Taking Terri Mueller Read online

  “Then we will be,” Shaundra said. “And that’s all there is to it!”

  FIVE

  Lunch hour and still warm enough to eat outside. Terri leaned back on the step, waiting for Shaundra. The sun in her eyes made her feel sleepy. The night before, she’d had the dream again. It was always the same. Her father was leaving her, she ran after him, calling his name, but he was gone, and she was alone. Sometimes in the dream she was in a house, sometimes walking down a dark street, but always alone. And it was the alone feeling she would wake up with. Dreams were supposed to mean something about your life, but this dream didn’t make sense. Her father had never left her.

  She saw Shaundra coming around the side of the building and waved. “Were you waiting long?” Shaundra sat down, rolling up the sleeves of her checked shirt. “Higgens was having a temper tantrum and didn’t let us go when the bell rang.”

  Shaundra unwrapped her sandwich. “I just love the man. You know how he flings out his arms? Well, today he leaped right up on his chair. Oh, ugh, tuna fish,” she said, taking a bite.

  They had been friends now for nearly a month. They ate lunch together every day and went to each other’s houses after school whenever they could. Shaundra had a Mickey Mouse pin, and gave it to Terri. Terri had a friendship ring, and gave it to Shaundra. Shaundra said Terri’s present was much better, but Terri loved the Mickey Mouse pin, which was just the head of Mickey with big white ears, and wore it all the time on her sweaters or pinned to her bookbag.

  “My mother’s idea of a heavenly lunch,” Shaundra said, taking another bite of her sandwich. “Why can’t she get it through her head I hate tuna fish?”

  “I’ll trade with you,” Terri said.

  “You will? You are a good friend.”

  After school they met by the bicycle rack. “Guess what Higgens gave us for our assignment?” Shaundra said as they got on their bikes. “Three hundred words on our earliest memory. Now I ask you. Could you tell which memory is your first?”

  “Mmm,” Terri said, aware that for her it wasn’t which memory to choose, but to find any early memory. When she looked back and tried to remember things from before she was in school, it was like staring into a dark, dark room. A room you sensed wasn’t empty, but where you couldn’t see anything. Sometimes, just once in a great while, there was a swift, tiny flash of light into that darkness. It could be words. Daddy’s girl. . . you’re Daddy’s girl. . . drink this orange pop . . . Daddy’s girl likes orange pop . . . Or a feeling-memory. Sick to her stomach . . . the rocking of a car . . . crying . . . or words again. Mommy, want Mommy . . . Mommy . . .

  “So, what’s your first memory?” Shaundra said.

  “Uh, oh . . .” Terri groped, thought of pale orange light sliding in through the window of a car . . . orange light on an orange can . . .

  “See,” Shaundra said, “you don’t know, either.”

  “Yes, I do.” Her voice sounded too loud. “My first memory is of, of an orange. Peeling an orange and eating it. I’ve always loved oranges,” she added, wondering if that sounded convincing, like a real memory. It must have been okay, because Shaundra didn’t challenge it.

  Halfway up Dunn Street Hill Shaundra got off her bike and pushed. Terri took off her corduroy jacket, stuffed it into the saddle bag, then stood up on the pedals. “You could walk faster,” Shaundra said.

  “I know.” She hated to give up too easily. A car passed, and the driver looked out at her. Terri hardly saw the woman, only caught a glint of light off her sunglasses, but for an instant that dark room in her mind lit up. It must have been the strange state of mind she was still in from her dream. She saw yellow sunglasses sitting on a bureau, then sneakers. Yellow sneakers. Yellow glasses and yellow sneakers.

  “Turkey,” Shaundra taunted, looking back. “Why don’t you get a horse?”

  Fixing her eyes on the crest of the hill, Terri thought that if she could make it to the top she’d know what the glasses and sneakers meant. But a moment later she had to get off and push, also.

  At Shaundra’s house there was a note from her mother telling her to do a laundry and clean the bathroom. “And don’t forget the toilet,” she wrote.

  “How disgusting,” Shaundra said.

  “I’ll help you.”

  “You don’t have to.”

  “I don’t mind.”

