Let Me Tell You by Shirley Jackson Read Free Book Online Page A

and everyone listened. “Why don’t we have Alice go over and ask Gable for his autograph?” he said.
    “She’s only a child, she could do it,” Alice’s mother said.
    “Say, you might even ask him to join us,” Mr. Carrington said to Alice. “You know, just for a drink or something.”
    “Charley,” Mrs. Carrington said reprovingly, “how could the child ask a man like that over for a drink? Anyway, he wouldn’t dream of coming.”
    “He might,” Alice’s father said.
    They’re all thinking he’d look over here anyway, Alice thought, and see all of them and notice them, and maybe even bow to them on his way out. “I couldn’t do that,” she said.
    “Don’t be silly, darling,” her mother told her. “You’re only a child, it wouldn’t look funny.”
    “She could say her mother—her mama—didn’t want her to come over,” Mrs. Carrington said, “but it’s her birthday and she wanted to meet Clark Gable.”
    “I won’t do it,” Alice said.
    “Alice!” her mother said.
    “When I was your age,” Mrs. Carrington said heavily, “little girls minded their mothers.”
    “Yes, indeed, Alice,” her mother said. “You’re not usually a disobedient child.”
    “Honey,” her father said, “it’s just a joke. You only pretend, don’t you see?” He looks like the devil, she thought.
    “I couldn’t pretend to want his autograph,” Alice said.
    “Just tell him it’s your birthday, then,” Mr. Carrington said.
    “I should think,” Mrs. Carrington whispered, “that when a little girl gets taken out to a nice party and then someone asks her to do something, she’d do it and not be so silly about it.”
    “He’s leaving,” Alice’s mother said in a flat voice. Everyone turned around to look. Then they looked back at Alice.
    “It’s too late now anyway,” her father said.
    “Well, it doesn’t matter after all,” Mr. Carrington said finally. “It wasn’t important, Alice. Don’t worry about it.”
    “I’m sorry,” Alice said to her mother.
    “It doesn’t matter,” her mother said.
    The lights began to dim for the second half of the floor show. Alice put her hand on Mr. Carrington’s arm. “Mr. Carrington,” she said, “I’ve got a lot of algebra to do for tomorrow, so as soon as we finish dinner could we go home?” Mr. Carrington was moving his chair to see the floor show, but he stopped for a minute and looked at her. Alice put her hands under the table and began to work the fastening of the charm bracelet. “I’ve got all my French to do, too,” she said.

Mrs. Spencer and the Oberons
    The first sign that the Oberons were coming might have been early blossoms on the peach tree, but Mrs. Spencer did not know until she got the letter. It came on Thursday, when Mrs. Spencer was already beginning to feel the first tensions of anxiety over the day, with guests invited for dinner and Donnie’s dentist appointment at three—itself requiring split-second timing at the school—and then there was the shopping to be done and the flowers to be arranged and the lemon cream to be made
early
this week to avoid the near catastrophe of last time, when people actually had to eat it with spoons. Now here was a strange letter in the mail.
    Mrs. Spencer distrusted letters on principle, because they always seemed to want to entangle her in so many small, disagreeable obligations—visits, or news of old friends she had conveniently forgotten, or family responsibilities that always had to be met quickly and without enjoyment. If she had not persuaded herself that it was ill-bred to throw away a letter without opening it, Mrs. Spencer might very well have given up mail altogether, except for important things like Christmas cards from the right people, and announcements for the Wednesday Club, and invitations correctly engraved.
    The letter from the Oberons looked, even on the outside, as though it carried some request, and Mrs. Spencer regarded it with distaste. The address