The Summer of Mrs. MacGregor

by Betty R. Wright

  Or a world-famous photographer.

  “La-de-da,” Caroline grumbled and stomped into the house.

  Chapter 4

  “Mr. Jameson!” Linda was disbelieving. “You can’t work for him, Carrie. Everybody says he’s a terrible crab!”

  Caroline made a face at herself in the mirror over Linda’s dressing table. She often made faces at herself, particularly when she and Linda were reflected side by side.

  “It might not be so bad,” she said. “I mean, what can he do except yell at me? And order me around? And tell me how stupid I am!” She shuddered and ran across the room to fling herself on the pale pink comforter covering Linda’s bed. “Oh, I’ll hate it!” she moaned. “And you’ll be gone. And Mom will be gone. And Joe will be at work all day. There’ll be nobody to talk to.…” She stopped, out of breath, and waited for her sister to say something.

  When she looked up, Linda was still at the dressing table, picturebook pretty in the rose-colored suit their mother had bought for the airplane trip to Boston. She was looking in the mirror and frowning.

  “It’ll be bad for you, I guess,” she agreed. “Maybe even awful. But I’d rather do that than go to Boston. Mr. Jameson would be better than—oh, you know.…”

  Better than blood tests and hospital trays and feeling weak all the time and having shots and not being able to breathe at night. Caroline rolled over and stared at the ceiling. I never think of anyone but me! I only told her about my job because I want her to feel sorry for me. How can I be-so rotten? All I have to do is help a sick old man for a few hours every day, and then I can come home and forget about him and do whatever I want. While Linda has to lie there all day in that dumb hospital …

  “I’ll write you about it,” Caroline said unhappily. “You can read my letters and then tear them up and be glad you’re a long way off so you don’t have to listen to all the complaining in person.”

  “What complaining?” Mrs. Cabot appeared at the door, crisp and smiling. “What in the world do you have to complain about, Caroline?”

  “Her job,” Linda said. “I think she’s really brave to do it.”

  “Do what? What job? What on earth are you talking about?”

  The girls exchanged a glance, and Linda mouthed, “I’m sorry,” into the mirror.

  “I was going to tell you before you left, Mom,” Caroline explained hastily. “Mr. Jameson asked Joe if I would work for him this summer, remember? There’s a nurse who comes for a couple of hours early in the morning and a housekeeper who comes at about four to clean up and make dinner. But he needs someone in between to run errands and pick up papers that fall on the floor and look for things that get lost and … stuff. It’ll just be for a couple of hours every day. I told Joe to tell him this morning that I’d do it.”

  Her mother looked distracted, and Caroline knew that in her mind she was already on the plane, speeding toward Boston. She didn’t want to hear about complications at home.

  “As I recall,” Mrs. Cabot said, “you told Joe when he mentioned it the first time that you’d rather die than work for Mr. Jameson. You said you wanted to keep as far away from him as possible. Am I right?”

  Caroline nodded.

  “What’s happened to change your mind?”

  This would be the worst possible time to remind her mother of Grandma’s promised ticket to England. Caroline knew that both her parents considered her too young to make such a trip by herself. Probably the only reason they’d allowed Grandma Parks to make the offer was that they were sure Caroline couldn’t, or wouldn’t, save a hundred dollars before Christmas.

  “Well, I just changed my mind. Why shouldn’t I work for him?” She knew she was whining, but she couldn’t help it. “I have to have something to do all summer.”

  For just a moment there was a flicker of cold anger in Mrs. Cabot’s eyes that made Caroline cringe. It said, very clearly, that Caroline had no right to whine when her wonderful sister was so sick.

  And she’s right, Caroline groaned inwardly. I absolutely hate me. She wished her mother and Linda were already on their way to Boston so she could be miserable by herself.

  “Well, do what you wish.” Mrs. Cabot shrugged the subject away. “I just can’t imagine you sticking with it very long, though. I hear that poor old fellow is really a bear. I know he’s sick and unhappy, but there are other people who are sick, too, and they manage to remain sweet-tempered.” She darted across the bedroom and gave Linda a hug. “Are you ready, honey? Aunt Grace is going to pick us up in about five minutes to take us to the airport.”

