obliged on the instant. “My sister Karen, she is so sweet. My sister Karen, she has cold feet. There’s a poem, there’s a poem about you. Is one enough? I can’t do two.” Karen’s head flamed; she felt the injustice of being the youngest in this family. When would they stop treating her like a joke?
“Are those all your own teeth?” Karen’s father was saying. He leaned interestedly toward Jason. Had he really said that? Were all families as bizarre as hers?
She looked across the table, met Scott’s eyes. He didn’t smile, wink, blink, or look away, but watched her gravely. Something passed between them, some link, some unspoken message, and then he nodded, a tiny saluteonly she saw itas if he were telling her he understood. Understood what? Everything, she thought, everything.
Nine
The more I think about it, Tobi,” Karen’s mother said, the next morning in the kitchen, “the more I know I just am not terribly thrilled with what’sisface.”
“Jason. His name is Jason.” Tobi’s voice was like wire.
“Right. Jason. No, not thrilled with him, not thrilled at all.” Her mother pulled a pack of cigarettes out of her skirt pocket.
“And I’m not real thrilled with your smoking,” Tobi said. She stood in the doorway, nibbling half an orange, wearing her knapsack, looking over her shoulder. All ready for a quick get-away.
“That’s a strange comparison.” Their father was sitting in the dinette eating eggs and reading. Karen, across from him, glanced up in surprise. Who could tell that he was even listening? Usually, he left these family things up to her mother.
Her mother coughed, lit up. “And, by the way, Tobi, is that all you’re having for breakfast?”
Tobi put down the orange. “Are we talking about food or my friends?”
“Anything you want.”
“I don’t want to talk about either one.”
Karen hunched over her bowl of cornflakes.
“Just tell me this, Tobi,” her mother said. “How serious is this thing with, er
“Jason. Jason. Jason.”
“Right. Jason. He’s going to be famous.”
“That’s right,” Tobi flashed. “Then you won’t be asking me how serious this thing is.”
Bam. Bam. Bam. Karen pushed aside the bowl of soggy cornflakes. Shut up. I hate you both. Shut up.
“Well, Tobi has been through things before,” her father said, sticking his finger in his book. “Remember when you took up the clarinet, Tobes?”
“The clarinet!”
“And dance. For a while you wanted to be a dancer.”
“I did not!”
“I mean,” he said mildly, “you have enthusiasms and perhaps
“I know what you mean!” Tobi ate arguments the way she wouldn’t ear a piece of meat, getting it between her teeth, biting and chewing. “You mean Jason is one of Tobi’s little enthusiasms. Here today, gone tomorrow. About as important as the clarinet. Well, think what you want, both of you!”
Karen and Tobi left the house together. “Are you on their side, too?” Tobi said. She didn’t wait for Karen’s loyalty oath. “I knew they’d have a cow about Jason. I told him. I told him they’d go crazy.
You know what he said? They’re going to be crazy about me.” She smiled proudly.
Lunch period, Karen ran into Davey on her way out of school. “Where’re you going?” he asked. He looked handsome in a green shirt.
“Taking some film to be developed. Want to come along?”
“I don’t have anything better to do.”
“Don’t get carried away with enthusiasm, Davey.”
“David,” he warned.
Outside, it was another warm, rainy, end-of-March day. Technically, they weren’t supposed to leave the building during lunch break, but nobody ever said anything if you got back on time. David slung his arm over her shoulder. “Karen. Why don’t we trot over to my house for a while?”
“DaveyDavid,” she corrected herself, “you know we’ll never get back on time if we start that.”
“What?” he said innocently. “Start what? Maybe what I