Footsteps on the Stairs: A Novel Read online

  Footsteps on the Stairs

  A Novel

  C. S. Adler

  To dear friends:

  Jean Aceto

  Ruth Cotich

  Helen Edelman

  Nan and Ed Kane

  Cynthia and Julian Mendelsohn

  Dottie and John Meyer

  Mot and Justin Neuhoff

  Joan and Ed Porco

  Gloria and George Schreiber

  Yoko and John Wallach

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  About the Author

  Chapter 1

  I bounced into the kitchen and wrapped myself around Larry for a good-morning hug.

  “Sleep well, Dodie baby?” he asked, hugging me back. He’s the best hugging teddy bear of a man! I still can’t believe my luck that Mother picked him to marry after her thirteen-year solo as a parent.

  “They’re coming today, aren’t they?” I asked him as I turned to give Mother a dutiful peck.

  “Yup. Today’s the day!” He sounded excited—but then, almost anything gets Larry high—a whiff of salt air, a kippered herring for breakfast—even my mother.

  “Dodie, you look positively obscene,” Mother said to me. “How can you walk around like that? Don’t you ever look in a mirror?”

  “What, and scare myself?” I took the container of juice out of the refrigerator, ignoring her. I was wearing an extra-large man’s undershirt Larry had discarded, but my bathing suit was on underneath. Nothing obscene about that. Of course, to my perfect size-eight Mother my basic body is obscene. Actually, I’m a mirror image of her. Imagine a pert-nosed, curly-haired, pretty woman in the kind of mirror they have in a fun house where everyone looks squat and wide—the mirror image is me.

  “We’re going to have to leave in about three minutes,” Larry said. “Are you coming with us to meet them?”

  “I want to.”

  “Then we’ll make it four minutes. Grab something quick to eat.”

  “Is she beautiful?” I asked.

  “My daughter Anne, you mean?”

  I nodded.

  “She’s a doll. You’ll like her, Dodie. She’s a little shy, but she’s a good kid.”

  “I hate her already,” I said. “Why do I have to be the ugly stepsister? I’d rather be Cinderella.”

  “You’d be good-looking enough if you’d lose some weight and dress like a human being,” Mother said. “If you’d just cover yourself—”

  “I can’t help being built like a truck. Do you think I should go on a diet, Larry?”

  “To me you’re beautiful just as you are,” he said.

  I fluttered my eyelashes at him gratefully, then slugged some juice from the container, having decided to sacrifice the rest of breakfast and go to the bathroom in the three minutes left.

  “Dodie! Can’t you use a glass?” Mother yelped. “You’d think I never taught you any manners.”

  “You didn’t, Mother. You just nagged me about them.”

  I zipped off to the bathroom, brushed my teeth, and settled carefully onto the shaky toilet. My mother never misses a chance to criticize me. In self-defense I try to ignore what she says and love myself anyway. Sometimes it’s hard. One of the reasons I’m wild about Larry is that he’s never, in the year he’s known me, commented on my size or the way I dress except to say something nice. That can’t have been too easy either. This year I’ve been searching for a style that suits me, and sometimes my getups have been on the weird side. Like one week when I put on purple pants with green plaid suspenders and red sneakers and wore a Cracker Jack box on a string around my neck to school. At least I give people something to talk about.

  Mother’s the only one who gets upset. My mother’s a numbers kind of person. To her feelings are unsanitary. So is excess of any kind, and that includes me. She’s a fabulously successful computer analyst and makes more money than Larry does. He’s in real estate. They met last year when Mother was thinking of investing in rental property. She didn’t buy anything, but she got him. He’s divorced, like everybody Mother knows, and has two children I haven’t met yet—a little boy named Chip, and Anne, who’s my age except that I’ve been thirteen for ten months longer than she has. They live with their mother.