  Caroline decided it was time to disappear. Aunt Grace approved of the trip to Boston—“getting to the bottom of things,” she called it—but she did not approve of Caroline’s staying home alone while Joe was working. “Caroline can come with me to Madison,” she’d announced, as soon as she heard the plan. “She can go to summer school at the university while I’m taking classes, and in our free time I’ll teach her how to crochet.”

  Caroline’s mother had actually hesitated for a moment, but Caroline’s frantic expression had helped her make up her mind. “That won’t be necessary,” she’d said. “Thanks, anyway. Caroline will find plenty to do here—she always does—and she and Joe can keep each other company in the evenings.”

  Aunt Grace had argued, but Mrs. Cabot remained firm. Caroline knew it was as much for Joe’s sake as her own—he was going to be lonely—but she was grateful. A whole summer with Aunt Grace was a numbing thought.

  “I’m going out,” Caroline said. “Right now.”

  Linda grinned, and Mrs. Cabot said, “Good idea.” She put her arms around Caroline and kissed her soundly. “Be a good girl, dear,” she said. “Help Joe all you can.”

  “I will,” Caroline promised. She returned her mother’s hug and then kissed Linda’s pale cheek. “You answer my letters or else!” she threatened. “Tell me everything.”

  “I won’t have anything to tell,” Linda said. She put thin arms around Caroline and clung to her as if she hated to let go. Caroline saw tears on her sister’s face as she moved away. She rubbed her own wet eyes with a fist and hurried down the hall, through the kitchen to the back door.

  The day was warm. Gray woolly clouds wandered across a gray-blue sky. Caroline walked to the end of the yard and edged around Joe’s white-painted toolshed. Between the back of the shed and the Kramers’ tall redwood fence was a four-foot strip of lawn, as precisely trimmed as all the rest of the yard because Joe was that kind of gardener. This was Caroline’s private place, her hideaway. She flung herself full-length on the grass and pillowed her face in her arms. The hazy sun’s warmth settled like a blanket on her shoulders.

  I wish I could stay here all summer. It was a silly thought, but she meant it. She imagined herself sailing off the edge of the world, as if this patch of lawn were a magic carpet. Her mother and Linda were far below her (car door slamming, Aunt Grace’s bright, abrasive voice), and Mr. Jameson was a black dot on his front porch. She drifted across oceans of sky, away from school friends (scattered for the summer, anyway, at camp or on vacation with their parents), away from guilt feelings and loneliness. She imagined Lillina MacGregor on the carpet beside her, taking pictures over the side. This is marvelous, Caroline, she’d say. I wish dear Eleanor were here with us.

  Eleanor. Caroline sat up, and the magic carpet became grass again. It was more than a week since Lillina had said Caroline and Eleanor were a lot alike. She began to think she’d like to know Eleanor better—Eleanor, who had already overcome her “special problem.”

  Caroline decided she wanted to see Lillina again and tell her about the job with Mr. Jameson. It was, she was sure, the kind of undertaking Eleanor would admire.

  For some reason, that made the whole idea a little less horrible.

  Chapter 5

  “You’re absolutely right, of course,” Lillina said. “Nursing is practically Eleanor’s thing. I think it’s what she wants to do with her life.”

&
nbsp; “You said she was going to be a famous scientist like Albert Einstein.” The girls sat on the Cabots’ front steps watching the Kramer boys and Joey Millikan race their bicycles down Barker Road. Lillina had appeared a half-hour after Caroline returned from her hideaway and wandered through the empty house. Linda’s sun-filled bedroom had depressed her; without Linda in it, it was like a furniture display window, pretty but unused. Her own room was no more welcoming; it seemed dreary, and she wasn’t in a mood to work on her miniatures. She went into the dining room and took an apple from the bowl in the middle of the table. She was at the telephone, looking up the Restons’ number, when she heard high heels clacking and scraping along the walk. Caroline felt as if she’d summoned a genie out of a bottle.

  “Well, she does very well in math,” Lillina agreed. “But what she really wants is to help people. The thing about Eleanor is this: she can probably do anything she wants to do. She seems like such a quiet little thing, but inside she’s very strong.”

