The Girl Who Passed for Normal Read Online Free Page A

quite, as she put it, straight enough. It had never worried him before. He had always said that her mother had fallen from another, more puritanical century; her mother, who had worked so hard all her life, first as a waitress, then as the owner of a small restaurant for truck drivers. Her mother had raised two, as she thought, talented daughters, and then felt unhappy when they went off with two talented men, and disappeared — as she had always hoped they would and worked so they could — from her life of hard work and sacrifice .
    David had always said he liked her mother, and that it was natural for her to feel as she did about him; it would have been unnatural, a betrayal, had she not done so.
    But perhaps, Barbara thought, after he had read the letter he had felt that she had come to share her mother’s opinions. Perhaps he had believed that she had gone off to England and stayed there three months because she wanted to get away from him, and had made up the whole story of her mother’s sickness.
    She cursed her mother for being fat and ugly, for having greasy hair and a foul smell, for having worked too hard all her life, for being sick, and for lying. She cursed her for having said all the things she had said about David, and everything else she had ever said. She wondered where David was.
    He couldn’t have gone away; not without his clothes, not just like that, without any message. He must have cleanedthe house for her homecoming, and then, for some reason, gone out. He would be home soon.
    Suddenly, she felt more relaxed. She decided to have a bath. Perhaps while she was in the bath, he would return. Perhaps he was out buying her some flowers. He would be home soon.
    *
    She had her bath, washed her hair, dried it, unpacked her bags, made herself some coffee, looked at her watch about twenty times — and when it was seven-thirty there was still no sign of David.
    She began to feel frightened. Perhaps he had had an accident on his way to the station.
    At eight o’clock she rang Marcello.
    Marcello didn’t know where David was. He hadn’t seen him for more than a week. He asked Barbara when she had got back.
    “I got in this afternoon,” she said, “but David’s not here. I don’t know where he is.”
    Marcello didn’t sound worried, or even particularly interested. He suggested that David had had to do something urgent.
    “Did David say anything about my coming back when you saw him last?” Barbara asked.
    “No.”
    “I’m worried, Marcello. It’s — oh, I don’t know. It makes me frightened. He should be here.”
    Marcello told her not to worry, but said that if David hadn’t returned by ten she should ring again. “Then I’ll worry with you. O.K.?”
    Barbara nodded at the telephone and said, “Yes. I’ll call you back.”
    *
    Once before, David had disappeared. It had been his birthday ; two weeks before, Barbara had said, “I don’t care what we do, but I want us to spend that evening together. We can go out and celebrate, or we can stay home.”
    “O.K.,” David had said vaguely.
    When the evening of his birthday came he insisted that they eat early. As soon as they finished he said he was going out to buy cigarettes. He didn’t return until two the next morning. Barbara waited up for him, determined not to make a scene; but as soon as he came into the bedroom she started crying. “You did it deliberately, just to hurt me,” she said, and David looked at her as if she were a fork that wasn’t quite clean. “I met Marcello,” he said. “We had a drink together. Then we met some friends of his and —”
    “You could have rung me up. You could have —” she tried to control herself, but she couldn’t. “You should have asked me. You promised we could spend this evening together.”
    David had looked petulant. “It’s my birthday, isn’t it?” Then he had added, “Besides, you don’t like Marcello.”
    She had cried, and David had undressed and got into bed without