  Up to now I’ve been sort of looking forward to having them for company this summer—especially Anne. I like having lots of people around me, and this old shack house Larry rented for us could use some livening up. Larry said it was the only place he could find big enough for us all. Also, he thought it had a private beach, because he saw it at high tide. Some beach! When the tide goes out, we’re sitting all by our lonesomes on the edge of a big, empty marsh filled with mosquitos and sucking sounds. The grasses flow like ocean waves in the wind and the clam flats stink. Inside it’s even worse—the house, I mean—a stage set for elderly vampires with a bathroom that you get to by walking through the kitchen and plumbing that groans and gulps.

  “Dodie, we’re leaving,” Mother yelled from somewhere.

  I looked out the window and there they were, getting into Larry’s little white car. “Hey, wait!” I yelled. “Larry, you can’t do this to me!”

  “We’ll be back in less than an hour, Dodie. Don’t want to have them get off the bus and not find anybody waiting for them.”

  “Rats, I really wanted to go,” I said to myself, flushing and listening to the plumbing complain. On the other hand, I really hadn’t. Anne and Chip weren’t going to be just any kids; they were Larry’s. That automatically let them into the lineup for his attention ahead of me. It was bad enough having to share the only man in my life with Mother without competing with his offspring besides.

  As I washed I made faces at my reflection in the mirror. Then I treated myself to a golden browned cheese omelet cooked slowly to perfection. I adore breakfasts—also lunch, dinner, and all snacks in between. Why diet? Square bones just can’t look thin no matter what Mother thinks.

  After the breakfast dishes were done, I considered picking up the mess in the attic bedroom I was to share with Anne. More important was for me to get dressed, though. I would have to convince Anne and Chip of what a swell kid I am despite any negative impressions of me Mother might give them on the way here. Maybe the flour sack dress with the purple belt and a pair of Mother’s gold hoop earrings would dazzle them.

  “Dress like a human being—cover yourself,” she had said. A devilish thought crossed my mind. I would listen to Mother for a change. Too bad it was such a sunny day. Gray fog would have done better for atmosphere, but this gravestone-gray shingled house with its crooked windows and doors made a perfect backdrop. And the tide was out, so I had the marsh for mournful sound effects. I plastered my face with white skin cream and blessed Mother for giving me the old white sheets for my bed. Actually, draped across one shoulder, the sheet was more becoming than some of my clothes.

  As soon as I heard the car crunching in on the beach-stone driveway, I drew the trailing end of the sheet around my head like a hood. Then I stood up on the shaky toilet seat and eased the window higher until it stopped at a stuck spot. I positioned my head in the middle and made a low moan. Corny? Sure, but good for a laugh. Nobody noticed me, however. Larry was hoisting suitcases out of the back of the car, and my mother was oozing charm at a disgustingly pretty girl who looked a lot older than thirteen. She was a doll all right—the expensive,
elegant kind you don’t dare touch. The doll was listening to my mother with this raised-eyebrow patience, as if Mother were the new kid trying hard to please her. She was so cool and serious-looking—my costume was a terrible mistake. I ducked back from the open window before anyone saw me, not noticing Chip at all. It took me no more than two minutes to wash my face clean, race upstairs to my bedroom, and whip off the sheet and the out-sized T-shirt.

  I was standing there in my one-piece bathing suit making my bed up when Mother led Anne through the door. “Hi,” I said. “The room’s a little messy, but I’ll get it neatened up in a jiffy.”

  “Dodie, you get downstairs and tell that poor little boy that you were the ghost he saw. You should be ashamed of yourself, pulling a trick like that. You scared him half to death.”

  “Me?” I asked, ready to play dumb. But my mother is not one to let me get away with anything. “He’s white as a sheet,” Mother said. “As white as that sheet on the floor there.” She pointed accusingly at my dumped costume. It was hard to act innocent with the evidence piled at my feet. Anne’s unfriendly stare didn’t help either.

  “It was just a joke,” I said. “I just thought since this place looks like a haunted house, it ought to have a ghost. Huh?” I looked from one to the other expecting a smile to break through somewhere. No chance.

