The year of the Lucy
- Автор: Маккефри Энн
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Научная фантастика
Электронная книга - «The year of the Lucy». Краткое содержание книги:
"Did you ever find out what happened to Sylvia?" Jamie asked as she brought the coffee back to the studio.
"Not exactly, and I'm worried about her. I can't reach her by phone and on Saturday, when she called, she sounded as if she had a mouth full of cotton."
"Drunk?" Jamie cocked his right eyebrow cynically.
"Not at 10:30 in the morning."
"Oh?"
"Yes,'oh'."
"Don't bristle so, Mirelle," and Jamie held up a hand in mock protection. "You realize that Sylvia's a mightily disturbed woman, don't you?"
Mirelle felt herself flush. "I didn't until recently. She's so breezy, so self-confident…"
"Hmm, yes, the bright facade to hide the bleeding heart…"
"You can be so cynical." Mirelle felt a surge of ire for him.
"No, Mirelle, I'm not actually," he said, quickly covering his hand with hers, all mockery gone. "But I find that armor suffices me best." He made a show of squaring his shoulders. "It's in keeping with my professional image. Speaking of which," and again he switched moods abruptly, "I met Madame de Courcy, Sylvia's maternal parent… at yesterday's recital. She is, one instantly apprehends, a major patroness of the Ahrts, with a very short list of acceptable composers of which my students played no compositions at all."
Jamie had drawn his features in such a supercilious expression of disdain that Mirelle clearly saw the grand dame he was imitating.
"If that's who Sylvia contends with, I sympathize deeply. Formidable woman!"
Sylvia's comments anent her mother problem had all been surface stuff, except for that embittered 'All my life she's hurt me'.
"I also deduce that Sylvia is not at home," Jamie went on. " 'My daughter is indisposed' was the euphemism given for her absence."
"How can you deduce that from that?"
"The knowing glance with which that information was received."
"Oh, Jamie!"
"Yes, it is a tragedy. Sylvia struck me as being rather a good sort. Consider yourself lucky indeed, Mirelle, that you're an orphaned bastard." He rose then. "I really have to go. I noticed this morning that it's the twenty-first day of December, and nearly noon at that, and there are but four more shopping days till Christmas. I'm so used to its intent from October on that I've become inured to its imminence. Margaret comes down on Wednesday and I've no Christmas trinkets for that little charmer. I must see what Woolworth's is featuring this year."
"Jamie! You wouldn't?" Then she caught his expression. "Well, if they have nothing at the price you're willing to pay, Wanamaker's has a good budget shop. And there's always Goodwill."
At the door, he searched her face a moment.
"I still want an original LeBoyne, you know."
"I know, Jamie."
"I'd take that bust in a flash if I could escape the accusation of overweening conceit. No, I will not accept it as a token of your esteem for myself. But you might try to sell it to the Music School." His eyes brimmed with laughter. "There's an empty niche in the hall next to Mozart which I'd grace elegantly."
"James Howell, you are insufferable!"
"Am I not? Merry Christmas, Mary Ellen LeBoyne, and a prosperous New Year."
She watched him drive out of the development before she turned from the window to other concerns. She tried first to reach Sylvia and got no answer. Certainly Sylvia's daughters would be home from college by now, or that odious mother. Oh, they were all probably out shopping like everyone else.
The thought of the stores today defeated Mirelle so she compromised by baking Christmas cookies and worrying over Sylvia. She had only one more tray of cookies to finish when she remembered Sylvia wondering what sort of a sick-pig Mirelle would make for her.
What Sylvia needed was not a sickpig, but a talisman, Mirelle told herself. She could barely wait to get the cookies out of the oven before she was away to the studio and digging into the clay barrel.
With the almost finished model of the Lucy before her, it didn't take long to make a small replica. She worked steadily, absorbed, until the kids got home from school. She took a break then, because the concentrated effort made her head ache. But she had only the detailing to finish later before she could fire it. With any luck she'd have the finished statuette to present to Sylvia for Christmas. Mirelle couldn't explain why she knew it would be the perfect gift for Sylvia. Perhaps, hopefully, the miniature would be a catalyst for Sylvia, too.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
STEVE DID NOT GET HOME that night. Nor did Mirelle hear from him. At the sight of his unused bed the next morning, a niggling half-fear, half-anger started in her belly. She called the office to see if he might have gone there straight from the airport. Steve'd been expected back, his secretary said, and left the question in her voice hanging expectantly. Mirelle mumbled some nonsense about a possible hold-up in Christmas air traffic and hung up.
That's what she told the children when they got home from school and began to notice their father's continued absence.
"We have to get our tree today," Nick said, frowning and looking exceedingly like his grandfather Neagu. "All the good ones'll be gone if we wait much longer."
"I think we can just get the tree. Daddy will understand," Mirelle said, unable to cope with imminent full-scale sulks.
Roman gave her an odd look for her unexpected capitulation. It was a long-standing family custom that Steve and the children bought the family tree and saw to its trimming.
They got a tree, full branched, 'a hen of a tree', as Nick styled it. She spent far more than she intended, or thought she should. Certainly more than Steve would, for he shopped the tree lots assiduously for the best bargain. She let the children set it up in the gameroom and get the ornaments out.
"We'll leave the creche until Daddy gets home or he will really hit the roof," Mirelle told them but she and Nick did position the creche board in the living room. Santa Claus reigned in the gameroom, and all the new toys and mess centered there. But the creche, with its landscape of Bethlehem, stable-cave, inn and fields, was traditionally in the living room, expressing the original meaning of the festival.
She made hamburgers for a quick supper, and to economize for the cost of the tree, and they ate as they decorated. Roman did his best to officiate but his manner, reminiscent of his father, provoked his sister.
"You're acting just like Daddy."
"Why not?" Roman asked. "He's not here and I am the oldest son."
"I think we should've waited for Daddy," and Tonia looked about to burst into tears.
"We've left the creche to do with Daddy," Mirelle said hastily. "He prefers it anyway. Remember? Now stick some more lights to the left there, Nick. It's awfully bare. Tonia, don't set those fairy lights in too deep. Keep them on the tips of the branches."
She had rather hoped that trimming the tree would take up the entire evening. Then Tonia started pawing through the creche box and found her favorite camel in pieces. The tears came in earnest. Mirelle managed to restore her daughter's humor by promising to fire up the kiln and replace any and all favorites that had failed to survive. With what she thought was true inspiration she suggested that they wrap their presents for their father. No one had shopped for parents yet. Roman got rather exercised because he hadn't been able to make newspaper collections and rake in the Christmas tip money out of which he bought his gifts.