Hilda and Pearl by Alice Mattison Read Free Book Online

know—” and here his voice, which had softened slightly, got louder and harsher, even sarcastic, and he seemed to be looking at Simon. “A machine doesn’t know when someone is mumbling. A machine doesn’t know when to call in an interpreter, because the witness has just lapsed into a foreign language. There’s a lot a machine doesn’t know—but people around here, who should know better—why, even members of my own family—you’d think your own family could comprehend—”
    The sentence got lost. He couldn’t seem to remember how it had begun, and it ended with a mumble. Frances was embarrassed and looked at her plate. In a moment something happened—some gesture, and then Judge Akers was advancing to the microphone, flushed and nodding in many directions—a small, dapper man—as if nothing had happened, and perhaps nothing had happened, maybe only Frances thought something had happened.
    Simon stood up and walked out of the room. She supposed he was going to the bathroom, and she thought that if she had had to go, no matter how badly, she would have waited, rather than stand up just as the judge was being introduced, and rather than go to the bathroom just after Uncle Mike had said all that about going to the bathroom, which Frances wished he had skipped anyway. She didn’t listen to the judge’s speech. She was restless. Next to her, Uncle Mike, who had come back to their table as Simon walked away, looked hot and red.
    Simon did not come back. By the time the judge finished talking, Aunt Pearl was whispering to Hilda, and then she sent Uncle Mike to look in the men’s room. Uncle Mike left, looking irritated, but he came running back a few minutes later. Now people were drinking coffee or moving around and talking. Music was playing and a few couples were dancing. Miss Potter was talking heartily to Judge Akers. They both glanced at Uncle Mike when he came running, but he ignored them. “He’s not there,” he said to Aunt Pearl. Aunt Pearl said, “Did you really check?”
    But Mike just said, “I’m going to look around the building.”
    Hilda pulled on Nathan’s sleeve. “Mike’s worried, go with him,” she said, but Frances’s father was talking to someone and it took him a moment to understand. By that time Uncle Mike had rushed out of the room again. Hilda explained once more, and Nathan followed Mike.
    Time passed and the ballroom began to empty. Ellie Potter, looking worried, came over to talk to Frances’s mother. A man came in and spoke to both of them. Frances heard him say he was the hotel manager. Uncle Mike had gone into the kitchens and had a fight with a cook. Hilda left the room with the manager. Now nobody was in the ballroom but Aunt Pearl—who said they should wait in case Simon came back—Frances, and Ellie Potter. Aunt Pearl held Frances’s hand as if Frances were three years old, or as if the room were dark and they might lose each other. The room did seem larger than it had before, and their feet made loud sounds on the wooden floor when they moved. “My husband doesn’t realize—” Aunt Pearl said to Ellie Potter.
    â€œOf course not,” said Miss Potter, but Frances could tell that she didn’t know what Aunt Pearl was talking about. She thought of telling Miss Potter that Simon had run away at the lake and no harm had come to him. She could remind her aunt that this had happened. But there, they’d been in a little town of identical cabins, where if you went anywhere among them, or in the scraps of woods surrounding them, you were in your own yard, you had not left . This ballroom was not theirs, and the hotel was even less theirs. She didn’t like to think that Simon might be outside in the city.
    Finally they left the ballroom. Ellie Potter seemed to want to go home, but she went with them as far as the lobby and stood