@Expectations Page 25
“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