“The place goes crazy this time of year,” he said, and he didn’t sound as pleased as the old lady who had shared Meg’s seat. “You should see it in midwinter, though. Like a ghost town most of the time. Nice.”
Meg sidestepped to miss a collision with a fat man in shorts and a bright orange T-shirt. “Well, I guess it doesn’t make much difference to you,” she said. “The crowds, I mean. Uncle Henry’s cottage is a long way from town, isn’t it?”
Her father looked down at her and then away, as if the comment had startled him. “The car’s right there,” he muttered. “The blue sedan near the corner.”
Meg was surprised. “I thought you used Uncle Henry’s old truck.”
“Had to get something of my own. I thought I told you when I wrote.”
Meg recalled her father’s last letter. How are you doing in school? How’s Rhoda? I hope you’re helping your mother a lot.… I keep busy with my writing, and that’s the way I want it. No big sales so far, but some interesting prospects.… She’d kept every letter he sent her, but they had told very little about life in the north woods. Certainly he hadn’t mentioned buying a car.
Mr. Korshak dropped the suitcase in the back seat of the sedan and waited for Meg to fasten her seatbelt before he pulled out into traffic. “We’ll be turning off the main street just a block or so ahead,” he said. “Then you’ll see how the town looks the rest of the year. All the action’s here on Lakeview.”
“Do you have to get groceries before we go out to the lake?” One of the things Meg had wondered about during the long bus ride was whether her father would remember to stock up on important things like peanut butter and pizza and ice cream. She could imagine him thinking so much about his work that he forgot about eating. She didn’t want to be without her favorite foods for three whole weeks if she could help it.
“No problem.” They turned off Lakeview Avenue, and, as he’d predicted, the scene changed. Big old wooden houses and smaller shingled ones lined the street. The lawns were dotted with toys, and children rode their tricycles down the bumpy sidewalks.
Mr. Korshak swung the car over to the curb and parked in the shade of an oak. “This is more like it,” he said. “This is why I like living in Trevor.”
Meg looked around her. Was she supposed to admire this perfectly ordinary street? “But you don’t live here,” she said after a puzzled moment. “I mean, you just come into town to shop, right?”
Silence. Her father turned and looked right at her for the first time. “I’m awfully glad you’re here, Meggie,” he said. “It means a lot to me that you wanted to come.”
Now it was Meg’s turn to look away.
“But I’m afraid you’re going to be disappointed,” he hurried on. “I just hope—well, things aren’t the way you think. There’s more I didn’t get around to mentioning in my letters—besides the car.”
“What do you mean?” His nervousness was beginning to scare her.
“I don’t live in Uncle Henry’s cottage anymore. If you were looking forward to lying on the beach and hiking in the woods—well, I’m sorry.”
Meg forgot her shyness. “What do you mean? Where do you live, then? Do you have a house?” She looked around again. “Is it one of these houses? Is that why we stopped here?”
“No, no, I just wanted to talk to you,” Mr. Korshak said. “I moved into town about six weeks ago. To a house on Emerson Avenue, just a few blocks from here. And no, I didn’t buy it. I don’t have money to buy a house. It’s a kind of a—a boarding house.”
“A boarding house?” Meg couldn’t believe she’d heard right. “You mean you live in a crummy old tenement with a bunch of strangers?”
Her father laughed weakly. “It isn’t a crummy old tenement, babe, and they aren’t really strangers. The house belongs to a very nice woman I’ve known ever since I moved up here. She’s a nurse at the hospital, and she makes a little extra money renting out some rooms.”
“But—”
Mr. Korshak sighed. “You are disappointed, aren’t you? You wanted to stay at the cottage, and I don’t blame you. It’s beautiful out there. I guess I should have told your mother the whole story when I sent her my phone number, but I didn’t think she’d be interested. Still, it’s probably a good thing I didn’t. She might not have let you come if she’d known.”
Fat chance, Meg thought.
“Actually, I didn’t have any choice about moving,” her father went on. “Uncle Henry had a chance to rent the place for six months, and he didn’t want to pass it up. I wasn’t paying anything to stay there, you know—just looking after the place for him.… I’m sorry, Meggie.”
