“I’m not done with my onion rings,” she says with equanimity. I hate the way my sister won’t listen to authority, especially my authority.
“Get in the car,” I insist, and walk away.
“Where are you going?”
“I have to talk to Walt.”
Walt’s wearing a stained apron and there’s sweat on his hairline. “I hate this job,” he says, lighting up a cigarette in the parking lot.
“But the hamburgers are good.”
“When I get out of here, I never want to see another hamburger in my life.”
“Walt,” I say. “Maggie—”
He cuts me off.“She didn’t go to her sister’s in Philadelphia.”
“How do you know?”
“Number one, how many times does she visit her sister? Once a year? And number two, I know Maggie well enough to know when she’s lying.”
I wonder if he knows about Peter, as well. “What are you going to do?”
“Nothing, I guess. I’ll wait for her to break up with me and that’ll be it.”
“Maybe you should break up with her.”
“Too much effort.” Walt tosses his cigarette into the bushes. “Why should I bother when the result will be the same either way?”
Walt, I think, is sometimes a bit passive.
“But maybe if you did it first—”
“And save Maggie from feeling guilty? I don’t think so.”
My sister walks by with her new Day-Glo hair. “You’d better not let Dad catch you smoking,” she says.
“Listen, kid. First of all, I wasn’t smoking. And secondly, you’ve got bigger things to worry about than cigarettes. Like your hair.”
As Dorrit gets into the car, [A-Z]alt shakes his head. “My little brother’s just like her. The younger generation—they’ve got no respect.”
CHAPTER NINE The Artful Dodger
When Dorrit and I get home, my poor father takes one look at Dorrit’s hair and nearly passes out. Then he goes into her room to have a talk with her. That’s the worst, when my father comes into your room for a talk. He tries to make you feel better, but it never quite works that way. He usually goes into some long story about something that happened to him when he was a kid, or else makes references to nature, and sure enough, that’s what he does with Dorrit.
Dorrit’s door is closed, but our house is a hundred and fifty years old, so you can hear every word of any conversation if you stand outside the door. Which is exactly what Missy and I do.
“Now, Dorrit,” my dad says.“I suspect your actions concerning your, ah, hair are indirectly related to overpopulation, which is something that is increasingly becoming a problem on our planet. Which was not meant to sustain these vast clusters of people in limited spaces…and tends to result in these mutilations of the human body—piercings, dyeing the hair, tattoos…It’s human instinct to want to stand out, and it manifests itself in more and more extreme measures. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“No.”
“What I mean,” he continues, “is that you must do all you can to resist these unwarranted instincts. The successful human being is able to conquer his unwanted and unwise desires. Am I making myself clear?”
“Sure, Dad,” Dorrit says sarcastically.
“In any event, I still love you,” my father says, which is the way he ends all his talks. And then he usually cries. And then you feel so horrible, you vow never to upset him again.
This time, however, the crying bit is interrupted by the ringing of the phone. Please, let it be Sebastian, I pray, while Missy grabs it. She puts her hand slyly over the receiver. “Carrie? It’s for you. It’s a guy.”
“Thanks,” I say coolly. I take the phone into my room and close the door.
It has to be him. Who else could it be?
“Hello?” I ask casually.
“Carrie?”
“Yes?”
“It’s George.”
“George,” I say, trying to keep the disappointment out of my voice.
“You got home okay?”
“Sure.”
“Well, I had a great time on Saturday night. And I was wondering if you’d like to get together again.”
I don’t know. But he’s asked too politely to refuse. And I don’t want to hurt his feelings. “Okay.”
“There’s a nice country inn between here and Castlebury. I thought maybe we could go next Saturday.”
“Sounds great.”
“I’ll pick you up around seven. We’ll have dinner at eight and I can get you home by eleven.”
We hang up and I go into the bathroom to examine my face. I have a sudden desire to radically alter my appearance. Maybe I should dye my hair pink and blue like Dorrit’s. Or turn it into a pixie cut. Or bleach it white blond. I pick up a lip pencil and begin outlining my lips. I fill in the middle with red lipstick and turn the corners of my mouth down. I draw two black tears on my cheeks and step back to check the results.
Not bad.
I take my sad-clown face into Dorrit’s room. Now she’s on the phone. I can tell by her side of the conversation that she’s comparing notes with one of her friends. She bangs down the receiver when she spots me.
“Well?” I ask.
“Well what?”
“What do you think about my makeup? I was thinking of wearing it to school.”
“Is that supposed to be some kind of comment about my hair?”
“How would you feel if I showed up at school tomorrow looking like this?”
“I wouldn’t care.”
“Bet you would.”
“Why are you being so mean?” Dorrit shouts.
“How am I being mean?” But she’s right. I am being mean. I’m in a mean, foul mood.
And
