Footsteps on the Stairs: A Novel Page 9

  “So they were jealous of each other,” Anne said when she’d finished reading. “Or anyway, Renee was jealous of Irma. That’s what they were fighting about.”

  “They were fighting about Kevin, who was a first-class louse.”

  “But it was the letters that did it. They’re coming up the stairs after those secret letters he wrote to Irma. Dodie, we have to find those letters.”

  “Where would Irma have hidden them?”

  “A locked box, Renee said.”

  “There is a box, like an old tin safe. It had a lock.”

  “That could be it.”

  We didn’t even give Larry time to dry off after his swim before we began badgering him to take us back to the cottage.

  “Why do you want to go back so soon?” he complained. “You haven’t even had a swim yet. Have you gone in, Dodie?”

  “We need time to make ourselves beautiful for the big dinner tonight,” Anne said.

  “Lots of time, if I’m going to get beautiful,” I said.

  “Women!” Larry said, but when Mother finally stirred, he told her, “The girls say it’s time to go home.”

  We fidgeted around, waiting for them. They moved in slow motion, but finally they were ready, and we left.

  Anne and I hurried upstairs to Chip’s room and got the tin box. “There’s no key for it,” Anne said, sifting through the cardboard box for one. She dumped out a pile of Irma’s school compositions, all marked with A’s, of course.

  “Wouldn’t you know she’d save them!” I said, examining the spacy handwriting, all curlicues and circled dots. “What a phony!”

  “Dodie, I can’t get this box open,” Anne said. She shook the locked tin box in frustration. You could tell there were papers inside.

  “Give it here. I’m an expert lock picker.”

  She handed me the box without question and waited while I poked at the lock with a pin. Never having picked a lock before in my life, I was amazed when this one popped right open for me. Just shows how self-confidence can pay off. I scooped out the letters and handed half of them to Anne. Silently we began to read.

  “Something’s weird,” Anne said after a minute. She was looking at one of the folded letter sheets that had been inside the box.

  “These are weird, all right,” I said. “Yuck. How could he write such sickening stuff?” I read aloud, exaggerating for effect.

  Irma, my darling,

  My heart stands still when I think of my beautiful girl, and though we are far apart, I hold you close in my arms and kiss your dear face as I kissed you that magic night under the stars. When I return, I insist that we get married at once. No, you mustn’t worry, dearest, about leaving Renee behind to take care of your mother. We will come and visit them often and perhaps we can help them out with money too. I live only for the day when—

  “Dodie,” Anne interrupted me, “don’t you notice anything about the handwriting?”

  “The handwriting?” The letters crowded into each other on the page so that it was hard to read, all full of curlicues and circled dots. “Hey! It’s not Kevin’s!” I stared at Anne, then lunged for the English compositions Irma had so proudly saved, The handwriting on the compositions and on the letters that were supposed to be from Kevin was identical. “Irma wrote herself love letters,” I said.

  “Renee guessed right the first time, when she said Irma was making it all up,” Anne said.

  “But then why did Renee get so jealous?”

  “I guess Irma must have been a convincing liar.”

  “Or Irma had herself believing it was all true—that Kevin loved her, that he was going to come back and marry her.”

  “Anyway,” Anne said. “Now we’ve found out what they’re coming up the stairs after.”

  “Right,” I agreed. “Now what do we do?”

  “Give them their letters back,” she said, “and see if that makes them rest easier.”

  “How do you return something to a ghost? I mean, it’s not possible physically.”

  “What if we leave the letters on their graves?”

  “All right,” I said, though I had a feeling that wasn’t going to work.

  “Do you think Renee could have killed Irma?” Anne asked me.

  “No way! Renee was a nice girl—a little jealous, but basically she was a good kid.”

  We thought about it awhile, then Anne surprised me with an insight I wouldn’t have given her credit for having. What she said was, “Renee must have died without knowing Irma was lying or in any way making up stories about Kevin and her. I’ll bet the girls fought in the boat and fell out or pushed each other out.”

