ARR 1988 - Flipbook - Page 46
"Can I go to the park with you after school, Em? My mom said she
wouldn't be home until 5:30, so I don't have to do my homework until later."
Emily hesitated a moment. She had been forbidden to play with Babs.
This small, freckle-faced blonde was a "bad influence." It made her snicker
to think Babs could influence anybody, least of all her. But she was Gentile,
her parents were divorced, and she wasn't a good student. Three strikes and
she was out! But she worshipped Emily and would usually follow Emily 's .
lead. Nobody else was such a good friend.
The moment passed and Emily said, "Meet me there. I'll go home first
and put my books away and change. I'll bring my sled and meet you on top
of the hill."
No problem. Her mother would probably be out as usual, playing
canasta or visiting Grandmother and the maid wouldn't question her about
who she was going with.
It was a glorious afternoon. The park swarmed with children and their
sleds. The snow gradually was transformed from a fluffy, glistenting
comforter to a pock-marked and rutted slushy ant hill. Emily and Babs were
drenched and exhilarated. As the sun moved toward New Jersey and
beyond, children reluctantly began to leave the park. As Emily's apartment
building was directly across from the park on Riverside Drive, Babs accompanied her to the front door where said their good-byes.
Frank, the elevator operator, frowned as Emily sloshed into the cage.
"You're getting the floor all wet! Use the stairs!"
Nine flights was nothing to a thirteen-year-old, even dragging a sled,
on an adrenalin high, but when she reached her floor, that familiar feeling
of apprehension flooded her. She took her galoshes off outside the door and
leaning her Flexible Flyer against the outer wall, fumbled for her key. The
door opened from the inside. Her father had come home early from his
business.
According to her psychology teacher, these were not days where the
denial of privileges and think-it-over-later method of child-rearing prevailed. These were the days, at least in her family, of the belt, a punishment
well worth lying to avoid.
"You were with that McNeil girl."
"No I wasn't. I just went to the park."
And the thunderous bellow, "Who was it your mother saw you walking
with when she looked out the window?"
Did Mother have to be home early, too? Daddy would never have
thought oflooking out the window for her. Tremulous, yet trying again to
avoid the inevitable, she said, "I just met her there. She just happened to
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