  “Well, I’ll do the yucky job. You can clean the sink and the mirror. Let’s do it fast and go to your house so I don’t get stuck with my gross little brothers.” She started throwing things into the washing machine. Terri raced after her, throwing in more clothes and the soap powder. She slammed down the machine top, and they ran into the bathroom and began cleaning as fast as they could.

  They were still laughing when they got to Terri’s house about an hour later. The phone was ringing as Terri unlocked the door. “Hurry up,” Shaundra said.

  “The key’s stuck.”

  The phone rang again. Barkley was scratching the door.

  “I can’t stand a ringing phone,” Shaundra moaned.

  “It’s not for you,” Terri said, giving the key a hard twist. “It’s probably a wrong number, anyway.”

  “That doesn’t matter. Coming! Coming!” Shaundra yelled. “Run, Terri!”

  Terri walked into the kitchen with Barkley following, licking her hand, and picked up the phone. “Hello. Mueller residence. Terri speaking.”

  “Terri speaking,” Shaundra whispered, rolling her eyes. “Should I feed Barkley?”

  Terri nodded and pointed to the refrigerator. “Terri?” she heard. “Hello, darling!”

  “Aunt Vivian!” She hadn’t heard her aunt’s voice for a year, but she would have recognized it anywhere. Aunt Vivian was tiny, under five feet, but there was nothing tiny about her voice. “Hello!” she said, gladly. “It’s my Aunt Vivian,” she told Shaundra.

  “Terri, darling, I’m coming to see you soon. Will I recognize you, or have you grown up entirely?”

  “I’m still me, Aunt Vivian. Taller, I guess. It’s so good to hear your voice again.”

  “Darling, have you got a piece of paper? I want to give you my flight number and the date—”

  “Wait, Aunt Vivian—Shaundra, give me some paper,” she said. “Okay, I’m ready, Aunt Vivian.” She wrote down the information. “Daddy and I will be at the airport to pick you up.”

  “I’ll be standing on tiptoes.”

  Terri laughed. “You still remember that?” Once, when she was small, waiting with her father in the airport, she hadn’t been able to spot her aunt in the crowd. She had been on the verge of tears. “She isn’t here! She didn’t come!” A moment later her aunt had appeared, and Terri, half-furious, half-relieved, had cried accusingly, “You better stand on your tiptoes next time!”

  “I wish I could see you right this moment,” she said, now. “What are you wearing? Is it hot in California?”

  “About seventy degrees. Very nice. How is it there?”

  “It’s beautiful. It’s fall. Where are you calling from, Aunt Vivian? Work?” Her aunt clerked in a shoe store.

  “No, darling, I’m calling from a phone booth.”

  “Why?”

  “Why?” She half laughed. “What is this, twenty questions? I don’t have a phone in my, ah, apartment. Terri, did I tell you I love you?”

  “I love you, too, Aunt Vivian.” She glanced at Shaundra, wondering why her aunt had sounded so funny about the phone booth. Uneasy. Or maybe, embarrassed. Because she didn’t have the money to have her own phone?

  “Terri, it seems your father is impatient for my visit.”

  “We both are, Aunt Vivian.”

  “Yes, but there’s something new, isn’t there? A young woman Phil wants me to meet—”

  “Nancy? How did you know about her?”

  “When your father called, he mentioned her.”

  “Daddy called you?” Terri said, in surprise. Why hadn’t he told her?

  “This young woman, Nancy—she�
��s a widow, Terri? She’s all alone?”

  “No, Aunt Vivian, she’s divorced, and she has a little boy, Leif.”

  “Leif? What an odd name. How do you feel about her? Do you like her?”

  “Yes, I do. I like her a lot.”

  “That’s good. That part is good.” She fell silent. Terri wondered which part wasn’t good. “So it’s serious?” she said, in a moment. “Well, I thought so when Phil called.” Her voice trailed off, then came back strong again. “Well, we’ll talk about everything when I’m there. Good-by for now, darling.”

  “Good-by, Aunt Vivian.” She didn’t hang up until she heard the phone click on the other end. Then, just as she put the receiver into the cradle, she thought of something and said, “Aunt Vivian? Aunt Vivian?” The connection was broken. She hung up, thinking that her aunt had said she was calling from a booth because she didn’t have a phone in her apartment. But then how had Terri’s father known where to phone her? It didn’t make sense unless Aunt Vivian had called him first and arranged with him to call her back. But why would they do things in such a complicated way?

