Sisters of the Road by Barbara Wilson Read Free Book Online Page A

well.”
    Christ, I thought. What have they done to this kid?
    An hour later I peeked in to check on her. She was fast asleep, one arm thrown up to her forehead in a nocturnal parody of the distressed damsel, the other firmly around Ernesto, who opened up one eye to glare at me and then closed it again.

9
    “H OW OLD WERE YOU when you quit school?” I asked Trish the next morning. We were back at the table, eating breakfast, a meal which, happily, she seemed to have no reservations about, perhaps because its main colors were cheerful shades of yellow, red and brown.
    “I was in the ninth grade, I must have been fourteen, cause it was last year.” She took a large bite of toast spread with raspberry preserves. “Mmmm, I had one teacher I liked, that was my English teacher, Mrs. Horowitz—she used to tell me books to read and sometimes give them to me, like Hemingway and Steinbeck. I liked him a lot, I read a lot of what he wrote.”
    “Aside from English, though, you didn’t like school all that much?”
    “I liked it all right in elementary school,” Trish said, putting another piece of bread in the toaster. “I mean, it was all my friends who went there and we did fun things—and at first I thought it was cool to go to Junior High—have different teachers for different subjects and all that—but then, I don’t know, I just kind of lost interest. I guess when I met Wayne I lost interest. I mean, he was talking about things on a whole different level.”
    As always when she talked about Wayne, her eyes took on a protective, wary cast.
    “What was all that about a private girls’ school?”
    “I thought it sounded better.” She looked uneasy. “I mean, people like you better if they think you’re smart and rich.”
    “And your parents—do they really live in Broadmoor?”
    “Why do you want to know all this stuff about me?” She was suddenly, surprisingly hostile. “What’s any of it to you?”
    I thought of snapping back, You came to me, didn’t you?, but controlled myself. “Okay, you ask me some questions about my life. About school, my work, my parents…”
    “I’m not interested in your stupid life,” she said. Her eyes narrowed and her triangular little face sharpened. She got up to empty the ashtray and didn’t come back to the table, but instead wandered about the kitchen and then out to the living room, restless and angry. “Hey Ernesto, here kitty, kitty…”
    “Adults think they know everything,” she suddenly shouted from where I couldn’t see her. “They think they can just ask you anything about your life and then they can tell you what they think of it and what you should do. Like they don’t have any problems themselves.”
    “You think I don’t have any problems? I have problems, a lot of problems.” I still couldn’t see her and raised my voice.
    “Yeah, but they’re adult problems like work and things,” she called back.
    “They’re not adult problems.” I went to the kitchen door and looked at her. She was back in the sofa bed, curled up with Ernesto. “They’re human problems—like loneliness and losing people or being away from people you care about.”
    “Well, you’ve got your sister anyway, your twin sister,” she muttered, not looking at me. “I don’t have any real brothers and sisters at all.”
    It was strange how quickly I descended to her level. I almost countered, Well, I don’t have any parents, so there! But I stopped myself in time.
    “You seem kind of jumpy this morning,” I said instead. For the first time it occurred to me that she might have a habit, might be needing a fix. Under the nightgown her broad shoulders seemed to be shaking.
    She said something unintelligible, her face buried in Ernesto’s fur. I went into my bedroom and started to get dressed.
    After a few minutes she asked in a high and cheerful voice if I was leaving for work soon.
    I had misgivings about leaving her in my apartment alone, but I did have to go to