Читать книгу The Greenest Wind - Gesine Schulz - Страница 3

Goodbye, California

“No, No, NO!” Lucy screamed, clapping her ears shut.

Her mother pulled Lucy’s hands down and held them tightly.

“Sweetheart, please try to understand,” she said. “It’s the perfect opportunity for me to spend a few weeks with Kurt. He called just a little while ago and I had to give him an answer right away.”

“But what about our summer vacation? You said we were going to California. You promised!”

“We can go to America some other time, Lucy, and we will. But Kurt would never understand if I turned down this chance to be with him on the ship. It’s such a lucky break that a cabin opened up at the last minute.”

Lucy’s gaze bored a hole through the wall behind her mother. Through it, she could see California. The blue, cold Pacific. Wide beaches. The hilly streets of San Francisco. And the winery of Mama’s friends where they’d planned to spend two weeks. A big, old, white mansion with pillars and a wrap-around porch. And for Lucy, a room of her own, with a balcony. Lucy sighed.

“I was really, really looking forward to it, Mama.”

“I know, honey. I’m so sorry.”

“Why can’t I go on the ship, too?”

“I’ve already told you: it’s a research vessel. Kurt and the other scientists will be working there. They only have a few cabins for visitors. Children aren’t allowed on board. And besides, it would be boring for you.”

“But–”

“It’s just not possible, Lucy. End of discussion. I don’t want to hear another word about it. Be reasonable about this, all right? Otherwise Mama will get a headache.”

Lucy said nothing. Sometimes she wished she could get headaches, too.

Tacked over Lucy’s bed was a map of the world. She’d drawn the flight route with a red jumbo marker. From Düsseldorf over the Atlantic, straight across America to San Francisco. Lucy took the thumbtacks out of the wall. She folded up the map and cut it into tiny pieces, letting them fall into the wastepaper basket.

“Bye-bye, California,” she murmured.

“I’m going over to Kora’s for a while, Mama.”

“That’s fine, honey,” her mother called from the living room. “Take the umbrella. It looks like it could rain.”

“Mmh,” Lucy answered. So what? Then she’d just get wet. It hadn’t been much of a summer so far. Chilly and wet. In California, no doubt, the sun was shining. Every single day.

“What?! You’re not going to America? I don’t believe it!” Kora’s eyes were wide. “Aren’t you mad? I would be so mad.”

“Ohh...” Lucy grabbed some potato chips out of the giant bag propped between Kora and her on the sofa. “Mad? I don’t know. I just feel empty. Like a busted balloon.”

“I’d be mad,” said Kora.

They kept reaching into the bag, snarfing down chips. Outside, the first drops of a heavy rain shower hit the window pane.

“I didn’t bring an umbrella with me,” said Lucy.

“Stay here. So now what are you going to do when school’s out?”

“What?”

“You’re not going to be flying off to the Wild West by yourself, are you?”

“Oh,” Lucy said. “No idea. I don’t know what I’m doing now.”

The two friends looked at each other in silence.

“She just forgot to tell you,” Kora finally said. “Right? Yeah, sure. That must be it.”

“I have to be going,” Lucy said.

“Yeah,” Kora said. “Take my umbrella.”

But the apartment door had already slammed shut behind Lucy.

She was as wet as a flounder by the time she got home.

“Oh, Lucy!” her mother said. “Go to the bathroom this instant. You’re making a puddle on the hardwood floor. I told you to take an umbrella.”

Lucy stayed right where she was. Drop by drop, the puddle was becoming a small lake. “Tell me what I’M doing this summer.”

Her mother closed her eyes and rubbed a hand across her forehead. “Lucy, sweetie...”

“You forgot about that, didn’t you,” Lucy said.

“Oh, Lucy!” said her mother loudly. “I didn’t forget. I did NOT forget about it. I just haven’t thought about it yet.”

Lucy shook her head. She could just imagine what would happen if she ever came up with an excuse like that.

Lucy lay in bed. The blue curtains were drawn. Rain pattered on the windowsill. The down duvet was fluffed up around Lucy and covered her up to the tip of her nose. She was holding her dark-brown teddy bear, Theodore, tightly in her arms.

“Everybody else knows what they’re doing this summer,” she whispered in his ear. “But not me. I only know what I’m not doing, Theodore. I’m not going to California.” Lucy pressed her face against his fur and sighed. He smells so good, she thought, and fell asleep.

At breakfast her mother announced: “I’m going to call around today and see what kind of camps there are for kids. How about horseback riding at the seaside? You like the water. Or what do you think about going to the mountains? Austria, maybe?”

“Oh, Mama, couldn’t I go to Italy with Kora and her mother?”

“Well, I’m not so sure about that.”

“Oh, Mama, please!”

“I don’t know if you’d be in such good hands there, Lucy. It all sounds awfully primit– well, let’s just say ‘simple.’ Let me see what else is available.”

Kora and her mother were going on a bus trip to Italy. They were staying in the former schoolhouse of a mountain village. The grown-ups were going to do the cooking. And there’d be courses – for kids, too. Acting lessons! You could even learn to play the drums.

“Do you think your mother would take me along?” Lucy asked Kora at recess.

“Sure.”

Immediately after school, Kora’s mother called to see if there was room for another child.

“Uh-huh,” she said into the receiver. “Uh-huh. Really? I see... Well, all right, then. Goodbye.”

