the walls. How did that kid stand it?
Without bothering to knock, Amy tried the doorknob. It turned freely, and she pushed it open, shouting, “Mattie? Mattie!”
Her hands over her ears, she hurried through the graceful entry and into the living room. Her feet sank into lush softness as she stepped onto the pale gray carpet. A quick scan of the room showed her two things, an impressive stereo system arranged on shelving mounted on one wall and Mattie curled up in a ball in big, comfy club chair, her arms wrapped around her head. Amy launched across the room and started hitting buttons and dials until blessed silence descended. The relief was almost physical.
“Oh, you’re home,” Mattie said sullenly and lifted her head, which showed definite highlights of green around the face this night. The shock on that face when she saw Amy rather than her father, coupled with the black and green makeup on her eyes and the coral lipstick on her mouth, was downright comical. “What are you doing here?” she asked Amy.
“Saving your hearing. What in heaven’s name did you think you were doing?”
Mattie stuck her chin out at a belligerent angle. “You can’t just walk in here,” she insisted.
Amy chuckled. “Like you’d have heard me if I’d knocked, especially since I screamed for you before I came in.”
Mattie glared. “Where’s my father?”
“I wouldn’t know. Why do you ask?”
Mattie’s eyes grew round and shimmering. She’s lonely, Amy found herself thinking.
“Didn’t you call him?” she asked Amy.
“No, I didn’t call him. I figure he has enough to do at the moment, keeping the city safe from delinquents like you.”
Suddenly Mattie’s eyes were flowing with tears. She ducked her head on a strangled sob. Amy melted like butter in summer sunlight. “Hey, now, I was only kidding.”
“I’m not a delinquent! I’m not!” Mattie sobbed.
The poor kid’s misery pulled Amy across the room. Soon she was standing beside the big jewel-toned chair. “I said I was only kidding. Listen, I won’t say a word to your father, I promise.”
“Oh, swell!” Mattie snapped, lifting her head and swiping at tears. “Just let him ignore me, see if I care!”
Amy’s freshly drawn brows rose straight up. “Is that what this is all about? You wanted me to call him, didn’t you? You wanted him to come home.”
Mattie instantly sobered and matured. “Don’t be silly. I was just enjoying my music. I don’t know why everybody makes such a big deal about it.”
Amy folded her arms, smirking. “Right. You always enjoy your music with your ears covered.”
The child was back, eyes wide, chin wobbling. “I—I just fell asleep, that’s all.”
“Yeah? Well, that’s some trick. Maybe you could market your secret to a grateful world of insomniacs.”
That wobbling chin jutted up stubbornly. “Why are you being so mean to me?”
Amy dropped her jaw in comic outrage. “Me, be mean to you? Have I tried to burst your ear drums? Have I filed public nuisance charges? Have I purposefully blasted you out of your own house?” The operative word, and they both knew it, was purposefully.
Mattie dropped her chin to her chest. For some time she said nothing, and Amy sensed that this was a moment when she ought to keep her own mouth shut. Even when Mattie began to quietly cry, Amy kept her silence, and finally Mattie came out with it.
“I don’t know what the matter is with me. I don’t really want to go back to L.A. To tell you the truth, it really wasn’t much better. I just get so lonely sometimes.”
Amy felt an instant, unexpected kinship with this odd girl. If anyone understood loneliness, Amy did. She resisted the uncommon urge to lay a hand on Mattie’s head and said, “I suppose that’s to be expected, but you’ll get used to it.”
“Get used to being lonely?” Mattie said with some surprise.
Amy was taken aback. Had she really said that? Was that what she’d done, resigned herself to loneliness? She shook her head, as much in answer to her own thoughts as Mattie’s. “What I meant to say was that you’ll get used to living in a new place a-and that in a couple weeks you’ll make some new friends and—”
Mattie threw up her hands and uncurled, sending both feet to the floor. “You’re talking about school, but school is so lame! I wouldn’t even go if I didn’t have to.”
“Well, you do have to,” Amy said, sounding for all the world like her own mother, “so why don’t you make the best of it? You might be surprised.”
“Don’t you understand?” Mattie said desperately. “I need more than school chums!”
“That’s right,” Amy said. “You need an education.” Mattie snorted inelegantly at that, and Amy found herself feeding her the same line adults always fed teenagers. “You can’t do anything without an education.” Mattie pressed her mouth into a thin line as if refusing a dose of bitter medicine. Amy rolled her eyes in exasperation. “Don’t you have any plans, any dreams? What do you want to do with your life?”
Mattie shrugged. “I don’t know. I just know that I’m not going to find what I need in some high school.”
“Just give it a chance,” Amy urged.
“I need something more than most kids my age,” Mattie went on. “I need…”
“A mother?” Amy asked softly. Boy, did she know how it felt to need someone who just wasn’t there and never would be.
Mattie got a faraway look in her eye, a look tinged with sadness and laden with memories, a look that spoke volumes about her feelings for and need of her mother, but then she shook her head. “It’s even more than that,” she said huskily. “See, Mom’s always with me.” She tapped her chest. “She’s in here, and nothing can ever take her away. In fact, you could say that she’s more ‘with me’ than Dad is most of the time.”
Aha, thought Amy, we come to the crux of the problem. And she knew just what to do about it, but it wouldn’t do to be too obvious. She put her hands on her hips and looked around her, noting the neatness and cleanliness of the room. Not only did it look clean, it felt clean, even smelled clean, and yet it had a comfortable, homey feel about it. Maybe she ought to move halfway across the country, she thought wryly, but something told her that there was more to it than that. “On second thought,” she said, keeping her face as expressionless as possible, “I really don’t think I can just let this go by. Maybe you’d better show me where the phone is.”
Mattie’s expression was one of confusion. Amy could see that having her father brought home was what Mattie wanted, but the fact that the homecoming was apt to bring acrimony now mattered to her when it hadn’t before. Then the confusion cleared, and Amy saw real regret…and pride. Mattie wasn’t about to beg her not to call. Instead, she lifted a hand and pointed across the room to the formal dining area. “Through there to the kitchen. It’s on the right
