Searching for Caleb Read Online Free PDF Page B

did not appear to embarrass him. "The last job was with my uncle, he owns a health food store. But no one in the family has a fix-it shop, and fixing is what I really do. I can fix anything. Do you need some repair work here?"
       "No indeed," Red Emma told him firmly.
       And she turned back to Justine, ready to offer her sympathy, but Justine was munching potato chips with a merry look in her eye. Her hat was a little crooked. Could she possibly be a drinker? Red Emma sighed and went to clean the grill. "Of course," she said, "I don't mean to say anything against Ned Parkinson's house. Why, in lots of ways it's just fine. I'm sure you'll all be happy there."
       "I'm sure we will be," Justine said.
       "And certainly your husband can handle any plumbing and electrical problems that might arise," Red Emma said, wickedly sweet, because she did not for a moment think he could.
       But Duncan said, "Certainly," and started plunking his sugar cubes one by one back into the bowl.
       Red Emma wiped the grill with a sour dish rag. She felt tired and wished they would go. But then Justine said, "You want to hear something? This coming year will be the best our family's ever had. It's going to be exceptional."
       "Now, how do you know that?"
       "It's nineteen seventy-three, isn't it? And three is our number! Look: both Duncan and I were born in nineteen thirty-three. We were married in nineteen fifty-three and Meg was born on the third day of the third month in nineteen fifty-five. Isn't that something?"
       "Oh, Mama," Meg said, and ducked her head over her coffee.
       "Meg's afraid that people will think I'm eccentric," said Justine. "But after all, it's not as if I believed in numerology or anything. Just lucky numbers. What's your lucky number, Red Emma?"
       "Eight," said Red Emma.
       "Ah. See there? Eight is forceful and good at organizing. You would succeed at any business or career, just anything."
       "I would?"
       Red Emma looked down at her billowing white nylon front, the flowered handkerchief prinked to her bosom with a cameo brooch.
       "Now, Meg doesn't have a lucky number. I'm worried that nothing will ever happen to her."
       "Mama."
       "Meg was due to be born in May and I wondered how that could happen.
       Unless she arrived on the third, of course. But see? She was premature, she came in March after all."
       "I always ask for eight at the Basket of Cheer lottery," said Red Emma.
       "And I've won it twice, too. Forty dollars' worth of fine-quality liquor."
       "Of course. Now, who's the fortune teller in this town?"
       "Fortune teller?"
       The grandfather rattled and crackled his paper.
       "Don't tell me you don't have one," said Justine.
       "Not to my knowledge we don't."
       "Well, you know where I'll be living. Come when I'm settled and I'll tell your fortune free."
       "You tell fortunes."
       "I do church fairs, bazaars, club meetings, teas-anybody's, any time.
       People can knock on my door in the dead of night if they have some urgent problem and I will get up in my bathrobe to give them a reading. I don't mind at all. I like it, in fact. I have insomnia."
       "But-you mean you tell fortunes seriously?" Red Emma asked.
       "How else would I tell them?"
       Red Emma looked at Duncan. He looked back, unsmiling.
       "Well, if we could have the keys, then," said Justine.
       Red Emma fetched them, sleepwalking-two flat, tinny keys on a shower curtain ring. "I really do need to have my fortune told," she said. "I wouldn't want this spread around but I'm considering a change in employment."
       "Oh, I could help out with that."
       "Don't laugh, will you? I'd like to be a mailman. I even passed the tests. Could you really tell me whether that would be a lucky move or not?"
       "Of course," said Justine.
       Red Emma rang up their bill, which Duncan paid with a BankAmericard so worn it would