“Sooo, girls. Unfortunately, they’re booked up. There’s even a waiting list. Sorry, Lucy. I would have liked to take you along.”

Lucy felt tears welling up in her eyes. She hadn’t figured on there not being any room left for her.

“Thanks, Mrs. Mueller,” she said. “Guess I’ll be going home now.”

Kora walked her to the door. “Too bad, Luce,” she said and stroked Lucy’s shoulder.

Lucy was sitting in the kitchen and knitting dark gray wool into a small square when her mother came home.

“Well, Mama, you don’t have to worry about Italy anymore. There aren’t any seats left on the bus.”

“Oh...! That’s a shame.”

Astounded, Lucy stared at her mother.

“Here’s what’s happening, Lucy. I made lots and lots of phone calls, and then I even went out and asked at two travel agencies. Trips for kids are booked up everywhere. Nobody’s got anything left. I don’t understand it – they keep saying that people don’t have any money these days.”

Lucy put her head down and knitted faster. Nothing left, nothing left, nothing left...

“Lucy! Are you even listening to me? Here I am, racking my brains trying to figure out something for your vacation. What is it you’re knitting now, anyway? That makes me so nervous.”

“It’s for Mrs. Freitag. A lap afghan.”

“You and your blankets. Are you sure she even wants one?”

“Yes, she does, Mama. I visited her after her dog, Rufus, died, and she was really sad. So, I asked her if she maybe wanted a new afghan. That cheered her up. But she wants it made of only black and gray pieces. Because she’s 87 years old, she says, and because she only wears black and gray, because she’s a widow or something.”

“Goodness, how depressing.”

Lucy nodded. “I thought so too, at first. But then I found seven different grays in the yarn shop, and I’m only using a little bit of black. I think the afghan’s going to look like clouds, everything from light gray to gray-black. Not sad at all. Do you want to see?”

“Later, Lucy. Put your things away now. I’m going to make us some dinner. Salad and broiled cheese baguettes – you like that. And then we’ll think about what you can do on your vacation. We’ll come up with something, won’t we?”

Lucy nodded. She went to her room, put her knitting on the bed, and opened the bottom drawer of her dresser. That was where she kept her stash: leftover yarn she’d gotten from neighbors and the mothers of classmates; skeins with the labels still around them, bought with her allowance; and yarn she’d recycled by unraveling sweaters she’d outgrown.

The skeins and neatly rolled-up balls of yarn lay sorted by color in open shoe boxes. Scores of colors. A stranger opening the drawer would think that someone had hidden a rainbow in there.

Lucy knelt in front of the drawer, examining her treasures. She reached for a little ball in the browns. Caramel brown. Like Rufus’ smooth coat of hair.

She quickly put it with the gray yarn for Mrs. Freitag. The amount would be just enough for one square. A little surprise piece. Near the afghan’s border.

Her hand searched through the yarn. Kora wanted a little blanket for her Barbie doll. One made of tiny pink and white squares. Pale pink or cotton candy pink? Or-

“Lucy, come and eat!” her mother called, interrupting Lucy’s decision-making.

“Here, sweetie,” her mother said. “Have some more salad... Well, there weren’t any more spots open, but I was able to get you onto two waiting lists. For a horseback riding camp in Denmark and a summer camp in Austria, in the mountains. Those would be nice, wouldn’t they? The weather’s been so bad. I bet some kid will get sick and won’t be able to go...”

“Hmm,” Lucy responded.

“But I thought of something else, sweetheart: what does a person have relatives for, anyway?”

Lucy jumped up. “You mean I could maybe go with Papa, Ilona, and Christopher? To the south of France? You wouldn’t mind?”

Ilona was Lucy’s father’s second wife, and Lucy’s mother couldn’t stand her. Lucy visited her father every third Saturday, but only when he didn’t happen to be away on a business trip. And she always looked forward to seeing Christopher and playing with him.

She’d been overjoyed when she found out that Ilona was expecting. Lucy had tried her best not to let on around her mother. But there’d been no need to pretend around Kora.

“I’ve been wanting a brother or a sister forever. And now I’m getting one! Okay, I know it’ll be a half-sister or a half-brother, but that’s almost as good.”

Right away she’d started knitting a baby blanket out of the softest yarn she could find. Creamy white and buttery yellow.

Christopher was over a year old now and starting to walk. He was a cuddly little guy with dimpled knees. It was a shame she couldn’t see him more often. She was always afraid he’d have forgotten who she was since her last visit. But if she could spend her vacation with him, they’d be together for weeks!

“The south of France with your father?” Lucy’s mother said. “That’s not really what I had in mind–”

“Oh, Mamaaaa...!”

“...but, in this case, it would be all right, I guess. Did they invite you to go along? You didn’t mention it.”

“No, they haven’t said anything, but they knew I was going to America with you. When Papa finds out that we’re not going, he’ll invite me along. Maybe. Or I can ask him on Saturday when I’m there. Or do you want to ask him? Would that be better?” Lucy had skipped out of the kitchen and was prancing around the living room.

“Sit down, Lucy. I want to tell you what I was thinking of.”

Lucy plopped down onto the sofa. Her mother sat down next to her and put an arm around her shoulder. “What do you think about going to Ireland to visit your Aunt Paula?”

“Whaaattt?!”

“Don’t shout like that, Lucy. And we say: ‘Pardon?’”

“Pardon?” whispered Lucy. She wasn’t able to shout anymore, anyway; suddenly, she felt very weak.