  “I wish I could meet her,” Caroline said wistfully. “I wish she’d come to visit the Restons, too.”

  For a moment Lillina looked sad. Then her chin lifted, and she ran a hand over her shining red hair. “So do I,” she said softly. “But our parents would be all alone then, and that would be dreadfully hard on them. The four of us have always had such marvelous times together.” She shaded her eyes with a slim, freckled hand. “Is that the man?”

  “Who?”

  “You know. Your patient.”

  Caroline followed her stare across the street. Mr. Jameson had opened the front door of his bungalow, and he was clinging to the door frame as he looked up and down the street. When he saw Caroline, he swung one arm in a clumsy, impatient gesture, nearly losing his balance in the process.

  “That’s him.” Caroline’s heart sank. “What’s he acting so angry for? I’m not supposed to go over there until ten o’clock.”

  The old man waved again, and his lips twisted in a grimace. Caroline fought an impulse to run into the house and lock the door behind her.

  “I suppose I’d better go,” she said. “Maybe his clock’s wrong. Do you want to come along?”

  Her friend shook her head. “I absolutely must get back to my novel. And I want to do some portrait shots of Mrs. Reston this afternoon. As a special favor. Besides”—she turned away from Caroline’s pleading expression—“I might make him uncomfortable. You know?”

  “Uncomfortable!”

  “I suppose it sounds silly, but some people … I’ll meet your Mr. Jameson another time.”

  “He’s not my Mr. Jameson. I’ve never even talked to him.” Caroline’s knees shook as she stood up and brushed the seat of her pants. She crossed the street, feet dragging, Lillina’s odd comment lingering in her ears.

  “You’re younger than I thought. About ten, ain’t ya?”

  Up close, Mr. Jameson looked nine feet tall. He was dark and wrinkled, with bony temples and big wrists. His eyes were black and bright, with little folds of skin drooping over them.

  “I’m nearly thirteen.”

  Mr. Jameson’s expression said he doubted it. “Don’t know if you can be of much use, after all. Better forget the whole thing. Go play with your dolls.”

  Caroline felt her face redden. She was fired—before she’d even stepped inside Mr. Jameson’s front door!

  “I’m strong,” she said, in a voice that was louder than she meant it to be. “I can work real hard.” She sounded unconvincing to herself, whiny, close to tears.

  The old man squinted down at her like an eagle on a treetop. For a moment he clung, swaying, to the door frame; then the black eyes glazed and he took a step backward.

  “Well, come on in, if you want to,” he muttered. “No use standing out here all day.”

  He reached for a table in the small entranceway and rested his weight on it. Then he clutched the frame of the door leading into the living room and pulled himself ahead, one shaky step at a time. Caroline held her breath as he crossed the room, grasping chair backs, and lowered himself into a straight-backed chair in front of a television set.

  She wondered what to do next. The living room was small and filled with overstuffed furniture that looked as if no one sat on it. There were crocheted covers on the arms of the sofa and crocheted mats on the little tables. Mr. Jameson’s chair and the television set, in the middle of the flowered carpet, looked as if they didn’t belong there.

  “Don’t stand behind me!” The old man’s strength, and voice, seemed restored, now that he was sitting down. “You one of them sneaky types, always going around on tiptoe?”

  This was so unfair that Caroline didn’t even try to answer. She moved in front of the television screen.

  “Do you want me to work for you or don’t you, Mr. Jameson?” She tried to be mature and reasonable, but the words had a quavery, pathetic sound. “I’ll go home if you say so.”

  Mr. Jameson ignored the question. “You ain’t the beauty of the family, are ya? That sister of yours—the sickly one—she got the looks. Used to see her out playing when she was on her feet.”

  She wouldn’t cry, if that was what he was waiting for. Time enough for that when she was alone. “I’m going home,” Caroline said.

  Mr. Jameson looked at her with contempt. “Easy enough to walk away,” he said. “Well, suit yourself. I don’t care what you do. An old man is nobody in this world. Nobody! Go on home—you’d just be in the way around here.”

