Nothing Is Quite Forgotten in Brooklyn by Alice Mattison Read Free Book Online Page B

apartment, younger Con—more worried Con—stared at the phone and it rang again. This time it was Mabel Turner’s boyfriend. “She said you were mad at me.”
    â€œI’m mad at her, not you,” said Con. “If she expects me to represent her, she has to show me what comes, not give it to somebody else.”
    â€œYeah, I apologize. I talked her into it. I thought the lawyers in my office could give it a quick look. I didn’t look at the papers—I just gave them to my boss.”
    â€œCould I talk to him?” said Con.
    â€œI don’t think that’s such a good idea. He does a lot of real estate law. He doesn’t think much of that house. Prisoners. He keeps telling me it’s probably illegal.”
    â€œIt’s not illegal.”
    Before she’d ever heard of the house, the irate neighbors had gotten a building inspector to order it closed down for a zoning violation; there was a law against more than a few unrelated people living together. Somehow Mabel or her boyfriend had learned enough to request a hearing. Nervous at last, Mabel came to see Con only after the hearing was over, and Sarah had immediately taken an interest in the case. She’d been hoping for one like it. Everyone in her office assured Con that the results of the hearing wouldn’t be announced for several weeks more, so Con had felt able to come to New York. She’d planned just to give Mabel a call that week, to encourage her.
    Now Con was pleased with herself for being able to sound something like a lawyer on the phone despite her state of mind. As she hung up, she found herself wondering if the women really were turning tricks outside the house, and suddenly recalled Joanna’s insistence that they weren’t. Joanna had wanted to go and see. Might she have gone, now that Con wasn’t around to stop her? She could have reached the house on a SEPTA train. What if the women were soliciting, and Joanna had run into their pimp? Con didn’t let herself continue that line of thinking.
    The next phone call was from Barbara. Con’s sister had lived in London for ten years. Con wouldn’t have thought to call her sister when she was in trouble, but when she heard Barbara’scranky but cheerful voice, “Mom? Wait a minute, Connie?” she sank to the floor where she was—in the kitchen—and leaned back against the cabinets, almost in tears. “Barb, Joanna’s gone, nobody can find her,” she began.
    â€œ Joanna’s gone? I thought you were going to tell me something’s wrong with Mom.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œBecause you’re answering her phone.”
    â€œShe’s with Marlene.”
    â€œOh, I forgot. She told me. She told me several times.” When Barbara was in New York, they stayed up half the night talking and when Con got herself to London they rode around on buses and on the tube, both talking at once. Con followed her sister at such times, at ease, wondering why life ordinarily felt so much more difficult, but when she was alone again she was relieved. Nothing quite worked out for Barbara beyond today—she couldn’t keep a job or a man for long—but somehow she always had enough money for today, and today was interesting or even brilliant. She would have been a tourist anywhere, and it made sense that she’d settled in a city she’d never know in any other way. But Barbara could listen and give advice, and sometimes she made Con’s life seem more interesting just by its proximity to hers. What was happening to Con just now did not feel interesting but sickening—gray and ugly and, somehow, all her own fault.
    Once again she told the whole story. “She’s run away,” Barbara said.
    â€œWhy would she run away?”
    â€œAll kids her age want to run away. Didn’t you? It was myprimary fantasy. As soon as you left, she packed a bag and took