Meg didn’t know what to say. It wasn’t just the loss of the cottage that disturbed her. She didn’t want to live in one room in someone else’s house, be part of someone else’s family, for three whole weeks. Looking out the car window at the houses that lined the street, she envied the people who lived in them. They were home. That was where she longed to be, now more than ever.
“The Larsens—that’s the name of the people I live with—are great,” Mr. Korshak said coaxingly. “There’s a boy sixteen or seventeen and a cute little girl. You’ll have fun with them.”
Meg hardly heard him. Where would she sleep in this boarding house? Would she have to share a bathroom with a houseful of strangers?
What if there were bedbugs?
Rhoda’s voice sounded dryly in her ear, trying for a joke. In case of bedbugs, sleep in a chair.
But a boarding house! It was probably a dingy, dark place full of lonely people, like her dad, who had no place else to go. His expression, as he waited for her to say something, was that of a small boy who expected to be scolded.
Come on, Meggie. Don’t be a drag. Now it was Bill’s voice, pushing her to be nicer than she was.
Oh, well. She reached out and squeezed her father’s hand. “Don’t worry, Dad. We’ll have fun. I’m really glad to see you.”
The last part, at least, was true.
4
The house was big and old, but it was definitely not the crumbling wreck Meg had expected. White paint gleamed in the afternoon sun, and a rambling porch across the front and partway around one side offered inviting shade. Two little girls, one with straight yellow-white hair and the other with a cap of brown ringlets, played on the steps.
Mr. Korshak carried Meg’s suitcase up the walk. “Hi, Steffi,” he greeted the blond child. “This is my little girl, Meg. Meg, this is Steffi Larsen. And her friend Astrid.”
Steffi hugged her knees. “She’s not a very little girl,” she observed with some disappointment.
Meg smiled at her. “I’m fourteen. How old are you?”
“Five.” Steffi pointed at her companion. “Astrid’s only four. We’re playing out here because Mama’s mad and Caleb’s catching it.”
Meg glanced quickly at her father, who had stopped at the foot of the porch steps. A woman’s voice cut through the sunny stillness.
“—quit moping about something you can’t change, for heaven’s sake! You act as if—” The voice faded. Then the screen door flew open, and a long-legged blond boy burst out onto the porch. When he saw the Korshaks, he took a step backward, his face set in lines of anger and frustration.
Meg’s father put out a hand as if to keep him from running away. “Caleb, this is my daughter, Meg. Meg, meet Caleb Larsen.”
“Hi.” They eyed each other somberly.
“I have to get going,” Caleb muttered. “Stuff to do.”
“Maybe you can show Meg around Trevor,” Mr. Korshak suggested. “Not right now, but sometime. You’d like that, wouldn’t you, Meggie?”
Meg felt herself blushing. Her father sounded as if he were talking to babies. And he was actually asking a boy to pay some attention to her—a boy who obviously wished he were a hundred miles away from this spot.
“Well, I’m pretty busy,” Caleb said, not looking at either of them. “You know, I’ve got the delivery job, and there
’s a lot of chores to do around here.”
Meg glared at him and then at her father. “I won’t have any trouble finding my way around this little town,” she said coolly. “If I want to, that is.”
Footsteps sounded inside the house, and Caleb sprang into motion. He clattered down the steps, leaping over three dolls and a teddy bear to make his escape.
“I’m going to tell Mama,” Steffi shouted after him as he catapulted onto a bicycle and skimmed away. “You nearly kicked Teddy. You could have killed him!”
The front door opened, and a plump woman in a crackling-white uniform came outside. Her skin glowed with good health, and her expression was pleasant but serious. When she saw the Korshaks she looked dismayed for a moment. Then she laughed.
“Meg, it’s good to see you,” she said, holding out a hand. “You’ve already met the rest of the family, I guess, though not at their best, I’m sure. I hope Caleb was civil. There’s nothing like arriving in the midst of a family discussion to make you feel at home, right?”