  Caroline started toward the front door. She pictured herself telling people what Mr. Jameson had been like. Linda would be sympathetic. Her mother would say, “I told you so.” And Lillina—Lillina would say, “How dreadful for you, dear. Of course, Eleanor would never have given up.”

  Mr. Jameson twisted in his chair and glared over his shoulder, his lined face contorted with rage and—something else. What was it? Satisfaction because he’d hurt her enough to make her leave? Yes, that. And fear! Caroline’s eyes widened. He was afraid. He was afraid that an old man really was nobody in this world.

  She recognized that fear. She knew what it was like to look in a mirror just to make sure you were still there.

  “I guess—I guess I’ll stay for a while,” Caroline said. Cautiously, she returned to her position in front of the television set. “Do you want to write a letter or anything?” she asked. “I can do it for you.” That was supposed to have been one of her chores.

  Mr. Jameson looked triumphant. “Nope,” he said.

  “Should I make you some coffee?”

  “Ain’t thirsty.”

  “Do you want me to run some errands?” She waited for another refusal.

  He stared down at his slippers. “Need peanut butter,” he mumbled. “Couple of chocolate bars. Maybe a crossword puzzle book.” He refused to meet Caroline’s eyes. “Money’s in the kitchen. The tin can on the shelf next to the sink.”

  Caroline took a long, uneven breath. She had a job after all.

  The kitchen, like the living room, was old-fashioned and spotlessly clean. In one corner stood a walker, the kind Grandma Parks had used for a while after her hip surgery. Caroline found the can containing a few bills and some change and took out three dollars and some quarters. Then she picked up the walker and carried it back to the living room.

  “Why don’t you use this?” she asked, setting it close to Mr. Jameson’s chair. “Then you wouldn’t have to hang on to the furniture when you move around.”

  A big fist lashed out, and the walker flew across the room.

  “That’s what I think of the blasted thing!” he roared. “I’m not a cripple! You mind your own business!”

  Caroline darted out the front door. He’d actually thrown the walker—not at her, perhaps, but close enough to scare her badly. Her mother was right. Mr. Jameson was a bear—a mean, nasty-tempered bear who hated everybody because he’d been hurt himself.

  Stepping into the sunny quiet of Barker Road was like returning home from a far-off, unfriendl
y land. Caroline considered going home for her bike but decided to walk the three blocks to the Super-Saver instead. She certainly wasn’t in any hurry to get back.

  The Restons’ neat, gray-shingled bungalow lay beyond the second curve. She hesitated in front of it, then turned up the walk. Lillina was probably busy, but the walk to the Super-Saver wouldn’t take her away from her book for long. And since Caroline and Eleanor were supposed to be so much alike, it would be interesting to find out from Lillina what Eleanor would do if Mr. Jameson were her employer.

  The house had a closed-up look, but Mrs. Reston came quickly when Caroline rang the bell. Her aproned figure filled the doorway.

  “Caroline! How are you, dear? Did your mother and Linda get on their way all right?” Her voice boomed a welcome, but her face was flushed and her smile seemed forced.

  “I’m fine. They left at nine o’clock.” Caroline answered the questions in order. “I was wondering if Lillina could walk to the store with me. If she isn’t too busy, that is.”

  Mrs. Reston’s smile vanished. “I’m afraid she can’t come out right now,” she said. “She’s in her room. We’re having a little problem that has to be straightened out before she does anything else.”

  Caroline was incredulous. “But she was at my house this morning. You mean she’s grounded?” Grounding happened to kids, not to a married woman from New York City.

  “Well, something has come up.” Now Mrs. Reston sounded definitely unhappy. “It’s not a matter I want to go into, dear. We’ll get it straightened out, I’m sure.”

  The smile returned, and Caroline knew she was expected to leave. Still she lingered, trying to get used to the idea of a grounded Lillina. Maybe, she thought, Mrs. Reston was one of the people whom Lillina made uncomfortable. Maybe she was kind of jealous because her own two daughters, both grown up and married, were just ordinary people, nothing like Lillina.

  “I’d better go,” Caroline said. “Would you please tell Lillina—”

  “Lillina?” Mrs. Reston interrupted. “Why do you keep calling her that? Is that what she told you her name is?”