Time Windows (5 page)

"Mmm," murmured Miranda. She was hardly listening, thinking instead about Lucinda and Donald and wondering what was wrong with Iris.

"Earth to Mandy," said Philip.

"What?"

"You're really off in a world of your own these days, honey," he said. "What have you been up to?"

"Nothing, really." She didn't know why she felt she had to keep the dollhouse magic a secret—usually she told her parents everything. Somehow she felt this was different. "I—I just have a stomachache."

Helen leaned forward with concern in her eyes. "I thought it was your sinuses. Honey, are you coming down with something?"

"Maybe you should go lie down," added Philip. "You've hardly eaten anything."

"We can cancel dessert with the Hootons," added Helen.

"No, it's okay." The last thing she wanted was for them to be making a huge fuss over her. "I'll be fine in a while. I'll just rest for a half hour." Miranda left the room quickly and was up the stairs in seconds. She sat on her bed for a moment, fully intending to lie down for the promised half hour. But then she felt the attic irresistibly pulling her back.

She tiptoed quietly to the attic door and hurried up the steps. She walked toward the dollhouse, her eyes fixed on its little windows. The dollhouse, with its dark windows, its shuttered eyes looking into another world. The dollhouse, with its intricate carving, tiny hinges, miniature bricks and boards, and secrets.

The dollhouse. She slipped into place behind it.

 

Timmy lay across his bed in a small heap. His sobs, muffled by the thick blanket, were barely audible. The curtains were drawn against the patter of rain outside, but occasional flashes of lightning shot brilliant streaks across the wall.

Outside in the hall Timmy and Miranda heard the sound of voices, his parents' voices rising and falling in heated consultation. The door handle turned, clicked, turned the other way. Timmy's sobs rose painfully. "Timmy? Timmy! Open the door, son." That was Andrew's quiet voice.

"Timothy!" Iris sounded furious.

Timmy cried harder. "Go away," he screamed. "I hate you!"

"You open this door right now, young man," snarled Iris. "Open it now, or I'll take it off the hinges, and if I have to do that, you are going to get—"

"Now, Iris—," interjected Andrew. "Don't threaten him—"

"Timothy, I'm warning you. This is the last time I'm going to say it.
Open this door.
"

Timmy shuffled to the door, turned the key, and quickly flung himself back onto the bed. Iris burst into the room, her eyes glittering coldly. Andrew pushed past her and rushed to his son, gathering the small boy in his arms. "Hush, old boy. Hush now, it's all right." Timmy struggled in his father's arms for a second, then relaxed and lifted his tear-stained face.

"She
hurt
me, Daddy," he whimpered. "Why did she hurt me?"

Andrew's lips tightened and he threw an accusing look at his wife. Iris's face had grown pale. The hand she reached out to Timmy shook slightly.

"Can you tell me about it, Tim? Tell me what happened."

"She hit me," began Timmy softly, glancing timidly over his shoulder at Iris. "With a lamp. It—broke. And then she said I broke it. But I didn't, honest! She broke it herself, trying to catch me and Jeff. We were playing tag. She threw it at me..." His voice dwindled and he buried his face against Andrew's shoulder.

"Iris?" Andrew's voice was hollow.

Iris flinched, then moved closer to the bed. "Timmy, Timmy, baby, I'm sorry." Her voice shook and tears streamed down her face. "I don't know what came over me. I really don't know why I did it—I just had such a horrible headache all of a sudden ... Oh, darling, please forgive me. I'm so sorry..."

"Don't cry, Mommy, don't cry," sobbed Timmy.

Her soft voice rose in near hysteria. "I don't even remember what happened! I can't remember!" She grabbed her husband's arm imploringly. "Please forgive me, Andrew, please."

Andrew lay back against the headboard, staring at her incredulously. "You hit him with a
lamp?
With a lamp—and you can't remember?"

"No," she moaned. "Oh, Andrew, please. I'm so afraid."

"God, Iris, you expect me to believe that?"

Iris wrapped her arms tightly around Timmy and smoothed his hair with her chin. "Andrew," she said. "It's the house. We've got to get out of this house ... I'm afraid here." Her hands trembled around the child.