  “That could be,” I said. “Chip saw them fighting. Sisters do fight—especially when they both want the same thing.”

  “Where we ought to leave those letters is in the marsh where they drowned,” Anne said. “I’m sure it’s the letters they’re after. Renee wants the letters to see if Kevin really loved Irma, and Irma wants to keep her sister from finding out the truth.”

  “Oh, no!” I said in alarm. “Even if you’re right, I’m not going to mess around in that marsh. That place gives me the creeps.”

  “We can use the rowboat, just go a little ways out with it. But you don’t have to go if you don’t want to. Chip will go with me.”

  What did she think, that I wasn’t as brave as a seven-year-old boy? “Well, all right,” I said. “We’ll stick together all the way.”

  “Tomorrow morning, then,” Anne said. “Right now we’d better hurry up and get dressed.”

  It was a relief to stop concentrating on our unhappy ghosts and consider important things instead—like what to wear. I tried the orange beach towel I’d made into a blouse by cutting a hole for my head in the middle of it. That and a straw hat made for a casual look—too casual for a fancy restaurant if I wanted to please Larry. I had decided on my flour sack dress with the purple belt and was thinking I didn’t look too bad in it either, when I saw Anne. She was wearing a white sun dress and looked just like a fashion model. Who was going to care what I wore when she looked so beautiful? I would have been better off in my ghost costume. At least that would have gotten people’s attention.

  Chapter 13

  For our big dinner out, Larry took us to a neat restaurant where they used fresh herbs and put raw mushrooms, bean sprouts, and black olive pieces in the salad. The food was fantastic, including the English trifle I was having for dessert. We spent the meal raving to each other about what we were eating and tasting each other’s dishes. Larry was delighted. He sat back over his coffee and beamed at us.

  “So, girls, how would you rate this vacation so far? Did you like being together? Think we should do it this way again?”

  “You’re so subtle, Larry,” Mother said.

  “If you want straight answers, you should ask straight questions,” he said. “Right, girls?”

  I nodded. What else could I do when he meant so well? Tell him that I’d rather not have so much competition for his attention?

  “How about it, Dodie? Do you like being with my kids?”

  “We made a good team,” I answered cautiously, thinking of our ghost investigations and hoping that would do.

  “Anne, say something,” he said.

  “Dodie and I go together like chocolate and vanilla,” Anne said, no more willing to commit herself than I was.

  “Who’s chocolate and who’s vanilla?” Larry wanted to know.

  “You know I’m vanilla, Dad.” She smiled at him wistfully and he didn’t press it. She was vanilla—creamy smooth, cool, and bland. I didn’t know she knew that, though.

  Mother said, “Larry and I were thinking how nice it would be, Anne, if on your visiting weekends you and Chip would come to New York sometimes instead of your father always going to Philadelphia.”

  My heart sank. I hadn’t thought beyond having to share Larry with his children for this month of vacation. Now all of a sudden I saw I was never going to have him all to myself
again. It wasn’t fair. They all had family to love them. I had no relative who cared about me besides Larry, and all I wanted was a little of his time. In this whole month we hadn’t had more than one talk alone together except for that couple of hours out on the Sunfish before Anne and Chip came. What was the use of acquiring a father who liked me when I couldn’t keep him?

  While they waited for Anne to answer them, Larry put his arm around Mother’s shoulder and Mother served him up a perky little smile. Obviously they’d made up and were back to being grade-A lovebirds again. Anne was biting on her lower lip. The idea of togetherness weekends with Mother and me wasn’t thrilling her either.

  “Do they have special commuter rates from Philadelphia to New York? Anne and Chip are going to need them,” I put in just to break up the silence.

  “Dodie, can’t you be more hospitable than that?” Mother said, misinterpreting me as usual.

