And This Is Laura Read online

  I giggled. She went into the living room and yelled, “ROGER! COME AND EAT!”

  “If I wanted someone to scream for him, I could have done that myself,” Mrs. Traub pointed out.

  I couldn’t believe she’d ever scream about anything.

  Beth disappeared from the living room and came back a few moments later propelling her brother by a firm grip on the back of his neck.

  “You don’t have to choke me to death,” the boy whined.

  “Laura, this is Roger.”

  “So,” I said, smiling at him. “The famous Roger.”

  “Who said I was famous?” he demanded.

  “I just meant—well, Beth told me a lot about you.”

  “Beth’s a liar.”

  She gave me a look of disgust and shrugged her shoulders.

  Roger spent most of the meal twirling incredible amounts of spaghetti onto his fork and insisting everyone watch while he forced them into his mouth.

  “Bet you think I can’t eat this one,” he’d say, and cram it in.

  “How gross,” Beth declared. She turned away.

  I didn’t watch him after the first time. It was much pleasanter to keep my eyes on Beth’s father.

  He ate very nicely.

  Apart from Roger the meal was fine. Mr. and Mrs. Traub made me feel right at home and the food was very good. Beth and I told them all about the classes we had together and the drama club meeting.

  They seemed interested in whatever we had to say and didn’t ask dumb questions like “What do you want to be when you grow up?” or “So, how does it feel to be in Junior High School?”

  We had apple pie and ice cream for dessert and before I knew it, Beth and I had loaded the dishwasher and it was time for me to go home.

  “I’ll drive you,” Mr. Traub offered.

  “Oh, no, that’s all right. My mother or father can come pick me up.”

  “Don’t be silly,” he insisted. He put his jacket on and walked toward the door.

  “I’ll go with you,” Beth said. “Come on, your books and things are upstairs.”

  “Well, okay, thank you.” I turned to Mrs. Traub. “Thank you for dinner and everything. I really enjoyed it.”

  “You’re welcome, Laura. You come again now, anytime. It was fun having you.”

  I got my books and jacket from Beth’s room. She grabbed her sweater off the bed and we went downstairs.

  “Goodby, Roger,” I called to him. A burst of gunfire exploded in another room, so I didn’t really expect him to hear me. But just as we were going out the door there was a faint, “ ’Bye,” from somewhere inside the house.

  I gave Mr. Traub directions to Woodbine Way and when we pulled up in front of the house I told Beth, “You’ll have to come to my house next time.” But my heart wasn’t in it. I said it because I thought I ought to, but what I really hoped was that Beth would keep inviting me to her house. What in the world would she think of my family and the way we lived, compared to her surroundings?

  If I could just stall for time; I liked Beth and I expected we’d be good friends, but I would have liked to be absolutely secure about that before I brought her home with me to meet “the Mob.”

  It didn’t look like I’d have much time to stall with. The moment I issued my polite invitation, Beth said, “Great! When?”

  4

  “WELL, HERE WE ARE,” I said nervously as Beth followed me into my house the next week.

  “What a terrific place,” Beth marveled. “It’s just beautiful.”

  “Don’t jump to conclusions,” I warned her. “Wait till you see the rest of it.”

  “Anybody home?” I practically whispered, hoping that no one would hear me. That way I could lead Beth right up to my room, which was a relative oasis of neatness and quiet.

  “In the kitchen,” my mother called. She has ears like a bat.

  “. . . suppose a stiletto would be better than a dagger?” she was saying as I brought Beth into the kitchen. “I can never remember which one is long and thin.”

  My father, dressed in his usual depth-of-fashion style, was leaning against the refrigerator juggling three eggs—something he does when he’s trying to figure out some knotty work problem that’s hanging him up. My mother was in a chair, tilting it back on two legs and defying gravity to toss her over on her head.

  “Oh, hi!” she said. She brought the chair forward with a thunk. “You must be Beth.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Beth.