  Then she thought how, once a year, there was Aunt Vivian’s phone call to say, “I’m coming.” And then she was here—wherever the here was for Terri and Phil—for a few days. And then she was gone. And then, no word until the next year, the next call, the next visit.

  They weren’t a letter-writing family. She couldn’t remember ever seeing a letter to or from her aunt. But then how did her aunt always know where they were, even though it was always somewhere different from the year before? Did her father write her without Terri’s knowledge? Had he called Vivian more than this one time without telling Terri? Did he, in fact, telephone his sister regularly without telling her? The whole train of thought was really upsetting and uncomfortable for Terri.

  Then something else she had almost forgotten flashed into her mind. The year before at Christmas she had told her father she wanted to send her aunt a card. He had said, “Sure thing,” but about a week later when she asked for Vivian’s address, he had said, “I thought you wanted me to do it, Terr. I sent her a card the other day.”

  Standing there now, staring at the mute phone, Terri remembered exactly how casually her father had said that. And how equally casually she had said, “Oh, sure, that’s okay.” She’d put the card away and forgotten about it. Forgotten, too, how in some tiny, almost hidden-from-herself part of her mind, she had known that her father had not wanted to give her Vivian’s address.

  “That must have been your favorite aunt,” Shaundra said.

  Terri started. She’d nearly forgotten Shaundra, who was sitting on the edge of the table, swinging her legs. Barkley was lying on the floor at her feet. “She’s my only aunt.”

  “Your only? How can she be your only? I have ten aunts. You have anything to eat in this house? I’m starved. Can I have an apple?”

  Terri polished two Macintosh apples on her sleeve and explained to Shaundra that Vivian was her father’s only (and older) sister, and that her mother had had no sisters, or brothers either. “And I’m an only. And probably when I get married, I’ll only have one child, too.” Was she talking too much? Better than listening to the disturbing thoughts in her head.

  “Just one aunt and no uncles? How about greats? You know, your parents’ aunts and uncles?”

  Terri bit into the apple. “I don’t have any of those, either. You talk, Shaundra, as if you expect everyone to have an enormous family like you.”

  “I do?” Shaundra’s eyes opened wide. “No, I don’t. Where does your aunt live?”

  “California. Isn’t this apple good?”

  “My Aunt Lucille and Uncle Dave live in Encino. Where exactly does your aunt live in California?”

  “I don’t know,” Terri said.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know?”

  “What do you mean, what do I mean, I don’t know? Just don’t,” Terri said, but it occurred to her that not knowing where her aunt lived was either very dumb, or something else awfully strange. “I suppose, Shaundra, you know where all your many aunts and uncles live?”

  “Well, not all of them. But I have a few more to keep track of than you do, Terri Mueller.”

  Terri threw her apple core into the garbage. “What should we do? We’re just hanging around.” She scrubbed potatoes and put them in the stovetop baker. “Barkley, get out from under my feet!”

  “Why are you yelling at Barkley? Are you getting mad?” Shaundra said. “You sound mad.”

  “Who’s mad?” Terri went into her room and stretched out on her bed, her legs dangling over the edge. Why did she feel so disagreeable?

  “Where’s your Aunt Vivian going to sleep?” Shaundra said, standing in the doorway. “On the couch?”

  “Are you kidding? That mangy old thing? Right here. We have a folding cot. I’ll take the cot and give her my bed.”

  “Good luck. You’ll be stepping on each other’s faces.” She picked up a bunch of keys from the bureau. “What’re all these?”

  “You saw them before,” Terri said. “They’re from all the different houses and places we’ve lived.”

  “You never told me that.”

  “I did, too.”

  “You didn’t. But it’s neat, anyway. You’re lucky, I’ve never been anywhere.”

  “You always say that! It’s not such a big deal. Anyway, you exaggerate everything. I know you’ve been plenty of places!”

  There was a moment’s silence, then Shaundra said, “You’re being such a grouch. Ever since your aunt called. I thought you were happy she’s coming.”