  “Hey, nothing’s what you have to do,” Larry said. “It’s what you want to do that we’re trying to find out. We can continue to keep the families separate. It’s entirely up to you kids.”

  “It would be nice to visit you in New York sometimes,” Anne said, talking to Larry but frowning at me.

  “Could I go to the Bronx Zoo?” Chip asked.

  “I’ll take you,” I offered. “There’s a bus we can walk to that goes.”

  “And you three certainly don’t seem to mind sharing a bedroom,” Mother said, smiling.

  “That’s just because of the ghosts,” Chip said.

  “Ghosts? Dodie, do you mean to tell me that you haven’t given up on those so-called ghosts of yours yet?”

  “It so happens, Mother, that the ghosts are real—or they were real. We found a lady who knew them, and we found their graves and stuff they wrote. We’ve got documented ghosts, believe it or not. They were young girls, just a few years older than us during the Second World War, and they drowned together in the marsh.”

  Mother looked uneasy. Larry looked interested and said, “And you actually saw them?”

  “Saw them and heard them—all of us,” Anne said.

  “But there’s no such thing as ghosts. There isn’t!” Mother said, as if that settled it for her.

  “Yes, there is,” Chip said.

  “So that’s what kept you girls so busy,” Larry said. “You’ve been hunting ghosts together, is that it?”

  “Right,” I said, “And tomorrow we’re going to—”

  Anne kicked me sharply under the table. I looked at her.

  “If the weather’s nice, we thought we’d see if that old rowboat will float,” Anne finished for me.

  “Can I come too?” Chip asked.

  “No,” Larry told him. “Now listen, girls, I don’t like you fooling with that old boat. It’s sure to leak. If you get in deep water—”

  “We won’t, Dad. You know how careful we are. We’ll just pole around the edge of the marsh a little.”

  “I don’t understand what the big deal is with that rowboat.”

  “Dodie’s had a Junior Life Saving course, Larry,” Mother said. “She’s very good around water.”

  My eyelids flipped up in surprise. Mother giving me compliments! That was more unbelievable than our ghosts.

  In the car I thanked Larry. “That was the most delicious dinner I ever ate.” I gave him a kiss to seal the thanks.

  “You’re welcome, sweetheart.”

  “It must have been good,” Mother said. “Chip even ate his salad.”

  “I did?” Chip asked.

  “Well, your salad plate was empty when the bus-boy took it away,” Mother pointed out.

  Chip stretched to whisper in my ear. “Dodie, did you eat my salad?”

  “Yeah, do you want it back now?”

  “No!” He scrunched down in the seat between Anne and me, as far out of range as he could get.

  Anne giggled. “Dodie, you’re gross.”

  “Is that why you didn’t want to agree to spending lots of weekends in New York?” I asked her in a low voice.

  She gave me another of those unreadable frowns. “I’m not the one who doesn’t want to be friends,” she said.

  At the moment I didn’t have an answer to that.

  We all piled out of the car and went into the cottage, but Mother stopped on the back steps and looked out at the marsh as if she was just noticing it. Not unusual for Mother—she never pays attention to her surroundings.

  “This is a dismal place, isn’t it?” she said to me.

  “I’ve been trying to tell you that all along.”

  She was quiet. Then she asked in a soft voice, “Don’t I listen when you tell me things, Dodie?”

  “No, but then I don’t usually tell you much,” I admitted.

  “You talk to Larry.”

  “Sure.”

  “He’s a better listener than I am?”

  “He doesn’t try to tear me down.”

  “And I do?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Well, you’re not perfect.”

  I grinned. “No kidding!”

  “Well, you’re not. Nobody is, but it seems to me you deliberately try to appear at your worst, as if you want people to make fun of you, and that infuriates me.”

  “People don’t make fun of me. They think I’m funny. I have loads of friends, Ma. I’m very popular with everybody but you.”

  “Dodie, I don’t criticize you because I don’t love you. It’s because I want so much for you to grow up happy.… It worries me to see you play the clown. I can’t believe that’s going to result in healthy relationships for you.”

