@Expectations Read online

  “I’ll help you get started, OK? Don’t worry, you’ll be fine.”

  Lark says, “Cool.”

  “I’ll tell Charlie you’re only living with us until we finish the paperwork and get your parents to agree to pay? I’ll say, ‘I’m writing a piece on computer mediated therapy.’”

  Lark’s shaky but game. “Then I’ll say, ‘And I’m Exhibit A.’”

  “You’ll be fine,” I repeat and he nods. I try to sound strong and confident. “And I’ll be fine.”

  In time. But right now, we have this to get through. At my elbow Lark spins like a fugitive, ready to break and run for cover under the oleanders. I grab his arm to steady him. I pull him to one side of Charlie’s front walk and over the grass. We crouch in the flowerbed under the lighted front window. I put up my hand. “Wait.”

  Side by side, we stand on tiptoe and look in. I feel bit like the lost sea captain who comes back from the dead to find out that the world has gone on without him. His marriage died while he was gone; there is a whole new family sitting in the room he used to dominate. I am like a survivor fresh from my desert island, dumped in a world so changed that there’s no place for me.

  No. Everything looks the same. It’s me that’s changed. My husband Charlie and his children are snuggling on the sofa. Their backs are to the window. Some shift in the atmosphere makes Charlie turn and look out at the night. The light is in his eyes. He can’t see me looking in.

  Lark whispers, “I can’t do this.”

  “I can’t do this without you,” I hiss.

  Then my amazingly smart kid friend says, “Are you sure you want to do it at all?”

  “No time for that now, we’ve got to get you back on track.” I pull Lark away from the window as if rushing him out of a movie before the final credits roll. I start toward the front door. “Come on. They’re nice people, you’ll like them.”

  “You hope.”

  “And they’ll like you.” I say for both of us, “It’s only for a little while.”

  “I know.”

  “You can do anything, for a little while.”

  He says again, “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  I think but do not say, I’m doing it for you. “I have to do something.”

  We go up the front steps. It is a measure of my uncertainty that I don’t use my key. Instead, I am poised to tap on the door. My first line? I haven’t written it. Then I look at my friend. I can’t do this to him.

  No. I can’t do it to me.

  The part of me that was just about to walk in that door is already grieving for whatever Charlie and I had for such a little while, but! I’ve come this far from my immersion in StElene and I’m not about to go back to being what I was. I grab Lark’s arm.

  Lark says, “What. What?”

  “You want to do something scary?”

  “This,” Lark says. “This is scary.” He is looking at Charlie’s house.

  I have nothing on me but the clothes I’m wearing and the contents of my shoulder bag—a few dollars in cash but a few thousand in plastic. “Come on,” I say. “It’s only a five-minute walk to the bus station. We’re going to New York.”

  By Kit Reed

  NOVELS

  @expectations

  J. Eden

  Little Sisters of the Apocalypse

  Catholic Girls

  Fort Privilege

  Magic Time

  The Ballad of T. Rantula

  Captain Grownup

  Tiger Rag

  Cry of the Daughter

  Armed Camps

  The Better Part

  At War As Children

  Mother Isn’t Dead She’s Only Sleeping

  COLLECTIONS

  Seven for the Apocalypse

  Weird Women, Wired Women

  The Revenge of the Senior Citizens** Plus

  Other Stories and The Attack of the Giant Baby

  The Killer Mice

  Mr. Da V and Other Stories

  AS KIT CRAIG

  Short Fuse

  Some Safe Place

  Closer

  Strait

  Twice Burned

  Gone

  This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this novel are either fictitious or are used fictitiously.

  @expectations

  Copyright © 2000 by Kit Reed

  All rights reserved.

  A Forge Book

  Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

  175 Fifth Avenue

  New York, NY 10010

  www.tor.com

  Forge® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publications Data

  Reed, Kit.

  @expectations / Kit Reed. — 1st ed.

  p. cm.

  Title begins with the “at” sign, i.e., an a within a circle.

  ISBN 0-312-87486-3 (acid-free paper)

  1. Married women—Fiction. 2. Suburban life—Fiction. 3. Online chat groups—Fiction. I. Title: At expectations. II. Title.

  PS3568.E367 A613 2000

  813'.54—dc21

  00-033852

  First Edition: September 2000

  eISBN 9781466826663

  First eBook edition: August 2012