“It wasn’t a family discussion,” Steffi protested. “Caleb was catching it.”
Mrs. Larsen patted the smooth blond head. “Well, if he was, you don’t have to enjoy it so much, miss,” she said. “Come inside, Meg. You must be hot and tired after your long bus ride. We don’t have very fancy accommodations for you, but I think you’ll be comfortable. We’re just very glad to have you here with us.”
Something inside Meg, some tightly wound coil of shyness and resentment, began to relax. She followed Mrs. Larsen into the house, across a sunny entrance hall and up uncarpeted stairs. Her father trudged behind them, carrying the suitcase and puffing a little.
“This is a nice house,” she said as Mrs. Larsen led the way down the upstairs hall. “I like it.”
“I like it, too,” Mrs. Larsen said. “And that’s a good thing, because I’ll probably never be able to afford to fix it up any better than it is right now. This is your room.” She turned in at the last doorway on the left, then stood aside so Meg could enter. “It’s the smallest room in the house, but still … It used to be my husband’s study, and after he died it became my sewing room. I hope you won’t mind the sewing machine over there and the box of materials stored in the corner. The daybed is comfortable, and I’ve emptied the two top drawers of the bureau so you’ll have plenty of room for your things.”
The smallest room in the Larsen house was bigger than Meg’s bedroom at home. The daybed was covered with bright chintz, and sheer white curtains moved in the breeze. The wallpaper was pale yellow, so faded that the pattern had almost disappeared. In front of one window a rocking chair held a battered stuffed dog.
“The dog is Steffi’s contribution to your well-being,” Mrs. Larsen explained. “Your father talked about his little girl coming for a visit, and Steffi wanted to make sure you had something to cuddle in case you forgot to bring your teddy bear.” She and Meg’s father exchanged smiles.
“The bathroom’s right across the hall,” Mrs. Larsen went on. “We only have the one up here, but there’s a shower in the basement. There are just two other boarders besides your dad. Mrs. Tate has the room next to this one—she baby-sits for Steffi while I’m at work. And there’s Jeff Townsend, but he’s only here on weekends and often not then. He rents a room as a home base, but most of the time he’s out on the road selling.”
Meg’s father dropped the suitcase next to the daybed. “I was hoping Caleb could give Meg a tour of the town,” he said, “but he was busy. Maybe you and I can take a little ride before I leave for work, Meg. I’m on from four to eight, so we haven’t much time, but I can give you a quick look.”
Meg wondered how many more surprises he had in store for her. “Work!” she repeated. “Don’t you do your writing here?”
“I’m not talking about writing. I mean the job at the newspaper—typing, billing, that kind of thing.” He sounded a little impatient. “I’m sure I told you about that. Four hours a day, sometimes less, five days a week. It pays the rent and leaves plenty of time for writing the rest of the day.” He hesitated. “I did tell you. You just forgot.”
“You did not tell me.” Meg was suddenly close to tears. “I’ll never even see you.”
“Of course you’ll see me. What are you talking about?”
“I thought we would sit on the beach and talk. I thought we’d go for boat rides and swim and hike in the woods and—” She broke off, aware that Mrs. Larsen was looking from her to her father with an anxious expression.
“I’ve already said I was sorry I didn’t tell you about moving out of the cottage,” Mr. Korshak said, sounding annoyed. “But we’ll spend just as much time together here as we would out at the lake, Meg. Wherever I am, I spend most of the day writing. You know the writing has to come first.”
“You don’t even care that I’m here!” Meg exclaimed. “If you really cared, you’d take time off so we could do things together.”
“If I took time off, I couldn’t send your mother money every month. I couldn’t afford to live here.…”
They stared at each other. Remembered words filled the sewing room—words Meg had never wanted to hear again. Writing is the most important thing in my life. That was what her father had told them two years ago. Bill insisted it didn’t mean he’d stopped caring about them, but Meg wasn’t so sure. He had left, after all. He had just walked out with little but his typewriter and his ambition to be a successful writer. He’d left early one morning, without even saying goodbye.
