The Bridegrooms Read Online Free PDF Page B

until Mrs. Thomas turned the corner, but the minute the train of the unpleasant woman’s skirt disappeared, the youthful party exploded in new mirth.
    “Lisette Allenhouse!” Vada shouted from the top step. “Supper’s on the table.”
    The flotilla continued in strolling lockstep until Lisette had one foot on the bottom step and pivoted to dismiss her faithful tugs. “Good night, boys.” She turned her back, gathered her skirt in one hand, and skipped up the stairs. She barely acknowledged the sister who followed in her wake as she washed through the front door.
    “Where have you been all day?” Vada took the girl’s straw boater with its long blue ribbon and hung it on the hat tree in the hall. “And don’t tellme you’ve been to the library because I know that wasn’t a study group I just witnessed.”
    “Honestly, Vada. You’re too young to be such a nag.” Lisette tossed the words over her shoulder on her way to the stairs.
    “What about supper?”
    “Ugh.” Lisette clutched her stomach and leaned against the banister. “I couldn’t eat a thing. The Britton twins were arguing over who would buy me an ice cream soda, so I had two. One vanilla and one strawberry. If I keep this up, I’ll be as fat as Hazel.”
    Vada chose to ignore the comment. She’d had enough conflict for one day.
    “Well then, at least come in and have a cup of tea with us.” It was a halfhearted invitation, considering how the girl was sure to ridicule the spread in the kitchen.
    “Mary Winston is having a birthday party tonight.” Lisette backed up a step or two. “Did Molly press my dress?”
    “Only if you brought it down to the kitchen.”
    “Drat!” Lisette spun on her toe and rushed up the stairs, her hair a bouncing cascade down her back.
    “Watch your language!”
    But by that time Lisette was at the top of the landing, and the next sound was the slamming of her bedroom door.
    Moments later, Vada was back in the kitchen, draining the cooked potatoes and tossing them with the last of the cream. Althea came up behind her and silently added salt, pepper, and a handful of dried chives. Hazel made her familiar boisterous entrance, and Vada set her to work flaking the meat off the leftover fish, which she tossed in with the potatoes. The happy find of a small tin of peas completed the dish that, in the capable hands of Molly Keegan, might have been an enticingchowder. Instead, it was an irregular mass of gradient bits that didn’t even have the courtesy to steam as it was ladled onto the cheap daily ware plates.
    “Good evening, girls.” Their father’s entrance was, as usual, without fanfare. He wore a brown rumpled suit that complemented his pale rumpled face.
    The photograph of him taken upon the day of his university graduation showed him to have been handsome, if boyishly soft. Now the softness had gathered into little pockets beneath his eyes, and anything left of it was obscured behind a face full of whiskers. “We’re eating in the kitchen tonight?”
    “It’s Saturday, Doc.” Vada handed a fork to each one as she took her place.
    Hazel plunked the peaches—still in the can—in the middle of the plain, sturdy table. “No need to make fuss with fancy dishes in the dining room for a meal like this.”
    Vada winced at the comment. “Without Molly here to help with the cleanup—”
    Doc closed his hand around hers as he took his fork. “It was a simple question. No more.” He gave something just short of a squeeze before making his way to the head of the table, stopping to plant a brief kiss on the top of Althea’s head.
    When all were seated, he held out his hands and, one by one, each sister grasped the other’s, with Vada stretching her arm to reach Hazel’s across Lisette’s empty place. Doc raised one thick eyebrow in acknowledgment of the absence.
    “She’ll be eating later,” Vada said. “At a birthday party.”
    Doc’s eyebrow nestled back into place without question, and each of