The Way Back to Happiness (16 page)

“He’s not so bad.”

He didn’t say anything for a long time. He didn’t move at all. “That’s not exactly a glowing recommendation.”

She blushed. “I was just . . . well, I spoke without thinking.”

When he just studied her without saying anything more, she cleared her throat. “Glen? I don’t mean to be rude, but I need to get some handouts prepared.”

He crossed the distance between them in three strides and pulled her into his arms. She was so stunned she didn’t have time to gird herself. She collided with his chest at the same moment his mouth descended on hers.

Glen had always been a good kisser—something she’d almost forgotten. Derek was more perfunctory about anything that smacked of foreplay. For a few moments, her and Glen’s mouths remained firmly locked, lips and tongues hastily and clandestinely reacquainting.

It was wrong on so many levels. She shouldn’t be enjoying kissing Glen when she was dating someone else—someone she’d left Glen for. She wasn’t a cheater.

Yet here she was. Cheating.

And at school! Anyone could walk in. Students. The principal.

Jackie Kirby.

A bell went off, and the unexpected noise caused them to jump apart. They both cast horrified gazes toward the classroom door. But it was closed.

They looked back at each other, and in that second, Bev realized the sound was the egg timer. She groaned and grappled for it, tossing it in the desk drawer.

“I shouldn’t have done that,” Glen said.

“No, you shouldn’t have. And I shouldn’t—”

Before she could argue more, he held his hand out, traffic-warden style. “No need to explain.”

But she couldn’t remain silent. “I hope it was nothing I said.”

“No, it’s what you didn’t say,” Glen said. “You didn’t say you love him. Or that he loves you.”

She spluttered. “But that’s . . . of course I . . .” But no matter how much she felt was riding on choking out
I love him
for Glen to hear and believe, the words lodged stubbornly in her throat.

Glen watched her struggle for a moment. “I get it. I behaved like a lunatic just now—like a barbarian. Don’t worry. I won’t lunge at you again. There’s no reason we can’t continue on as before. Civilized. Professional. Right?”

She nodded. That was exactly what she wanted.

So why did she feel so disappointed?

Glen spun on his heel and marched out the door, and she collapsed like a wet noodle into the chair behind the teacher’s desk. She looked at Bugs, whose little nose was twitching with curiosity. She imagined her own heart was beating as fast as his.

E
very day after school Alabama raced home, either alone or with Stuart, to check the mail. She needed to get to the box ahead of Bev, for two reasons. First, the Columbia House Record Club was sending her demands for payment that she couldn’t make until her allowance started up again. Also, she was expecting a letter from Granny Jackson.

The demands came like clockwork. The other letter never arrived.

Because Bev had so many afterschool activities to oversee, or work to finish up, she was rarely with Alabama to witness the disappointment over her grandmother’s failure to write back. She wouldn’t have understood her letdown anyway. Granny Jackson was still Alabama’s secret, but she wanted to keep it that way until the day she could announce to Bev that she had found a benefactress.

Just when she was beginning to lose hope of that day ever arriving, a creamy envelope appeared in the mailbox, addressed to Miss Alabama Putterman in an elegant cursive hand. She ran to her room and shut the door for privacy even though Bev wasn’t there. Tossing herself on her quilt, and then wriggling around so that the zipper of an old dress didn’t poke her back, she opened the envelope and pulled out two sheets of matching cream stationery, covered front and back with that small, perfectly slanted handwriting.

When Alabama finished the letter, her heart was thumping so hard in her ears it drowned out her thoughts. The insinuations and insults swam before her eyes. And then those final words:
Please let Bev know that she should be expecting a call from us
. No! This was not what she wanted!

She had to read it over again to try to make more sense of it. The second time through, her cheeks puffed with anger at the passages about her mother and the way some things were phrased.
Whoever’s child you are . . . who you call your father?
Did Dorothy Jackson think she was making this up?

Next, she went to the dictionary and checked the word
inebriated.

Unfortunately, it meant exactly what she suspected it did. Drunk. She could imagine that phone call—her mother slurry and loud on one end, and the sensible, not-opinionated-but-very-opinionated Jacksons on the other.

What had her mother said to those people to make them hate not just her but Puttermans in general? The lady acted as if she knew the whole family.

Lucky! That showed how clueless Granny Jackson was.

She put the letter aside and stewed for a while. So much for finding acceptance from a new family. Then, taking it up again, she tried to ignore the anti-Putterman attitude. Maybe Dorothy Jackson viewed this as a legal, financial issue. Which is kind of what she herself had been doing when she started on this benefactor quest. But she’d also wanted a place to escape to—a new home. Even if it was only during vacations between semesters at boarding school.

The mention of lawyers disturbed her more than her grandmother’s skepticism. Lawyers were serious, and they didn’t deal with fourteen-year-olds. Scariest of all was the prospect of Dorothy Mabry Jackson’s sensible daughter calling Bev. This letter was mailed days ago, so that call could happen at any moment!

What was she going to do? There was no way she could hide what she was up to if they were going to call her aunt. She would have to fess up and face the wrath of Bev.

She spent the next hour setting the stage. Using what she could find in the fridge, she started making a meal. Hamburgers were safe. She could do that. Bev had forgotten to buy buns, which wasn’t like her, but they could manage with sliced bread. While she worked, she put on an album of her mom’s—Jim Morrison—and cranked up the volume till breaking on through to the other side of something felt like an achievable goal.

What had Dorothy Jackson meant by that? Who would be the right person?