"Afraid of what?" cried Timmy, lifting his head.

"Ssh, shush now," said Andrew, hastily standing up. "We should get some sleep and wake up fresh tomorrow. How about it, old boy?" He settled Timmy in bed, drawing up the covers. "We'd better go see where Jeff has gone off to," murmured Andrew, putting his arm around Iris's shoulders.

Iris stepped free and bent over Timmy again, gathering him into her arms. "Please believe I never meant to hurt you, Timmy," she whispered. "Please believe that."

Iris and Andrew moved to the door and Andrew reached out to flick off the light. Timmy's voice stopped his hand in midair. "Will you be here when I wake up?"

They looked at Timmy's reddened, tearful eyes and moved closer together. For a moment, Miranda was reminded of a seventeenth-century painting she once saw in the New York Art Museum: grieving parents standing over their dead child, a priest hovering near a window in the background, having arrived too late.

"Yes, darling, we'll be here. Always."

 

Miranda's stomachache was no lie now. She left the attic and went down to her room. She lay on her bed and covered her stomach with her palms.

Helen poked her head in. "What is it, Mandy?" She came in, followed by Philip. They stood by her bed.

"Okay, honey?" asked Philip.

Miranda lay on top of the sheet and looked at them leaning over her, watching her anxiously. For a second the scene appeared in her mind's eye as it would if she were watching it through the dollhouse windows. "It's just a stomachache," she told them. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

Philip stretched out his hand as if to feel her forehead for a fever but lowered it to stroke Miranda's face, cupping her chin. Helen leaned down and kissed Miranda's cheek.

A feeling of déjà vu stole over Miranda. Had this all happened before? She was suddenly no longer sure if she was the observer or if she was the one being observed. Was there another dollhouse in another time? Was someone looking into
her
bedroom, watching
her
parents bend over her in concern? Was someone else, in fact, reminded of a seventeenth-century oil painting? The soft cotton sheet felt scratchy against her cheek when she turned her head to the wall.

"Have a good nap, Mandy," said Helen.

The words seemed to fall from her lips, unbidden: "Will you be here when I wake up?" She stared at the wall. She could hear the surprise in their voices.

"Of course we'll be here," her mother said.

And her father added: "Always."

No breeze stirred the humid air that evening when Helen, Philip, and Miranda joined the Hooton family on the veranda of the huge old house across the street. Ed Hooton, a tall man with a red beard, welcomed them with a big smile and a tray of lemonade. Virginia Hooton shook hands all around and invited them to sit down in the wicker rockers that dotted the big porch. "I'm so glad you could come," she said. "And it's nice to meet you at last, Miranda. The boys'll be glad, too. There aren't any other young people on the street."

Miranda smiled at her and settled back into a rocker. She wasn't really interested in meeting "the boys"—although she did wonder a little at her own reaction. Back in New York she and Nicole both had had their eyes on the cute twins in algebra—Josh and Jon Allen—and finally were bold enough to ask them to the spring dance. They double dated. The guys sat on the bleachers most of the time, talking about basketball, while she and Nicole watched the dancers and wondered what they'd seen in the twins in the first place.

Before she'd moved, Miranda was already looking around for other possibilities. But here in Garnet boys—any other people, really—seemed less like possibilities and more like liabilities. She smiled at the realization that the little Kramer kids—or the beautiful Lucinda—were a lot more interesting than Josh Allen. Any of the dollhouse people were, for that matter.

Two boys bounded up onto the porch from the yard. The younger one was about Dorothy's age, Miranda guessed. The older was about her own age. Both had straight dark hair like their mother and almost identical faces.

"Hi," said the older boy. "I'm Dan. My parents have gone on for days about the new neighbors. But I was beginning to wonder whether you really existed."

"My name's Buddy," the younger boy said. "And you're skinny."

Miranda just looked at them. She had to reach inside herself to pull out her company manners and her usually sociable self. It seemed so long since she'd talked to anyone. She had grown so accustomed in the past weeks to just listening. She smiled at the boys with effort. "You guys look like twins, do you know that? Except in height, of course."

"And brains," said Dan.

The younger boy punched him in the arm. "You—"

"What grade will you be in?" Dan asked Miranda quickly.