  My father caught the eggs neatly in one hand and reached his other hand out for Beth to shake.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello,” Beth said. “You’re really a good juggler.”

  “Thank you. But they’re hard-boiled,” he added modestly.

  “Even so . . .”

  “Well, it’s just a hobby.”

  “Do you girls know whether it’s a dagger or a stiletto that’s long and thin?”

  “Gee, I don’t know,” I said. I cast a sideways glance at Beth. She looked a little confused. “Why don’t you look it up in the dictionary?”

  “That’s a very good idea,” my mother agreed, “except that I can’t find the dictionary. You see, I want Linnet to see the blade glinting in the moonlight, and if the swarthy stranger has it pressed against her throat, I’m not sure that enough of the blade would extend out past her chin so that she could see it.”

  “Why don’t you make it a saber?” my father suggested. “That’s plenty long enough.” He resumed his juggling.

  “Oh, no,” my mother said impatiently. “You can’t carry a saber around in your teeth. Besides, this creep would never slink through back alleys shlepping a saber.”

  “She’s writing a book,” I hastened to explain before Beth ran screaming from the room. To be perfectly honest, Beth didn’t seem to be ready to run at all. In fact she appeared utterly fascinated by the whole ridiculous conversation.

  “Writing a book! How marvelous! What’s the name of it?”

  “I’m not sure. Either The Dark Side of Eden or Shadows in Paradise. Which do you like better?”

  “They’re both wonderful titles. I don’t know how you can pick.”

  “Maybe a dirk,” my mother said suddenly. “Does anyone have the remotest idea of what a dirk looks like?”

  “Come on, Beth. Let’s get something to eat and go up to my room.” But Beth wasn’t in much of a hurry to escape from my parents.

  “What kind of a book is it? Have you written anything else?”

  “Oh, lots,” my mother told her. “This one is a gothic romance. You know, where the heroine marries a mysterious stranger she hardly knows and goes to live in the old family mansion—”

  “Oh yeah, I’ve read some of those. Maybe I’ve even read something you wrote without knowing it.”

  “Come on, Beth. Let’s go upstairs.”

  “What are some of the names?” she persisted.

  “Let’s see, there’s The Secret of Cliffhaven, The Second Mrs. Marlowe, Legacy of Fear, The Crompton Estate, The Diary of Lydia Blake—”

  “You wrote all those?”

  “She wrote more than that,” I answered irritably. “Come on, Beth, we were going to practice our monologues.”

  “In a minute, in a minute. You know, the minute I get home I’m going to the library and look for some of your books.”

  “You probably won’t find too many of them in the library. They’re all paperbacks. But we’ve got lots of them around. Why don’t you borrow some if you feel like it?” My mother looked over at me, standing with my arms folded across my chest and my lips tightened into a narrow line.

  “Guess I’d better get back to work,” she said. She stretched lazily and uncoiled herself from the chair. “You’re staying for dinner, aren’t you, Beth?”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “See you later.”

  “Excuse me,” I said pointedly to my father, who was blocking the refrigerator. He moved to the sink without ever stopping
his juggling. Beth just stared.

  I was collecting Cokes and a big bag of popcorn when Dennis came wandering in.

  “Do you think I could count to afinity?” he asked my father.

  “You mean infinity?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I mean.”

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  “Why not?” Dennis asked.

  “Because you’d never get there.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because that’s what infinity means.”

  “Oh.” He sounded disappointed. “Well, I don’t know what I’m going to do after I get to a million.”

  “You could count to two million,” my father suggested.

  “No, that would just be the same thing. I wanted to do something different.”

  I had to practically drag Beth out of the kitchen.

  “He’s so cute,” she said. “Not at all like Roger. And so smart.”

  “Yeah,” I agreed sourly.

  We were no sooner up in my room with the door shut than Beth remembered she wanted some of my mother’s books. I had been marveling at how fortunate it was that Jill and Douglas were out and I was looking forward to a nice, quiet afternoon of rehearsing our monologues. But Beth insisted that she had to get the books now, or she’d forget.

