"Blackwater - 04 - The War" - читать интересную книгу автора (McDowell Michael)

Sister sighed and said, "Why you suppose Miriam is like that?"
James replied in surprise: "Because of Mary-Love, of course. Haven't you noticed, Sister? Miriam is just like your mama."
And so she was, laying her plans carefully and in secret.
The hot, high summer came on, and still no one knew what was to become of Miriam in the fall. This was a question of no small moment to Sister, for if Miriam went away to school, Sister would have no ostensible reason to remain in Perdido. She would have to think up another excuse for not returning to her husband. And it was nearly inconceivable that Miriam would not go to college—a girl who was smart enough to have been valedictorian of her class, with as much social position and as assured a financial future as Miriam was blessed with, was bound for higher education. Sister grew so demoralized by the task of figuring out some way of not having to go
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back to Early Haskew that she self-indulgently talked herself into believing that Miriam would never go away at all.
So everyone waited impatiently for fall, to see what Miriam would do. But Miriam had an intermediate surprise. One day toward the end of June Miriam attended a party at the casino on Santa Rosa Island, across the bay from Pensacola. From that day forth, she was obsessed with the beach. Every day she departed at five-thirty in the morning in the little roadster she had been given by Mary-Love. She returned in time for the afternoon meal. Her skin grew darker and darker.
"Is she meeting a boy, you think?" Queenie asked James.
"I wonder," said James, and that night asked Sister the same question.
"Are you seeing a boy down at Pensacola Beach?" Sister asked Miriam the following noon when Miriam walked in the house with a towel over her shoulder.
Miriam seemed offended by the question. "Sister, I drive down there and I lie on the beach and soak up the sun."
"I was just wondering," said Sister.
That afternoon, wearing a white sundress that showed off her deep tan to startling effect, Miriam marched across the sandy yard and knocked on the door of her mother's house. Elinor came to the door.
"Elinor, is Frances around?" Miriam asked stiffly. She had hoped that Frances herself or perhaps Zad-die would answer the door. It irked Miriam to speak to her mother.
"No, she's not. She went downtown, but she ought to be back soon. You want to come in and wait?"
"No, ma'am, but when she gets back, would you tell her to come over and see me for a minute? I want
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to ask her a question." Miriam turned around and marched off before Elinor could say another word.
Frances was startled and alarmed by the summons from her sister, and she hurried next door to deal with the matter as quickly as possible, as a condemned criminal may urge that the time of execution be moved forward rather than put off. Miriam was reading a magazine by the window in her room upstairs.
"Miriam, Mama said you wanted to speak to me." Frances stood in the doorway of the room; Miriam did not encourage her to venture farther in.
"I did. I wanted to know if you wanted to go down to Pensacola with me tomorrow."
With the revelation of the reason for the summons, Frances's amazement only increased. "What ... what for?" she stammered.
"To lie down on the beach."
Frances stared at Miriam almost as if in a stupor.
"Well," said Miriam impatiently. "Do you want to go or not?"
"Yes," blurted Frances.
"Can you be ready at five-thirty?"
Frances nodded.
"That's when I leave. If you're not out on your porch, I'll leave without you. I'm not gone be going up to Elinor's door and knocking at that hour of the morning, and I'm not gone call out to you, either. Are you gone be out on the front porch when I'm ready to leave?"
Frances nodded again.
"Good," said Miriam. "Ivey'll fix us something to take along, so don't worry about something to eat. If you're gone want to buy things at the concession stand, then you'd better bring a little money."
"All right," returned Frances, lingering hesitantly for further instructions.
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None came. After a few moments, Miriam looked up and remarked, "Well, why don't you go away now? I'm busy."
In a daze, Frances wandered home. Neither her father nor her mother could interpret the significance of the invitation. Elinor called James to see if he or Queenie had any ideas about what it portended. They couldn't figure it out, and James called Sister. Sister didn't know for sure, but she had an idea: "Maybe Miriam wants everybody to know that she's not going down to Pensacola every day to meet a boy. That could be why she's taking Frances along."
Miriam drove fast. The top of the roadster was down, and the wind was so loud that the sisters were unable to talk to each other. The sun was still low in the sky at that hour of the morning. Miriam and Frances wore bathing suits under their sundresses. The ride took only slightly more than an hour, and when the sisters got to the beach it was still empty. The casino hadn't opened yet, but half a dozen fishermen had cast their lines from the end of the pier. Miriam walked a few hundred yards or so beyond the pier to a stretch of deserted sand and laid out her blanket. She silently pointed to where Frances should spread hers.
"Did you bring any lotion?" asked Miriam abrupt-
ly.
"No," said Frances. "Should I have?"
"Of course. You're going to burn anyway because you're not used to the sun, but without lotion you're going to be in horrible pain by the time we get home. Here, use some of mine."
Frances meekly submitted to being doused with the cold lotion. Miriam brusquely rubbed it in, and when she was finished with Frances, performed the same operation on herself.
"What do I do now?" asked Frances timidly.
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"Nothing. Just switch sides every once in a while. And don't talk."
When Miriam lay on her stomach, tanning her back, she read. When she lay on her back, she closed her eyes and slept, or at least appeared to sleep.
Frances had never been so bored in her life, not even when she had been confined to her bed with arthritis. She hadn't brought anything to read. Her head was filled with the dull roar of the Gulf of Mexico. Sand fleas jumped onto her legs and bit them. The blindingly white sand and the washed-out sky bleached all color from the landscape, until everything seemed overwhelmingly pale and overwhelmingly bright, like the continual flash of a news camera. She could feel her skin beginning to burn. She dared not speak to her sister, who had peremptorily prohibited conversation.
Frances sat up on the blanket and began to look longingly at the water. At last, when she felt as if her skin were frying and the blood simmering in her arteries, she turned to Miriam and said, "Can I go in?"
"Go in where?" snapped Miriam.
"Go in the water?"
"Yes. Though I don't know why you'd want to. I hate swimming. Watch out for jellyfish. Be careful of the undertow. Somebody saw a shark out there on Wednesday."