"Eighth."

"I'll be in ninth. What classes are you going to take?"

Miranda hadn't registered at the new school yet; and when she admitted this, the talk on the porch turned to all the details of settling in that still needed to be handled.

"We're always amazed how quickly people settle into a new place," said Mrs. Hooton with a little laugh.

"I don't think I'd know the first thing about moving," added Mr. Hooton. "I've only lived away from Garnet for four years—and that was back in college. Of course, we travel on vacation, but that's different." His cigarette flared in the growing darkness. "Hootons out of Garnet are like fish out of water."

"Dad! You're supposed to quit smoking!" Buddy frowned at him.

"I'm not doing too badly, Buddy. Down to two a day."

"I gave up smoking this past year," said Philip. "It's hard to do, but worth it." He took a big, deep breath. "Just listen to those clean lungs! Not a rattle."

"Don't get Phil started," laughed Helen. "He's a walking advertisement for good health these days." She turned to Mrs. Hooton, changing the subject. "Have you lived here a long time, too?"

"Practically forever. My great-great-grandparents had a house down by the river."

"We think it's fitting that we should run the museum," said Mr. Hooton, "since our families are more or less museum pieces themselves."

The adults laughed and settled back with more lemonade, talking about the ups and downs of living in a museum. Mr. Hooton explained that he and his wife had both worked in a museum in Boston but had found the commute too tiring. "Then it dawned on us a couple of years ago that we were practically living in a museum already—with all the odds and ends and furniture and stuff we'd collected from our families through the generations. We thought, why not make all this history available to other Garnet families?"

"I admire your courage in taking a new track," said Philip, and went on to tell about leaving his teaching position. Dan and Buddy jostled each other's rocking chairs, each trying to rock faster and harder than the other. Miranda tucked her legs up under her and leaned her head back against the cushion in her chair. She stared out over the lawn, through the trees and across the street to where her own house crouched in the darkness. Fireflies glittered in the bushes around the porch. She closed her eyes, pictured the dollhouse, and felt a restlessness come over her. She wanted to be home.

"Hey, I said, want to toss a ball around?"

She opened her eyes and blinked at Dan. "Sorry, I didn't hear you."

"Were you asleep?" asked Buddy.

"No, I'm just tired." She smiled and shook her head. "I don't really want to play ball. You guys go ahead. I'm fine here." She picked her glass up off the table and sipped the lemonade.

"Oh, come on. I'll pitch nice and easy."

"Pitch as hard as you like. I'll have you know I played Softball on my school team in New York!"

"Great! Then come on."

"No, really." She shifted in her chair and stared out over the lawn. "I don't feel like it now."

Dan shrugged. "Okay." He was off the porch in an instant, running out into the yard with Buddy. Miranda pretended to listen to the adults' conversation, counting fireflies in the dark until it was time to leave.

 

In the morning Helen drove their small car down the hill into town. Miranda sat in the front seat next to her, one arm around her flute case in her lap, the other resting on the window to catch the fresh, fragrant wind

"Ah, Mandy," said Helen. "What a great change from New York!"

Miranda had to agree. Garnet in summer was sparkling and scented with flowers from gardens bordering the shady yards of old and gracious houses set well back from the narrow streets. New York City in summer was gritty, oppressive, and smoggy, and the sidewalks radiated dust. Last year they'd had a heat inversion that lasted so long—the smog lying thick and heavy, obscuring the tops of skyscrapers—that there had been talk of gas masks. Miranda had had a doomed feeling that she would smother if the air-conditioning in the apartment broke down, as it sometimes did in the hottest weather. But here in Garnet a gas mask would be laughable, as ridiculous as a Halloween mask in July.

Helen drove leisurely through the quiet streets. "There's the village commons," she said. "Ed Hooton said the American troops practiced there during the Revolutionary War." The commons stretched out before them on the left, a green, tree-filled park. Children played on swings and slides while adults relaxed on blankets and read. The park benches, where newspaper-reading citizens enjoyed their coffee breaks, were surrounded by pigeons who demanded and received donut crumbs and other tidbits.

"Here's our agenda," said Helen. "First we go to the junior high and get you enrolled. Eighth grade already! I can't believe it."