  Back downstairs to the den. Beth exclaimed over the two shelves of my mother’s books.

  “But what’s this?” She pulled out one titled The Last Trail. “Why is this in here? Who’s Luke Mantee?”

  “My mother,” I sighed.

  “Your mother? You mean she wrote this too?”

  “And this one, and that one, and this one—” I yanked them off the shelves and practically hurled them at her. Showdown at Coyote Pass, The Longest Ride, Laramie’s Way . . .

  “Can I borrow these too?”

  “Do you like that stuff?”

  “I don’t know; I never read any of it. But just knowing your mother wrote them—you must really be proud of her.”

  “I guess so.”

  Beth looked curiously at me. It was probably the first time she’d looked at me at all since we’d gotten home.

  “Is something wrong?”

  “No, nothing’s wrong.”

  “Are you mad at me?” Beth asked. “Did I say something—”

  “No, I’m not mad at you.” But I sounded as if I was. “Really,” I added gently, “really, I’m not.”

  Beth carried an immense pile of my mother’s books upstairs and put them on top of her looseleaf. I assured her that we had plenty of copies and it was all right to take that many home with her.

  Finally we settled down to our monologues.

  Beth read hers very well, even though Mr. Kane had just given them out that afternoon. It was a funny one and Beth has a natural flair for comedy. I sipped my Coke and listened and when she was finished I applauded.

  “That was terrific,” I said. “You were as good as Jean Freeman.” Jean had read the same monologue in front of the club.

  “Oh, I was not.”

  “You were. You’re every bit as good as she is. I just hope Mr. Kane isn’t so blinded by her past successes that he automatically makes her the star of everything.”

  “Oh, come on.” She refused to believe me. But it was true. She was good.

  I had a dramatic monologue. Maybe I would have done better with comedy, but on the other hand, my mind wasn’t on acting at all, so perhaps it wouldn’t have made any difference. I kept thinking, wait till she meets Jill. After all she’s heard about her from Mr. Kane—and wait till she hears Douglas play the piano. Beth was in the school orchestra; she played the flute, and she was sure to think Douglas’s original compositions for piano were brilliant, not to mention his playing . . .

  She’d end up feeling sorry for me. She’d wonder how a family like mine could have produced such a talentless, un-outstanding member. Why, compared to my mother or father, compared to Jill and Douglas—even compared to Dennis, I was boring. There was absolutely nothing special about me in any way. It wouldn’t take long for Beth to realize that, and then—

  Well, of course the more I thought about this the less I could concentrate on acting and the worse my reading became. Just as I was nearing the end, the sound of a piano shattered the unaccustomed calm.

  “Ohh!” I growled and tossed the mimeographed sheet aside. “What’s the use?”

  “You were doing fine,” Beth said loyally. “You just got distracted by the piano. Who’s that playing?”

  “Douglas. I told you about him.”

  “Oh yeah. Is that one of his own pieces he’s playing?”

  “I think so. I can’t really tell.”

  “Open the door, okay? I’d like to hear him.”

  I could hear him just fine with the door closed. A grand piano has the kind of sound that can fill a whole house. And as far as I know, Douglas has never composed anything soft. But then, I’m not a musician, so perhaps that makes a difference. I opened the door.

  “Hey, that’s pretty tricky,” Beth commented. “Could we go and listen to him for a while? Do you think he’d mind?”

  “Oh, no,” I sighed. “He wouldn’t mind at all.” As a matter of fact he didn’t even hear us clatter down the stairs and into the living room.

  He didn’t know we were around at all until he finished playing the piece, when Beth jumped up from the sofa and ran over to the piano.

  “Oh, that was super!” she cried. “Did you really compose that?”

  Douglas didn’t seem to be surprised either at the praise, or the stranger standing next to the piano.

  “Yeah. You like it?”

  “I love it. Would you play it again? From the beginning? We were upstairs and I didn’t hear the whole thing.”

