Taking Terri Mueller by Norma Fox Mazer Read Free Book Online

moment later her aunt had appeared, and Terri, half-furious, half-relieved, had cried accusingly, “You better stand on your tiptoes next time!”
    â€œI wish I could see you right this moment,” she said, now. “What are you wearing? Is it hot in California?”
    â€œAbout seventy degrees. Very nice. How is it there?”
    â€œIt’s beautiful. It’s fall. Where are you calling from, Aunt Vivian? Work?” Her aunt clerked in a shoe store.
    â€œNo, darling, I’m calling from a phone booth.”
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œWhy?” She half laughed. “What is this, twenty questions? I don’t have a phone in my, ah, apartment. Terri, did I tell you I love you?”
    â€œI love you, too, Aunt Vivian.” She glanced at Shaundra, wondering why her aunt had sounded so funny about the phone booth. Uneasy. Or maybe, embarrassed. Because she didn’t have the money to have her own phone?
    â€œTerri, it seems your father is impatient for my visit.”
    â€œWe both are, Aunt Vivian.”
    â€œYes, but there’s something new, isn’t there? A young woman Phil wants me to meet—”
    â€œNancy? How did you know about her?”
    â€œWhen your father called, he mentioned her.”
    â€œDaddy called you?” Terri said, in surprise. Why hadn’t he told her?
    â€œThis young woman, Nancy—she’s a widow, Terri? She’s all alone?”
    â€œNo, Aunt Vivian, she’s divorced, and she has a little boy, Leif.”
    â€œLeif? What an odd name. How do you feel about her? Do you like her?”
    â€œYes, I do. I like her a lot.”
    â€œThat’s good. That part is good.” She fell silent. Terri wondered which part wasn’t good. “So it’s serious?” she said, in a moment. “Well, I thought so when Phil called.” Her voice trailed off, then came back strong again. “Well, we’ll talk about everything when I’m there. Good-by for now, darling.”
    â€œGood-by, Aunt Vivian.” She didn’t hang up until she heard the phone click on the other end. Then, just as she put the receiver into the cradle, she thought of something and said, “Aunt Vivian? Aunt Vivian?” The connection was broken. She hung up, thinking that her aunt had said she was calling from a booth because she didn’t have a phone in her apartment. But then how had Terri’s father known where to phone her? It didn’t make sense unless Aunt Vivian had called him first and arranged with him to call her back. But why would they do things in such a complicated way?
    Then she thought how, once a year, there was Aunt Vivian’s phone call to say, “I’m coming.” And then she was here—wherever the here was for Terri and Phil—for a few days. And then she was gone. And then, no word until the next year, the next call, the next visit.
    They weren’t a letter-writing family. She couldn’t remember ever seeing a letter to or from her aunt. But then how did her aunt always know where they were, even though it was always somewhere different from the year before? Did her father write her without Terri’s knowledge? Had he called Vivian more than this one time without telling Terri? Did he, in fact, telephone his sister regularly without telling her? The whole train of thought was really upsetting and uncomfortable for Terri.
    Then something else she had almost forgotten flashed into her mind. The year before at Christmas she had told her father she wanted to send her aunt a card. He had said, “Sure thing,” but about a week later when she asked for Vivian’s address, he had said, “I thought you wanted me todo it, Terr. I sent her a card the other day.”
    Standing there now, staring at the mute phone, Terri remembered exactly how casually her father had said that. And how equally casually she had said, “Oh, sure, that’s okay.” She’d put