Читать книгу The Four Seasons - Мэри Монро, Мэри Элис Монро, Mary Monroe Alice - Страница 9

BIRDIE AND ROSE LOOKED AT each other for a brief instant, then in a flash, Rose darted from the table and tore off to open the front door as eager as a nine-year-old girl. A tall, blond man with a bodybuilder’s physique squeezed into a black suit smiled uncertainly.

“Excuse me, ma’am, but is this the Season residence?”

Rose looked beyond the man’s massive shoulders into the darkness but didn’t see her sister. Only the sleek red lights that trimmed the limo were visible along the curb. A shiver of worry shot through her as she nodded.

The chauffeur pinched back a smile and said, “My passenger told me to tell you to meet her in the side yard.”

Rose wasn’t sure she’d heard right. Behind her, Birdie stepped forward to ask in her imperious voice, “Where is Miss Season?”

The chauffeur cleared his throat and leaned forward in a confidential manner. “In the side yard. She should really come inside. She’s…well, she’s had a bit too much to drink.”

Rose heard Birdie mutter an oath. Dennis stepped forward and shook the chauffeur’s hand in a man-to-man manner. “Why don’t you bring her luggage right inside.” He looked over his shoulder, jerking his head at Birdie.

“Come on, Rose, let’s go get her,” Birdie said. They hurried into their coats and out the door into the night. Hannah was right behind them.

The snow had finally stopped and the full moon was as white as a large plate in the inky black sky. The light illuminated the clean, virginal snow in breathtaking beauty. Rose had always felt a particular thrill stepping into a stretch of new snow, akin to being an explorer discovering uncharted territory. Ahead, the path of her sisters’ deep footprints in the nearly foot-deep snow were the only marks scarring the frosty white. She followed them, trying to step in their prints, with a curious excitement in her chest. Around the wide front porch she could hear high-pitched laughing and shrieking.

Turning the corner, she saw in the moonlight a flash of vivid red hair and lush black mink against a sea of white. Blinking in the cold air, she moved closer. Birdie was standing a few feet away from the blur of motion, her hands on her hips. Rose saw Jillian lying in the snow, laughing with delight, as her mink-clad arms and her long, slender legs in dainty spiked heels moved back and forth, carving out a snow angel.

“Jilly!” Rose cried out with joy.

Jilly stopped laughing, cocked her head up and waved her arm, beckoning Rose closer.

“Rosie!” she shouted. “Look at all this snow! Isn’t it beautiful? I haven’t seen snow like this since we were kids. It’s so damn wonderful. Come on, Rosie! Birdie! Remember how we used to make snow angels? Look, I’ve made two already!”

Sure enough, Rose spied two snow angel outlines looking somewhat ethereal and magical in the moonlight. Rose ran to Jilly’s side, bubbling with anticipation. Except, she couldn’t remember how to make the angel. Suddenly Hannah appeared beside her, grinning with delight.

“So cool,” she exclaimed joyously. Spreading her arms out, she simply fell back into the soft snow, then began to thrash her arms up and down in an arc.

“Hannah, get out of there!” Birdie called, exasperated. “Oh, no, Rose, don’t you dare. Rose!”

With a squeal, Rose shut her eyes, spread out her arms and fell back. It was deliriously delicious, like free-falling, then finding herself deeply enveloped in the snow, face up to the moonlight.

“Aw, come on, Birdie, you ol’ stick in the mud,” Jilly called out. “Nobody’s looking.”

Birdie stood a few feet away, feeling every inch of the distance.

“Jilly, you’ll catch your death of cold,” she scolded. “You all will. No boots, no gloves, no hats. You’re all behaving like children. Jilly, come on, give me your hand.”

Jilly lifted her hand as gracefully as a queen’s. When Birdie stepped forward to take it, Jilly whipped up her other hand, clasped Birdie’s tightly and pulled her down with a laugh. Birdie shouted in surprise and tumbled face first into the snow beside her sister.

The snow was icy on her cheeks but nothing was hurt, except maybe her pride. The sound of hilarious laughter filled her ears. Birdie sputtered and felt ready to throttle her older sister, who was obviously drunk. She could smell the Scotch mixed with perfume. She struggled to raise herself to her knees and wipe the snow off her cheeks, scowling, ready to light into her sister.

But then she saw Jilly’s face, inches from her own, lit up with laughter. Birdie could only stare into that beautiful face, beautiful not for the reasons fashion magazines had clamored for her picture, but because it was the face she remembered from their childhood. Jilly’s eyes were bright with a childlike joy and that incomparable pleasure of just being alive that she hadn’t seen in her since they were kids. Birdie wasn’t sure if Jilly was happy, or merely drunk.

