it, first one and then the other. Behind us, the haggle and
laughter of the Faire petered out. By the time she turned back, there was
almost no one left in the park. I had to dodge into the restroom to make sure
she didn’t see me. I tried to laugh at myself for letting my imagination run
away with me, but it didn’t work.
    When I got home, Angela saw me come in, still clutching
the sweater. I went upstairs to gift wrap it, but it was the wrong size after
all. Completely wrong—too big for her, too small for me. I stuffed the sweater
in a drawer. It would do for someone.
    I could hear every scratchy tick of my old alarm clock
in the quiet room. Once in a while, there was a swish as a car drove by, or
maybe what I heard was waves breaking—sometimes the wind would bring their
sound in close.
    I shut my eyes, picturing Kathy standing on the cliff
at Point Fermin. I’d started trying to find out about her because I was
curious, and to cover my hindside in case Mr. Giannini made a fuss about her
references. I’d hoped she had some easy problem, like in a television
show—something that could be solved in thirty minutes, not counting
commercials. Now I suspected she really needed help. I didn’t know what I could
do, but I decided I’d better do something. It didn’t look like she had anyone
else.
    Deciding was one thing, figuring out where to go from
there was something else. I wasn’t exactly experienced in checking up on
people. For the past couple of years, Angela had been pretending I was some
kind of master spy, but that was ridiculous. She had no idea how helpless I
felt. Being a mother was like watching a sleepwalker—I worried about Angela
every minute, but I didn’t dare say one word about it. And that was my own
daughter, who I’d raised. How in the world could I find out about someone I
hardly knew?

Part 2

~ 7 ~
September 1972
Baton Rouge
Kathy
    On Friday afternoons, the Student Union was packed. I hated
crowds, but I’d left my lunch at home, and there was nowhere else to eat. Just
inside the door to the cafeteria, I stopped short. Loud chatter ricocheted off
the glass walls and bounced around the room. Voices rose, competed, fell again.
Smells competed too—cabbage, fried fish, a sharp tang of onions—nothing I
wanted.
    A bunch of girls charged in, laughing shrilly. They
jostled me, and I stepped aside to let them pass. They scanned the room and
headed toward a group at a corner table, waving to more friends as they
threaded their way through the mob. It looked easy when they did it.
    But it wasn’t easy for me. It was only a few weeks into
the term, but the dorm students had already become a sort of tribe, and I
wasn’t a member. A townie and a freshman besides, I hardly knew anyone. So, I
wasn’t looking for friends to join, I was looking for an empty table to claim.
There weren’t any, but I spotted someone I recognized, at least—Phil from
English class, sitting with some other guys. He leaned back, feet on a chair.
    They all watched me approach, but Phil didn’t say hi.
He didn’t offer me the chair his feet were on, either. I stood and waited.
    “Car!” he bellowed to a boy who wasn’t more than six
feet away from him.
    “Aston Martin!”
    “Not you. You wouldn’t be an Aston Martin, ever.