She was tossing a salad when—unheard—Bev appeared at her elbow. Alabama screamed, which made Bev shriek. Salad ended up tossed on the floor, and Alabama streaked out to the living room to turn down the volume.

“Sorry,” she said.

Bev was surveying the goings-on in the kitchen, arms akimbo. “What are you making?”

“Cheeseburgers.”

Her aunt sucked in her breath. “Did you use all the ground chuck? I was going to fix meatloaf.”

That would explain the no-bun situation. Oops. “I didn’t know.”

Her aunt sighed and dropped her purse on the table. “Oh well, it’s no biggie. I’ve had a rough day, and tomorrow we have to drive to Dallas. It’ll be nice not to have to cook.”

A rough day was a bad sign. But maybe she could shake her out of it—before the day got rougher. “Good—you just sit there. I’m doing everything. Would you like a glass of tea? Crystal Light?”

Bev lowered herself into a chair, her expression guarded. “Why are you doing everything?”

Alabama shrugged. “Because I felt like it.”

“You felt like cooking?”

“I used to cook for my mom and me sometimes. I thought you’d be pleased.”

“I am . . .” Her head remained tilted at a suspicious angle. “. . . I guess.”

“Here—I’ll put on Judy Collins.” “Both Sides Now” could usually be counted on to soothe the savage Bev.

Not today, however. When she ran back to the kitchen, her aunt’s eyes burned into her as if she could see right through to her conniving little heart.

“What’s going on?” Bev asked.

“Nothing,” Alabama insisted. “I’m just trying to do something nice for you. Jeez.”

“I could almost believe that you would make dinner to be nice, especially since you like hamburgers anyway. But you’ve never voluntarily put on one of my records. So you might as well tell me what’s going on. Did you break something?”

“No.”

“Do you need money? Because I told you, going without your allowance is part of the punishment.”

“I know that. It’s not about money.”

“So there is something.”

“Well . . .” She’d hoped to butter Bev up before confession time. She hadn’t expected the buttering up part to backfire on her. “Okay, here’s the deal. I got a letter today from my grandmother.”

“From Mama?”

“My other grandmother. Dorothy Jackson.”

Her aunt’s face went white, which threw Alabama. Bev wasn’t supposed to wig out until the subject of lawyers came up.

“She wrote to you? Why? I didn’t even know those people acknowledged your existence.”

“They didn’t . . . until I wrote to them.”

Bev let the words sink in. “You wrote to the Jacksons.”

“There’s just one now,” Alabama explained. “Mr. Jackson died.”

Bev absorbed this with a slow nod. “And what did you say to them?”

“I said that I wanted to get to know my father’s family.”

“Why?”

Alabama blinked. “Why what?”

“Why do you want to know them if they never acknowledged you before?”

“Why shouldn’t I?” Alabama couldn’t keep the defensiveness out of her voice. “He was my father, and I know nothing about them.”

“That’s right. You know nothing about those people. And now, out of the blue, you decide to look them up. Why?”

It dawned on her that Bev was getting mad. Really mad. “Because . . . because I wanted to see if they had any interest in . . . you know.”

“Taking you in?”

Alabama nodded.

Bev tossed her napkin on the table. “I see. Because you’re so mistreated here. One little punishment—no allowance for two weeks—and you’re ready to move out.”

“No—I’d already written her by then.”

“You started this that long ago? Behind my back?”

Alabama felt like a worm squirming on the hook. Why should she have to apologize? “She’s my grandmother. Why shouldn’t I want to get to know her?”

Bev looked as though she was about to argue some more, then she hiccupped a breath. “And so she wrote back to you. What did she say?”

“Well . . .” Alabama exhaled. “I might as well show you.” She got up and retrieved the letter from her room.

As Bev scanned the note, she issued clucks and grunts with increasing volume as she slapped the pages over. When she finished, she exclaimed, “
A claim! Reputedly!
She’s writing as though you’re trying to finesse your way into riches, like that Anastasia woman, the tsar’s daughter. Who I’ve always believed, by the way.”

Alabama’s discomfort increased. In a way, she
was
trying to finesse her way in. Not that she wanted riches. . . .

Although Columbia House wouldn’t wait forever.

“Let them call,” Bev said. “I’ll give Dorothy Jackson, or her daughter-minion, Dot, a piece of my mind.”

Alabama shot to her feet. Bev was going to ruin everything. “Don’t do that, please,” she said. “They might think I told you to.”

Bev blinked at her in disbelief. “You mean you still want to meet this person?”

“She’s my grandmother, isn’t she?”

“Yes, but read what she says. I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, Alabama, but you don’t even have to read between the lines here. She thinks that Diana was lying and that you’re angling for something.” Bev huffed. “I’d like to strangle her skinny neck.”

Alabama leaned against the counter and watched her aunt go over the letter again. The trouble was, she understood where her grandmother was coming from. In her own letter she’d sent to Mrs. Jackson, she hadn’t wanted to gush or plead. Maybe she hadn’t made herself seem personable enough, either. If she’d included a picture, maybe the woman would have seen her differently, would have reacted with more emotion. “She doesn’t know me.”

“Whose fault is that?”

Alabama wasn’t sure. Maybe it was the fault of the Jacksons, for whatever had happened all those years ago. But her mother obviously hadn’t helped. “What do you think Mom said to those people to make them so mad? It’s like Dorothy Jackson’s got a grudge against our whole family.”

Bev shoved the letter away from her, and suddenly her expression shuttered. “I was never quite sure.”