“Missed you, sis,” Jilly said soberly, still looking into her eyes with a wistfulness that was endearing. She reached up to swipe away a chunk of snow from Birdie’s collar. “You always made the best snow angels, remember? The snow was just like this, too. Soft, like powder. Remember?” Then with a cocky smirk she added, “But I always had to drag you out here, even then.”

Though the words were slurred, Birdie smiled and nodded, remembering it all.

Hannah sat up and howled with laughter at seeing her mother dumped in the snow. There was a look of awe on her face; she couldn’t believe anyone would really dare to do that to her mother. Beside her, Rose, the traitor, was laughing so hard tears were icing on her lashes and she clapped her hands in the same spontaneous manner she used to when she was little.

Something deep within Birdie pinged; she could hear the sound in her mind as clearly as she heard the laughing of the three women she loved most in the world. It was a rare moment of intense beauty and joy. Their world, their senses, felt heightened. She breathed in the cool air, slowly and deeply, feeling the moisture slide down her throat and enter her lungs. The snow made her cheeks burn with cold. She imagined they were cherry red, like Hannah’s, and the sting made her feel alive.

What small miracle had transpired that allowed her to be kneeling in the new-fallen snow in the moonlight with her sisters, laughing like children. Playing, rather than fussing over details of the funeral?

She knew the answer, of course. Jilly. It had always been Jilly who started the games.

Ah, but it was cold, and late, her mind rushed to warn her. They couldn’t stay out here forever. Reality interfered. Suddenly, she was no longer a child but a grown-up, with an adult’s sensibilities. She knew that a drunk could get hypothermia and not even know it. She knew that there were countless details to be sorted out before the funeral tomorrow. The dinner had to be served. Jilly probably needed to get some food in her. And unlike her sisters, Birdie was a mother. A wife. A doctor. She had responsibilities.

In a flash, she felt herself projected out from the scene, becoming an outsider, looking in. She couldn’t play. She pushed a hand through her hair and looked again at Jilly, then at Rose, and finally her own daughter, Hannah, still making snow angels. Birdie felt very cold. Her fingertips were flaming red and her toes were numb. “Okay, everybody, time to go in.”

“Okay, Mom,” Rose called back, giggling at her own joke.

Birdie wanted to shout back that she wasn’t her mother. She didn’t want to be the mother. Slowly, she dragged herself to her feet, feeling every one of her forty-one years.

“I said, everybody up. Time to go in.”

Ever the cooperative one, Rose climbed to her feet and offered her hand to Jilly. This time, Jilly went along, allowing Rose to take one hand and Hannah the other as they hauled her to her feet. She rose like a beautifully plumed bird, graceful, arms outstretched. A phoenix, Birdie thought with a wry smile.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” Jilly moaned once she was on her feet, weaving.

“Too much booze,” Birdie said matter-of-factly as she stepped forward to grab hold of Jilly’s arm. “Can you walk?”

“I’m a model, chérie. I’ve strolled down runways in a lot worse condition than this.”

“Spare me the details. Okay then, one foot after another.”

Like a trooper, Jilly straightened her shoulders, fixed her direction. Then, releasing her sister’s hand, she paced through the snow with remarkable grace.

“You didn’t tell me your sister was so cool,” Hannah said, coming to her side.

Birdie saw the admiration in Hannah’s eyes and felt a sting of jealousy. She couldn’t remember the last time she had seen anything but scorn in her daughter’s eyes.

A squeal caught her attention. She looked up in time to see Jilly wobble on some ice in the ridiculous spiked heels, then fall flat back into a snowdrift. Birdie hated herself for it, but a part of her was glad to see Jilly knocked off the pedestal a notch. She stifled her smile and hurried to help Jilly to her feet with Rose catching the slack. Jilly seemed to have used the last of her steam to make the distance to the porch; she was like a rag doll now.

In the light of the front porch, Birdie studied her sister with a physician’s eye. It had been ten years since she’d last seen her. Jilly still possessed a sultry sexiness that even women turned their heads to admire. Her hair was the color of flame and as thick and wild as ever. She wore much less makeup now so her face appeared more pleasing and natural. But Birdie didn’t like its pallor and gauntness, nor the puffy eyelids and the blueness of her lips. And Jilly was thinner. The bones of her face and even her hands appeared sharp under blue-veined skin. Intuition bred from years of training and experience recognized excessive fatigue and possible illness.

