The LeBaron Secret by Stephen; Birmingham Read Free Book Online

said—but there are some architecturally fine old buildings there, Victorian-style houses and the like. Sari has bought some of these properties, and offered them at low-cost, low-interest loans to buyers who will agree to spend a certain amount to fix them up. These houses have appealed especially to homosexual couples. For some reason, they’re clever at that sort of thing. Quite a few shabby old houses have been turned into show-places, thanks to Sari. The winos and the homosexuals don’t seem to mind each other. The homosexuals call Sari “the Queen Bee.”
    You may have heard that Sari and Peter’s eldest child, Melissa, is peculiar. It is true that she is unmarried, and shares the White Wedding-Cake House at 2040 Washington Street with her mother. Years ago, Sari turned the whole first floor of the house into a spacious apartment for Melissa, with her own entrance, so she can come and go as she pleases, which she does, though Thomas tends to keep tabs on these comings and these goings. Thomas! If Thomas should depart this earth before his mistress does, Lord knows what Sari would do. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with Melissa’s mind, no matter what they say. Melissa has been given all the tests—the Stanford-Binet, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory, et cetera—and her mother has been given the results. Sari could show them to you if you like. They show Melissa to be perfectly normal in every way. In most ways, at least. You may have heard that Melissa is a nymphomaniac, and an alcoholic. Melissa’s problem, if it is a problem, is more that she seems to get involved with a somewhat seamy, somewhat sordid element. This rock group, for instance. She seems to be attracted to what her mother calls “lowlifes.” Naturally, this worries and upsets her mother. It would worry any mother. The doctors used to say she would outgrow this. She hasn’t.
    Melissa’s problem, if it is a problem, is—to Sari’s way of thinking, at least—that she is basically a shy and insecure and introspective sort of person. This is why she excites so easily and why, when she is upset or disappointed, her reactions become … unpredictable. This is also why, at times, she drinks too much. The doctors have also suggested a chemical imbalance, but part of it all—and Sari herself will admit this—may be Sari’s own fault because of an error that was made … an error, a misplacement of trust … long ago, before Melissa was born, before Switzerland and all that … but that is getting way ahead of the story.
    Of course, many people think that the trouble is that Sari fussed over Melissa too much, always did, still does. Being fussed over became a habit with Melissa, a bad habit she couldn’t break. As a child, she liked it, you see. Now she demands it. And of course Peter—poor Peter—was no help, no help at all.
    Then there are the twin sons, Eric and Peter, Jr., identical twins. They are both handsome devils—take after their father—with fuller, darker, curlier heads of hair than any two young men nearing forty have any right to have. To this day, when they are in a room together, most people cannot tell them apart. Sari always could, of course; a mother always can. But it was easier for her because Eric—born three and a half minutes after Peter—was nicked in the left temple by the doctor’s forceps, and bore a small scar from this from the very beginning. Though the scar is very faint now, it has never gone away, and you can see it if you know where to look.
    Though identical in appearance, the two boys are quite unlike in temperament. For years, Eric was Sari’s little workhorse, clever and industrious, good with figures, and in 1980 Sari rewarded him for all his hard work by naming him vice-president and director of marketing for Baronet. All well and good. But lately—is it the mid-life crisis