  Drowned out by my monologue, no doubt. I sighed and sat back on the couch, resigned to hearing the whole thing again.

  “What’s it called?” Beth asked. “It sounds sort of ragtimish.”

  “It is. It’s called ‘Intensity Rag.’ It’s kind of a combination of ragtime and classical. It’s my own invention. I’m trying to think up a new classification for it.”

  “You mean like jazz, or classical or something?”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “How about,” Beth giggled, “ ‘Classtime’?”

  Douglas laughed. He looked over toward the couch where I was patiently waiting for the encore to begin and end. “Hey, don’t you introduce people to your family?”

  “Beth, this is my brother Douglas. Douglas, this is my friend, Beth. Consider yourself introduced.”

  “Have you composed anything else?” asked Beth.

  “Oh, sure, lots of things.” He shrugged.

  I was beginning to get a feeling of déjà vu. Hadn’t she just had this same conversation with my mother not an hour ago?

  “Isn’t that terrific? I play the flute,” she said shyly, “but I’m really nothing much.”

  “She’s in the school orchestra,” I said. I’d had it with Beth’s modesty.

  “Well, you have to start somewhere,” Douglas said. He sounded unbearably smug. You certainly won’t hear any false modesty from Douglas. Come to think of it, you hear precious little true modesty from Douglas.

  “I’ll never be as good as you are. I couldn’t even dream of composing anything.”

  Douglas practically purred.

  “You ought to,” he said to me, “bring your friends home more often.”

  Looking pleased at this roundabout flattery, Beth floated back to the couch. She folded her hands carefully in her lap, fixed her gaze on Douglas’s magic fingers and exhaled.

  “Play it again, Douglas.”

  He bowed his head in her direction and played it again.

  She clapped wildly when he was finished.

  “It’s a pleasure,” he said. “I don’t usually have such an appreciative audience.”

  “Yes you do, if you’re in the same room with yourself,” I muttered. But even if they had heard me
, they paid no attention.

  They were beaming at each other. What a great deal Beth and Douglas have in common, I reflected bitterly. They both think Douglas is wonderful.

  I thought back to a week ago, when I’d been worried that Beth would have found our house crazy and cluttered and my family likewise. That had certainly been a foolish worry. Beth was far too blinded by the Hoffmans’ various geniuses to notice the Hoffmans’ hideous environment.

  Did she even remember I was there?

  Why should she?

  “And this is Laura. She’s twelve.”

  More than ever I felt the intense need to be able to do something, anything that would make me shine in the midst of all those stars. Now it wasn’t only my family that I felt didn’t notice me—it was Beth too.

  Was it always going to be this way? Would I spend my life being “and this is Laura” while the rest of my family went about the business of being famous?

  If only I could see into the future! If only I could catch a glimpse of what tomorrow, next week, next year had in store for me. Perhaps I would find out that life wouldn’t always be this way, that things would change, that I would change, that something would happen that would alter the course of my whole life. Maybe I would find out that I was destined for great things, in spite of how remote that possibility now seemed.

  But of course the whole idea was ridiculous. No one could foretell what the future would bring. It just wasn’t possible.

  5

  IT WAS AT dinner that it happened for the first time.

  Jill was chattering away about Mr. Kane and what we could expect from the drama club, and Beth was listening intently while shoveling forkfuls of Moroccan chicken and rice into her mouth. Dennis murmured a running monologue about how in fifteen years of marriage my mother had never wrecked the rice, while my mother vainly protested that she’d been married twenty years, and her wrecked rice record was second to none. Douglas was jotting down notes for a debate on whether the Chinese or American system of education was more efficient and trying to wangle my father into an argument about it. My father insisted that he knew nothing about either system.

  Beth seemed so at home there, right in the center of the conversation. She leaned forward on her elbows, absorbing Jill’s every word. It was funny how instantly comfortable I’d been in her house and how easily she’d fit into mine, when our families were so dissimilar.