Three Sisters Read Online Free PDF Page B

smiled automatically. Davey was making a joke of it, but she was sure, she was absolutely positive that something was missing between them, some chemistry—yes, some mysterious matter. And if it weren’t missing, if it were there, then she would know it and recognize it.

Seven
    Sunday morning, Karen’s mother was frazzled, at least as frazzled as she ever got which, on a scale of ten, was about a four. “Your grandmother’s coming over,” she announced, lighting a cigarette.
    “Yeah, Ma, it’s Sunday.”
    “Well, what are we going to feed her?”
    “You say that every Sunday.”
    “Every Sunday it’s a problem.”
    “Food will do fine,” Karen’s father said.
    “Is that a dentist joke, Arnie? I was thinking meatballs, or—” She looked in the freezer. “I could heat up that casserole?”
    “Meatballs,” Karen said. “Garlic bread, salad.”
    “Good.” Her mother’s relief didn’t last long. “This house is a mess. I didn’t have a chance to do a thing all week. You’re not going out, are you?”
    “The house looks okay to me,” Karen said.
    “Librarians are cleaner,” her mother said. A librarian joke.
    The minute they heard housecleaning, Liz and
    38’
    Tobi both disappeared. “I promised Scott… .” Liz jiggled her car keys.
    And Tobi, in gray sweats and a white headband, said, “I’ll join the fun when I get back,” and jogged out the front door.
    Karen felt surly at not being able to pull her own disappearing act. The phone rang. She took it in the kitchen. Maybe it was Marisa with some wonderful plan to rescue her from being the household drudge. “Hello.”
    “Dr. Freed?” a male voice asked. Yes, you idiot, sure, this is Dr. Freed. “Dad,” she called. He picked up the phone upstairs.
    “Arnie Freed speaking.”
    “Dr. Freed? Dr. Freed, I have a terrible toothache.”
    “How bad is it?”
    “I didn’t sleep all night.”
    Karen hung up. She knew the rest of the conversation. Did you try aspirin? Yes, Doctor. It didn’t help? No, Doctor. Well, if you feel that bad, why don’t you meet me in the office in half an hour?
    Her mother said that her father had to be the only dentist in the United States without an answering service. No buffer. Nothing standing between him and his patients. They bleated and he ran. Karen couldn’t imagine being that devoted to puffy gums, putrid mouths, and rotting teeth.
    While her mother washed the kitchen floor, Karen sorted through the pile of stuff in the front hall. The closet there was a catchall for everybody’s everything. “What a mess,” Karen complained, walking through the kitchen with an armload of jackets to hang up in the back entry way.
    “It’s no more fun for me than for you.” Her mother was bent over the mop, wringing it out in a bucket.
    “At least you’re used to it.”
    “What makes you think that?”
    “It’s your job, isn’t it?”
    “I thought being a librarian was my job. Or do you believe in sex-associated cleaning genes?”
    “Well, I never see Dad do this.”
    “That’s because he has office hours,” her mother said, sitting back on her heels and lighting another cigarette. She puffed away, frowning. “I think that’s the excuse, anyway.”
    When they were finally done, Karen took a couple of creamsicles from the freezer. She licked the frozen orange coat. “Reward food, Mom, don’t make faces like that.”
    “Sweet stuff. Ruins your appetite.”
    “You’d like it, too, if you didn’t smoke.”
    Once, Karen had gone across town to visit her mother at work. Elbert Mingus Junior High. “Where’s the library?” A kid pointed indifferently. Karen went up worn stairs, down a wide, green-walled corridor. A display case with book jackets, a sign on the door. COME IN AND DON’T BE QUIET. The library was buzzing, kids all over the place. Her mother stood with her arms crossed, listening to a small, dark boy in a striped T-shirt. She wore a full skirt, a red silk blouse, earrings, stockings. She