The Inn at Lake Devine by Elinor Lipman Read Free Book Online Page B

gold button sat in the middle of each tuft. There was a doll bed with a flannel doll blanket in a pastel plaid. A baby doll in what I would soon learn was a christening gown was under the covers, the blanket tucked under her rubber armpits. “Her name’s Annette,” said Gretel.
    I asked her if Annette was named after Annette the Mouseketeer, because I used to have a boy doll I called Cubby.
    “No, she’s not,” said Gretel, an obvious lie, since there was only one Annette in the universe.
    I said, “What did you want to show me?”
    “Oh.” She looked around and lunged for the closest object of possible interest: Annette’s miniature baby bottle, which was attached with a pink rubber band to the doll’s stiff wrist. “She drinks and then she wets down there,” said Gretel.
    I told her I knew. I used to have a Betsy Wetsy.
    “What happened to her?”
    I said she rotted. I used to shove food into the little hole between her lips, and it didn’t come out the other end. Of course, I was only three or four then. She started to stink and my mother threw her out.
    She asked if I wanted to play dolls. I said I hadn’t brought any dolls with me, and, besides, when you’re fourteen, you’re not that interested anymore. She said, deaf to my answer, that I could use hers. She had a Ginny with four bought outfits and about ten more that her Aunt Ann had made, including a kilt with a gold safety pin and a knitted sweater with a G on the front for Gretel.
    “Or Ginny.”
    “She said it was Gretel.”
    I asked if she was supposed to be playing in the house by herself when there were no adults here.
    “They let me.”
    “No one’s watching you?”
    She said, “I’m in fourth grade and I get all A’s.”
    I told her I’d better go find Robin, who was waiting for me to, um, play tennis.
    “I play tennis,” said Gretel.
    “It has to be an even number of players. Two is even. Three is odd.”
    “We could take turns.”
    I said, well, she could watch.
    She said, N-O. Did I know her parents owned this hotel?
    I said, “The tennis courts aren’t at your parents’ hotel. They belong to the town, and this is a free country.”
    Gretel said, “I knew Robin before you did.”
    I said, “You’re a baby—Baby Gretel. I’m not playing with any baby.” When she screwed up her face, I made a big show of leaving, exactly the way my sister did when I pouted after an insult. The message in my feigned exit was: You’re proving my point, aren’t you? You’re a crybaby. I’m going to play with girls who are older, who don’t pick fights with the very people they want to make friends with.
    Still, she was a pathetic little thing. And I had been the same pathetic little thing on Irving Circle when I stood on our front porch trying to snare my sister’s friends’ attention. From the narrow stairwell, I called back, “If you want to come and watch us play, you can. Maybe Mr. Fife will play with you.”
    She took her time. I made an audio display of pounding my feet on the steps to the bottom, then yelling, “You coming or not?”
    Soundlessly, Mrs. Berry had approached on the path of dried pine needles and was opening the screen door. As accusingly as if she had interrupted a burglary, she said, “May I help you?”
    I yelped at the sound of her, then said, “I told Gretel she can play tennis with me and Robin. I’m waiting to see if she’s coming.”
    “Oh?” She glanced around the room, in a quick survey of valuables.
    I said, hoping to sound indulgent and charitable, “She wanted to show me her room and Annette.”
    “Where’s Robin?” she asked.
    “In our room. Changing.”
    “Gretel!” she sang out, her eyes fixed on mine. “Are you playing tennis with Natalie?”
    “I don’t know how to,” the brat yelled back.
    “Well,” Mrs. Berry said smugly to me, “I guess you’re free to play tennis with someone your own age.”
    It was painful to see how pleased she looked, to see that an adult and