Now he was practically saying those terrible words again. You know the writing has to come first.…
“I have to be on my way to work,” Mrs. Larsen spoke softly, apologetically. “I don’t always work second shift, but we have a flu epidemic among the staff, and I have to fill in where I’m needed.”
“You owe Kathy an apology, Meg,” Mr. Korshak said. “She’s gone out of her way to make you feel welcome, and all you can talk about is Uncle Henry’s cottage.”
Mrs. Larsen brushed the words away. “She doesn’t owe me a thing, Jim. I understand how she feels, and I’m sure you’ll find ways to be together while she’s in Trevor. I’m sorry I won’t be home for dinner on your first night with us, Meg.”
Kathy and Jim. Meg picked up the stuffed dog from the rocking chair and went to the window, willing them both to leave her alone. “I’ll unpack now,” she said. “Thank you for showing me around, Mrs. Larsen.”
“You’re very welcome, dear.” No-nonsense heels clipped down the hall and descended the stairs. Meg knew her father was still there, waiting for her to say something, but she stayed at the window. She didn’t want to talk to him. Why should she?
The silence stretched out unbearably. “Meg, I meant it when I said I was glad you’re here,” he said. “It’s important to me. I want you to have a good time.”
“I’ll be okay.” She sounded sulky, self-pitying, even to herself. Bill would be disgusted if he could hear her, and so, probably, would Rhoda.
“I’ll be home by eight-fifteen,” her father promised. “That’s one good thing about a small town—you get home from work in a hurry.”
The concern in his voice was real. Meg turned around and gave him a quivery smile. “That’ll be fine,” she said. “I’ll unpack, and I’ll sleep for a while. I’m really tired and grumpy.”
She tossed the stuffed dog on the daybed and threw herself into her father’s arms. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too.”
Hugs were better than words, Meg decided, at least until they got used to each other again. Words got in the way—both the words they spoke and, of course, that everlasting, infuriating stream of words that came from his typewriter.
5
Meg woke the next morning with an unexpected feeling of well-being. Perhaps it was the dream she’d had just before waking—not one of the real dreams, but a pleasant vision of herself, her parents, and Bill walking down Brookfield Avenue together. Or perhaps it was the room Mrs. L
arsen had given her. When she opened her eyes, the yellow walls and crisp curtains made it seem as if she were floating in sunshine.
She studied her new surroundings. On the wall opposite the bed was a photograph of a much younger Mrs. Larsen with a baby on her lap. They sat on the front steps of a house—this house—and Mrs. Larsen was smiling into the sun. A little to the left, and higher on the wall, was a narrow rectangle where something had once hung and had been taken away. The color in the rectangle was stronger than that of the surrounding wallpaper, as if it had been protected from the sun for a while.
There were other photographs next to the bed. In one, a much younger Caleb held a string of fish toward the camera. He was smiling proudly. In another, he sat in an armchair holding a tiny baby. He appeared to be twelve or thirteen in the second picture, and his expression had changed. It was sober and withdrawn, very much the look of the teenager who had met them on the porch yesterday afternoon.
Poor Caleb, Meg thought. She was ready to forgive his rudeness yesterday and his stubborn silence at the dinner table last night. She at least could visit her father; he had lost his father forever. She wondered how Mr. Larsen had died.
The thought of her father, right here in this house, made Meg jump out of bed in a hurry. They were going to have breakfast together! It was an unfamiliar house in a strange town, but when they sat down at the table, surely it would be a little like being one family again.
Mr. Korshak came out of his bedroom just as Meg reached the top of the stairs. He put an arm around her shoulder, and they went down together. “I suppose you still put peanut butter on your toast,” he groaned as they entered the kitchen. “Disgusting habit.”
Meg made a face at him. “And I bet you still put honey on your oatmeal.”
Mrs. Larsen, busy at the stove, waved a good morning. “Some things never change,” she said, clearly pleased to see the Korshaks smiling at each other. “No reason why they should change, I guess. The honey’s on the table as usual, Jim, and the peanut butter’s in the first cupboard on the right, Meg. Help yourself.”
A Ghost in the Window Page 3