The Grand Finale Read Online Free PDF Page B

mug. She filled the mug with coffee and handed it to Berry. “When you fell out of that tree, did you land on your head?”
    “No. I landed on my pizza.”
    Mrs. Fitz looked at her shrewdly. “You’re kind of stuck on that Sawyer guy.”
    “More like he’s stuck in my head. Isn’t that the pits?”
    Mrs. Fitz looked disgusted. “Good heavens you’re a ninny.”
    Mrs. Dugan padded into the kitchen area. “Who’s a ninny?”
    “Lingonberry here. She thinks love’s a waste of time.”
    “Humph. Sometimes it is. Remember William Criswald? The old coot. I fancied that manfor seven years and just when I was about to reel him in, he died. The nerve. You can’t count on men over seventy-five. You never know how long they’re gonna last.”
    “Well, she isn’t in love with an old goat like Criswald. She’s in love with Jake Sawyer.”
    Berry slammed her coffee mug down on the counter, slopping hot coffee over her hand. “Ow! Dammit. I’m not in love with Jake Sawyer.”
    Mrs. Dugan and Mrs. Fitz exchanged glances and smiled slyly.
    “I find him attractive, and I like him…usually,” Berry said.
    “She’s in love with him, all right,” Mrs. Fitz whispered to Mrs. Dugan.
    Berry took a cautious sip of coffee and gathered her books together. “I can’t be in love with someone I’ve only known for twenty-four hours.”
    “What about love at first sight?”
    “It’s a load of baloney. And besides, I refuse to be in love. I have other priorities, like taking an economics test that I’m totally unprepared for.” She glanced at her watch and winced. She had no car, and she was late. “I have to run. Iwant to go to the library and try to get some studying in before my exam. Send the lunch contracts out by taxi again. I’ll be back at three-thirty. Can you guys handle things?”
    “Piece of cake.”
    Berry bolted down the stairs, only to be called back by Mrs. Fitz.
    “Lingonberry,” Mrs. Fitz shouted, “you’re gonna look awful silly going to class in them raccoon slippers and your nightgown.”
     
    Berry crossed her fingers as she bounded down the stairs ten minutes later. Please God, no more disasters. She closed the door behind her and took a deep breath of cold crisp air. The rain had stopped during the night, and the neighborhood looked freshly washed and waiting for spring. Berry’s mood was starting to improve with the promise of the new day.
    She walked quickly, and two blocks later she found herself approaching the Willard Street Elementary School. Jake’s school. She smiled at the old two-story, redbrick building. It brought back memories of her own school days in McMinneville, when each morning she would setoff along quiet, tree-lined streets with her little sister, Katie.
    It was a childhood of few surprises. Tuna fish or peanut butter and jelly in her lunch box. Hot oatmeal in the morning, homemade butterscotch pudding in the afternoon, and piano lessons every Thursday. The Knudsen household was middle-of-the-road and casually practical. Berry and Katie had worn sneakers and jeans and hand-embroidered shirts and hand-knit sweaters to school. They had a dress for church and they wore the dress with sturdy buckle shoes. No sneakers on Sunday.
    Berry realized she’d been trying to reconstruct the stability of her childhood, with little success. Her mother had been a master of order and routine. Each mitten had its proper place, dinner was served promptly at five-thirty, the bathroom was always miraculously stocked with freshly laundered towels. It hadn’t been a household of strict routine and unbending discipline. It had been a household of dull predictability and comfortable emotions.
    My life is chaos, Berry groaned to herself. The harder I try, the worse it gets. I wash thetowels, but I never get around to folding them. I lose mittens before I can find a proper place for them, and dinner consists of staring into the refrigerator at six-thirty and wondering what the devil I can eat in a