  “Chip won’t come inside,” Anne said. “Daddy’s talking to him, but Chip won’t leave the car.”

  I caved in. “Shall I go in costume?”

  “Just take it down and show it to him,” Anne said.

  I don’t mind playing the fool. I do it often. I get a kick out of making people laugh; but now nobody was laughing, and nothing feels stupider than failing as a fool. I clumped downstairs with my sheet and found Chip scrunched down on the back seat of Larry’s two-door. All I could see of the kid was his blond cowlick.

  “Hi,” I said. “I’m the ghost in the bathroom window. See? Here’s my sheet.”

  He looked at the sheet and at my face and away, all without a change of expression. I’d really shaken him up good.

  “It was just a joke, Chip,” Larry said. “Dodie was just fooling around.”

  “That white stuff on my face? I washed that off,” I said in case that was what was keeping him from being convinced.

  “Chip, you coming in now?” Larry asked.

  Chip shook his head.

  “All right. I’ll put your stuff in your room. You’ve got a little room right next to your sister’s. Don’t you want to see it?”

  “No.”

  “All right, then. You come in when you’re ready.” Larry winked at me and picked up the last suitcase and a canvas bag with a Monopoly set sticking out the top.

  When we were alone, I said, “I’m sorry I scared you, Chip.”

  He sniffed.

  “Well, are you going to forgive me ever?”

  He considered, then nodded reluctantly.

  “I’m Dodie,” I said, and stuck my hand through the open window. He reached up and shook it. No smile, though.

  “It’s hot in the car, isn’t it?” I tried. “Want to go swimming?”

  He looked at my swimsuit and then up at my face.

  “Okay,” he said.

  He was really a cute little seven-year-old kid. I was sorry I’d scared him.

  Chapter 2

  That night the footsteps woke me up. I listened, wondering who was brave enough to be climbing up those dark stairs in the middle of the night. I could see Anne’s pale shoulder and the outline of her hip under the sheet in the bed next to me. It had to be Chip, then. But something about the footsteps—something strange—kept me listening without encouraging me to get up and satisfy my curiosity by looking. I’m your basic nighttime coward: bold as brass in sunlight, but in the dark I clutch my pillow and hide under the covers. The thing was, the sounds came in spurts, like somebody was running up some steps, then stopping, then creeping up a few more. A chill snaked up my back as the footsteps got heavier. What was going on out there? Were our parents coming up to see how we were? But what was taking them so long? Whoever it was kept coming up and up. How long could that staircase be, anyway? I didn’t have a clock, but it had to be more than five or ten minutes that I’d been there listening and squeezing my pillow.

  I hadn’t heard any noises on the stairs the first three nights, when we were here without Anne and Chip, and I’m a light sleeper. Maybe it was the house. Old houses make noises. Maybe a shutter was banging somewhere, sounding like footsteps—never mind that the house didn’t have any shutters. I was tempted to wake Anne to listen with me, but after my stunt in the bathroom window, I didn’t dare. She already suspected I was a mental case. It had to be Chip. I avoided the thought that there might not be an ordinary explanation. Finally the footsteps stopped, and I fell asleep.

  I woke up late and saw Anne in neat white shorts making her bed. “Morning,” I said with my usual wake-up good cheer.

  “Good morning,” she said, frowning at me.

  “You going to avoid me all day today like you did yesterday?” I smiled at her.

  She stared at me, set back by my question, but not for long. “I’ll do my best,” she said.

  “Oh.”

  She finished the last hospital corner and laid on the bedspread with neat, efficient movements. Then she turned on her heel. I just caught her at the door. “Say, Anne, does your brother have a bladder problem?”

  “What?”

  “I heard him on the stairs last night. He must have to go to the bathroom a lot.”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “It was probably him I heard, though,” I said. “At least I hope so.”

  “Are you starting in again?” she asked.

  “With what?”

  “With that ghost business.”

