The Cost of Living Read Online Free PDF Page B

girl. I think you should spend more time at other things.”
    â€œDo you?” Madeline said. “Excuse me, I have to get by you to get out.”
    She left the room and ran upstairs, her heart pounding with fright and anger.
    â€œDo you know what I hate more than anything?” Madeline said to Paul on the morning of her birthday. “I hate older men who look at girls and insult them.” It was an unusually chatty remark for Madeline, but Paul was not listening.
    â€œThat little pear tree is dying,” he said.
    â€œLet it.” Madeline was a city child. The country, with its hills and stretches and unexplained silences, bored and depressed her. Paul considered her.
    â€œWhere would you rather be?”
    â€œI don’t know,” Madeline said indifferently. “Camp was worse.”
    â€œBut Mrs. Tracy found you alone in an apartment,” he said, as if he were telling her about someone else.
    Madeline made a face. She was accustomed to being discussed, and she could imagine Mrs. Tracy’s version of the story. It was true; she had been found alone in her mother’s apartment. Madeline was to have slept there overnight in the interval between the end of school and the start of her holidays, but her mother had forgotten to write and tell her that she was spending the summer with the Tracys, or had neglected to post the letter, and Madeline had remained in the apartment three weeks.
    Her mother had been away since Christmas. The apartment was shrouded in white dust covers, the telephone disconnected. No one knew that Madeline was there except the janitor, who had given her the key. Her allowance for the summer, a lump sum from her father, had arrived before the closing of school. She lived on chocolates and liverwurst sandwiches, went to the movies every day, and was ideally happy. All around her in the building was a pleasant bustle of latchkeys, footsteps, voices in the kitchen air shaft, sometimes a radio. Then Anna Tracy had arrived and carried her off like a scoop of ice cream.
    â€œI think I like cities,” Madeline said. She lay back with her head on the pillow and closed her eyes. “Are you never going?” she said, not intending it as a question. “If you want to use the bathroom, please go now. I’m going to wash my hair.”
    The birthday must have put her in an excellent temper, Paul thought. Otherwise, she would never have suggested that he use the bathroom first, for it was a constant grievance between them. It adjoined both their rooms, but Madeline treated it entirely as her own. She left powder on the bathmat, towels on the floor. Every morning, Paul found his towels pushed aside and Madeline’s underthings hanging to dry. Ashamed for her, Paul would mop the tub and cap the toothpaste. Madeline would admit no part of Paul into her life. They did not even have a cake of soap in common.
He
might be one of Anna Tracy’s casualties; she was not. Without finding words for it, Paul knew that her untidiness had something to do with her attitude toward him and the entire household. He wished she would employ a less troublesome method of showing it.
    He stood up and, taking advantage of her humor, paused at the door, and said, “If I go now, will you read my term paper while I’m gone? I must give it to the mailman this morning.”
    He stepped aside as he said it, and for an astonished moment Madeline thought he expected her to throw something at him. But it was only because of Allie, who had been struggling with the door handle and now burst into the room, hairbrush in hand.
    â€œI was told to tell you a happy birthday,” she said to Madeline. “Will you do my hair?”
    Madeline sat up. “Am I the only person in this house who can do things?” she asked. “No, I am not going to do your hair and I’m not going to read Paul’s paper, because it’s my birthday.”
    Allie sat down on the bed,