Someone by Alice McDermott Read Free Book Online Page A

to the vague and various possibilities of what went on between women and men.
    While the girls were talking, a taxi pulled to the curb in front of my house. My mother got out first, then gave her hand to help my father, whose face was hidden by the brim of his hat, but whose legs, I could tell, were weak and watery. The girls watched silently, their attention drawn by the cab, the extravagance of it.
    There was a ditty we said, skipping rope: A rich man takes a taxi, a poor man takes the train, a hobo walks the train tracks, but gets there just the same. One of the girls behind me began tosay it now, all singsong, poking me in the back as I watched my parents climb the steps together.
    “Marie’s momma must be rich,” another said.
    They felt free to tease me, I knew, because Gerty wasn’t there. Because Gerty wasn’t there, I was alone among them.
    I put my fist to my mouth, leaning across my lap. I could taste the bitter, metallic scent of the old penny in my hand. Had Gerty been there, the two of us, best friends, would have joined arms, tossed our heads, turned away. Instead, I merely, briefly, closed my eyes.
    Dinnertime was approaching and the boys in the street began to disperse, each departure marked by the hollow, melancholy echo of a broomstick hitting the pavement. Something restless stirred among the girls, some anger, some meanness that teasing me hadn’t satisfied. With the day coming to an end, a halfhearted proposal went up among them about walking around to the Ryans’ house. Walking around to Dora Ryan’s house with the hope of maybe meeting her coming home from the subway, or seeing her at a window, with the veil of a lace curtain over her shamed face.
    The older girls led the way, leaving the stoop, crossing the street. I trailed after with my penny. Two of them stopped to whisper to some of the boys just leaving the game. I heard one of the boys say, “Go on,” and knew that Dora Ryan’s catastrophe had been conveyed. Passing behind Bill Corrigan in his kitchen chair, the same two girls ran their hands over the shoulders of his suit jacket and said, “Hello there, Billy,” languidly, nearly laughing. Bill Corrigan raised his big hand, raised his chin into the air, twisting his head a bit to look at us from beneath his scarred eyelids. I could see his pale eyes searching. Then Walter Hartnett, who sat on the curb at Bill Corrigan’s feet, looked over his shoulder and said, “Get lost.” One of the girls hissed, “Gimp,” and Walter said, “Scram,” sneering, but turning away again.
    We walked on to Dora Ryan’s house. We stood across the street and studied the blank windows. The air was still damp and humid, the colorless sky felt like a dome over the neighborhood. After only a few minutes, one of the girls whispered, “She’s hiding.” We paused silently, as if waiting for some affirmation of this—a hand to a stirred curtain, a shadow behind the glass. My eyes fell to the garbage cans beside the basement door. I was hoping to see, perhaps, a torn piece of bridal veil or a white stocking waving from beneath a battered lid.
    I thought of Dora’s happy wedding, her satin shoes and the rice and the smiling wedding guests. I wondered if her happiness could have been preserved if the bride and groom had merely stayed in their clothes.
    “So now she’ll have to try to meet someone else,” one of the older girls said solemnly.
    There was a chorus of whispered, even sympathetic “Yeahs,” their cruel energies suddenly abating. I heard myself say, “My heart goes out to her,” imitating my mother. There was a brief silence, and then, reluctantly, it seemed, one by one, the girls began to agree. “Oh yeah,” someone said. “Mine, too.” “Poor thing.”
    There was nothing else to do but go home. We turned away and slowly began to disperse, so that by the time I approached my own house, I was alone again. My brother was just coming down the front steps, moving quickly, his cap on