“Help me get her up, Rose,” she murmured.

Rose and Hannah both responded to the serious tone in Birdie’s request. The sisters each shouldered part of Jilly’s weight while Hannah opened the front door.

“I’m okay….” Jilly muttered.

“Sure you are. Now, take another step. Up, up, up,” and so on as they made their way up the front steps.

“Welcome home, Jilly,” Rose murmured as they ushered her into the warmth of their old family house.

Hours later, the dishes were washed and put away, the lights turned off and everyone settled into their respective rooms. The whole house seemed to sigh in peace. Rose sat before her computer, wide-awake. Coffee had been served when they all came in from the cold. Though she didn’t usually drink caffeine at night, that wasn’t what stirred her blood. There had been too much emotion and tomorrow promised more.

These dark hours were her favorite, when no one needed her or called her name. They were hers alone. Merry had always fallen asleep quickly and early and slept untroubled through the night. Occasionally illness would rouse her, but usually her breath purred and she dreamed of happy things. Rose knew this because she’d sit by her bed and watch her, envious of the gentle smile that curved Merry’s lips.

Her bedroom had once been their parents’ room. Rose had offered this largest bedroom to Merry after their mother died but Merry had rejected it, preferring the familiarity of her own lavender-and-lace-filled room. So Rose had moved in, using her old room as an office for her part-time job as a word processor. There were twelve rooms in the house, but her office was hers alone, filled with things that she had chosen for herself rather than inherited. Her desk was designed for her new computer. The bookshelves were installed to house her personal library. Everything here was here only because she wished it to be. She could come into this room, close the door and be free to explore her own interests, either through books or, more recently, the Internet.

She turned on the computer and, as she waited for it to boot, thought that Birdie was wrong to say chat rooms were only for lonely shut-ins. She knew this wasn’t true because her Internet friend, DannyBoy, traveled all across the country as a trucker. They didn’t go into personal details, didn’t exchange pictures or such, but she gleaned from what he wrote that being on the road so much was the reason he couldn’t meet nice young ladies. He wasn’t some pervert. He was kind and caring. A real gentleman who never was vulgar, or stupid, or chauvinistic. In fact, he was the nicest man she’d ever met, if only in cyberspace. They’d met months ago in a chat room for stamp collectors, and their conversations had soon drifted from stamps to whatever was on their minds. They’d liked what each other had to say and she wasn’t surprised when he e-mailed her privately.

As she clicked to her mail, she felt the familiar thrill to see his e-mail waiting for her. DannyBoy had been her greatest ally when she’d decided to buck Birdie’s directives and have her luncheon. He’d been the one to write words of condolences, sincere and heartfelt. Though she’d never seen his face, Rose could honestly believe DannyBoy was her best friend. She clicked open the e-mail.

Dear Rosebud,

All day I kept thinking and wondering if your sisters had come yet. I know how excited you are and how sad that the occasion for this get-together is your youngest sister’s funeral. I heard on the weather report about all that snow you folks in Chicago got. What bad luck. Hope it all goes okay. Let me know.

I’m in Texas now. The weather is pretty good, but the clouds are collecting and in these parts, we all keep our eyes on the sky and our ears tuned to the radio. Moving on soon, though, to the Midwest.

DannyBoy

She smiled, wondering as she always did what he looked like, how old he was, and if he was tall or short, fat or thin, balding or wore his hair in a ponytail. Not that it mattered, of course, though she couldn’t help but be curious. She put her fingers to the keyboard.

Dear DannyBoy,

Yes, they’re here! We had a terrible snowstorm but we’re lucky. Birdie and her family made it down and Jilly’s plane got in, though late. It’s so very wonderful! I really should go to sleep. Tomorrow is a busy day. I’ve a million things to do. I’ll have to get up early and polish the silver, set the tables, make the sandwiches. Oh Lord, the list never ends. But I can’t sleep. My blood feels like it’s racing yet my eyelids are so heavy. I haven’t slept well lately. I hate the darkness. I lie in bed staring at the ceiling until I see red spots before my eyes. I don’t know what I’m waiting for, but I have this sense something is going to happen. Maybe Merry is hovering nearby. Who knows? I hope I don’t sound crazy. I probably just need some sleep. But my sisters are here!

Take care,

Rosebud

She sent the letter. While she was scanning the Net, she was surprised to see another letter come in. Clicking over, she saw it was from DannyBoy. He must be online, she thought, feeling a sudden, almost intimate connection with him.

Dear Rosebud,

Go to sleep!

DannyBoy