  “I am!” Terri picked furiously at the binding on her blanket. What could she say? How could she tell Shaundra that questions were blowing through her mind like a wind storm. Why didn’t they ever visit Aunt Vivian? Had her father really sent that Christmas card? Why didn’t he like to talk about her mother? Where were her little-girl memories? And why didn’t they have even one picture of her mother?

  She smelled something burning. The potatoes. She ran into the kitchen, turned down the fire. Careful, Terri. Careful what you do. Careful what you think. Careful what you say to other people.

  “Are we having a fight?” Shaundra said, folding her arms across her chest.

  Terri’s heart thumped hard. “What? Why?”

  “I don’t know why,” Shaundra said. “That’s for you to say.”

  “I’m going to make some popcorn,” Terri said, going to the cupboard. The bag slipped out of her hand. Yellow kernels slid all over the floor. Terri felt ready to cry. Barkley got excited and began nosing the kernels around.

  “Klutz,” Shaundra said to Terri.

  “What’s that?” They both got down on their hands and knees, chasing popcorn kernels.

  “You know—a clumsy oaf,” Shaundra said.

  “Oh, thank you!”

  Terri made popcorn and they carried the bowl into the living room and ate without talking for a few minutes. “It’s good popcorn,” Shaundra said, “even if it doesn’t have garlic.”

  “I could get you some.”

  “No, that’s all right. You don’t like it.”

  “I don’t mind.” She went into the kitchen and brought back the garlic-salt shaker.

  “I didn’t really mean that about you being a klutz,” Shaundra said.

  “Well, I am, sometimes.”

  “No, it was mean of me to say it. You’re not clumsy at all. You’re very graceful.”

  “Well, I was acting mean to you, so I don’t blame you for saying it.”

  They sort of smiled at each other. “I guess we’re making up?” Terri said.

  “I want to.”

  Later, looking out the window, Terri saw her father locking up the truck. She pointed him out to Shaundra.

  “He’s the one in the denim jacket? Coming across the street?”

  “Right.”

  “Gee, he’s cute.”

  “Shut up, boy crazy, that’s my father.”<
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  When Phil came in, Terri introduced Shaundra. “Hello, Mr. Mueller,” she said, tucking her hair behind her ears.

  “Hello, Shaundra. I’ve heard a lot about you.”

  “Same here! I mean, I’ve heard a lot about you. Terri talks about you all the time.”

  Her father laughed. “I hope she doesn’t complain too much.”

  “Oh, no, she thinks you’re wonderful. Super Dad.”

  Terri gave Shaundra a shove. She couldn’t believe the way Shaundra was flirting.

  “Do you need a ride home, Shaundra?”

  “No, thanks, Mr. Mueller, I’ve got my bike,” she said. “See you tomorrow, Terri.”

  Terri went to the downstairs door with Shaundra. “Your father’s so nice,” Shaundra whispered.

  “I know, I know.”

  When she went back upstairs, Terri’s father asked if she’d taken Barkley out yet. “I didn’t get a chance, Daddy.” She told him about her aunt’s phone call. “She called from a phone booth.”

  Her father nodded. No reaction. Nothing about having called Vivian. “So she’s coming? Great! Good!” And that was it. “I’m going to clean up now. Why don’t you take out Barkley?”

  By the time she returned from walking the dog, her father was out of the shower and changed into fresh clothes. “What should we have for supper?” he asked. “I could eat a horse.”

  “I started potatoes, but they’re a little burned.” She opened the refrigerator, but she wasn’t thinking about food. All the time she’d been walking Barkley, questions about the two of them, and Aunt Vivian, and the way they lived had been going around in her mind.

  “Nothing looks interesting?” her father said. “Tell you what—let’s go out. I don’t feel much like cooking.”

  Later, in the restaurant he poured a little wine into her water glass and she sipped it between bites of the veal parmigiana, which was her favorite Italian food. They talked about some place nice to take her aunt on her visit and planned to have a big family dinner with Nancy and Leif.

  Driving home, Terri glanced at her father’s profile, dark in the truck, and thought again of the troublesome questions. Supposing she were to ask him point blank: Why didn’t you tell me you phoned Aunt Vivian? Would it sound as if she didn’t trust him? She yawned. The wine had made her sleepy. Why ask anything? she thought, yawning again. Why not just let things go along as they were?