  “But I want to be a clown, Ma. Why can’t you love me that way anyway?”

  “I do love you. I just worry about you.”

  “Because I’m so gross. Face it, Mother. You don’t like me. Larry likes me, but you don’t.”

  “That’s not true! I like you very much. I love you. You’re my child.”

  “Your only child. Too bad for you.”

  “Dodie!” She groped for my hand and squeezed it awkwardly. “If you really don’t believe me, and it seems you don’t—Well, I guess if you don’t believe me, I mustn’t be a good mother.”

  I didn’t say a word. I’d gotten too choked up.

  “At least I did one thing right as far as you’re concerned,” she went on sadly. “I married Larry.”

  I had an impulse to tell her she’d done a lot of right things for me, but the words weren’t ripe enough to come out yet. We looked at each other for a while, but neither of us took it any further. I had a premonition, though, that one of these days we might just start talking to each other. After all, she’d never before admitted she could be at fault in anything.

  I followed Anne up to bed still thinking about my mother. Basically, she’s a pretty good mother when she isn’t setting my teeth on edge. I mean, she worries about my health and getting me off to school on time, and she lets me entertain my friends even though we sometimes leave a mess in the kitchen and make a lot of noise. Also, she does happen to be the only mother I’ve got. Maybe I shouldn’t wait to become famous. Maybe I should try to salvage our relationship now. I mean, even if we’re never a total success together, we could do better than disaster. It wouldn’t be so hard for me to say, “Hey, Mom, I’m proud of you.”

  Then maybe someday she would say it back. Like, “You’re okay, Dodie. I’m glad you’re mine.”

  But she’s already said that tonight, hadn’t she? A funny little glob of heat expanded in my belly. “I love you,” she’d said. “I like you.” It could even be the truth! I smiled and tried to let myself believe it.

  Chapter 14

  Anne had me out of the cottage and down at the edge of the marsh at dawn the next morning—well, it was long before breakfast, anyway. A gray mold of clouds over the sun made a murky-looking day. It was hard to tell the sky from the water covering most of the marsh.

  “It’s freezing out,” I said. “Let’s wait until it warms up, at least.�
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  “You don’t have to go,” Anne said. “Just help me turn this boat over.” She had already carried down the oars from under the stairs and laid them alongside our would-be water craft.

  “It’ll sink if I get in,” I warned.

  “Then don’t. I’m not afraid of rowboats, and I’m not going out very far with the letters—just into the creek a little ways.”

  “You can’t even see the creek. The tide’s not out yet.”

  “It’s over there. See where there’s grass poking up above the water? You can see a path through the middle.”

  “Ummm.” I helped her shove the rowboat through the slick mud until it floated in about a foot of water.

  “See, there’s no leaks,” Anne said, climbing in. She had the letters in a plastic bag on the bow seat.

  “Make way. I’m coming aboard,” I warned. If it didn’t sink with me in it, maybe it was safer than Larry thought. I sat beside Anne in the middle. Nothing happened except the boat rode a little lower.

  “All set?” Anne asked cheerfully. “Let’s row that way.” She pointed toward that watery path she’d found between the bristling grass tips.

  I rowed and grumbled. “We didn’t bring anything along to bail with.… I just hate when all that stuff’s growing in the water. Anything could be down there waiting to grab you, and it’s slimy. I hate slimy things, like wet spaghetti and oysters. Clams aren’t so bad, but I hate oysters, also—”

  “I’m glad you came,” Anne interrupted.

  “Well, we’ve gone this far together—might as well see it to the end. Besides, I’m a better swimmer than you are—just in case.”

  “Would you save me from drowning, Dodie?”

  “Sure I would. What kind of question is that?”

  “Because I know you don’t like me.”

  “What gives you that idea?”

  “Like last night. You didn’t like it when my father talked about us all spending time together after the vacation’s over.”