  “Of course not. That was just a dumb joke.”

  “It certainly was.”

  She was out the door before I could bounce the conversational ball back to her. She certainly was not much of a player. How could a lovable guy like Larry have such an uptight daughter? I thought of the Sunfish Larry had rented when I’d told him I was a good sailor. We’d had a fabulous time together the last few days with me teaching Larry how to sail and him enjoying every minute of it. Maybe I could get him to go out with me this morning. The sun was shining. If only the tide wasn’t out!

  I counted stair treads on the way downstairs: just fourteen. Maybe I’d dreamed all that drawn-out padding up the stairs. The kitchen was full of the marvelous aroma of sugar and cinnamon. Anne was serving Chip delicious-looking French toast plumped up with milk and egg and sprinkled with cinnamon.

  “Boy, does that look good!” I said.

  “Want me to make you one?” she asked, to my amazement.

  “Would you?”

  “Sure.”

  I trotted off to the bathroom while she went to work on my breakfast. It didn’t compute. If she hated me, why was she willing to cook my breakfast? Unless, of course, she was planning to sprinkle on poison instead of cinnamon. I hurried to get back to the breakfast table. She looked innocent enough at the stove, and the aroma from the pan was irresistible.

  I grinned at Chip and sat down. He and I had become pals on the beach yesterday, playing submarine in the water and generally horsing around and having fun. “Hey, how many trips to the bathroom did you make last night?” I asked.

  “I didn’t make none.”

  “Who’re you kidding? I heard you on the stairs.”

  “I was sleeping. I don’t get up when I’m sleeping.”

  I studied his serious face, a male miniature of Anne’s with her neat, regular features. If he was lying, he was awfully good at it. “Then what could have been making all that racket?” I asked myself aloud.

  “Maybe you imagined it,” Anne said.

  “But it seemed so real. Maybe my mother or your father was prowling around to see if we were sleeping okay.”

  “Could be.”

  “
Animals run around at night,” Chip stated.

  “You mean like bears and lions?” I asked, thinking he had a lively imagination.

  “No, like rats and mice and raccoons.”

  “Chip loves animals,” Anne said. “Any kind of animals—even bugs.”

  The French toast she served me was crunchy on top and soft inside. If it was poisoned, I didn’t let that stop me from enjoying it.

  “You’re a great cook,” I said.

  She actually smiled. I could have eaten a second piece, maybe a third, but I didn’t want to risk asking her. She might be as down on gluttons as she was on clowns.

  I spotted Larry outside loading backrests into the trunk of his car. “Hey, Larry,” I shouted. “Want me to get the sail and stuff? We’re going out on the Sunfish this morning, aren’t we?” We’d left it on the bay, belly up against a dune.

  “Sure we are. It’s a gorgeous morning. Even your mother’s going to try sailing today.”

  I wasn’t too thrilled with the idea of Mother joining us. First of all, three adult size people is too many for a Sunfish, and second, I didn’t get Larry to myself anywhere else. Besides, Anne and Chip were sure to want to go sailing too. How was that going to work out? I hoped it wouldn’t be Larry and his kids on one trip and Mother going with me on another. If I had my usual luck when Mother’s around, I’d ram the only submerged rock in the bay and wreck the Sunfish.

  “Good morning, sunny girl.” Larry greeted me with a hug and a kiss.

  “Did you miss me?” I asked, hanging on to him.

  “You mean since last night? Sure I missed you.”

  “Did you come upstairs to check on how Anne and Chip were sleeping during the night?”

  “Hmmm? What for? They’re not babies. Incidentally, what do you think of my daughter?”

  “She’s beautiful.”

  “Of course she is. Besides that. Think you’ll enjoy having her around this vacation?”

  “I don’t know yet, but she makes great French toast.”

  “She’s a very good girl—too good for her own good. I’m hoping you’ll teach her how to relax and have fun. You’re just the kind of friend she needs, Dodie.”