The Memory Key Read Online Free Page A

It’s been five years, but he still doesn’t like to talk about her.
    It’s a relief when we arrive.
    â€œFinally!” Wendy says as she opens the door. “I’m so glad you could make it. How are you? How’s your head? Do you like potato salad? Everyone’s out in the yard. We got a new grill and they’re trying to figure out how to get it to work. Can you believe it?”
    â€œThank you for having us,” says Dad.
    â€œYour dress!” Wendy touches the silky fabric. “Is it new? I love it.”
    â€œThanks.” I glance at my father but he is already halfway down the hall.
    â€œAre you mad at me?” whispers Wendy.
    â€œWhy would I be mad at you?” I am genuinely puzzled.
    â€œBecause I called your dad and told him what happened.”
    â€œI’m not mad,” I say. “I know you meant well.”
    â€œI did mean well!” Wendy slips her arm through my arm, grinning, and when I blink she transforms into that little girl again. She is showing me around her house on our very first playdate. What do you want to do? Want to see my drawings? Or we can run outside. I have roller skates, do you?
    â€œCome on, Lora,” says grown-up Wendy. “Aren’t you hungry?”
    My voice is lost somewhere in the past, so I nod, and we go out to the backyard. It’s crowded with Wendy’s family: her parents and her brother, plus aunts, uncles, and cousins. The adults are sitting around the table. The kids are roaming around the grass. I look for my dad. He appears wholly involved in conversation with two uncles.
    â€œLora! We heard about your heroics today,” says Mrs. Laskey. Wendy’s mother is not as tall as Wendy, but just as slender, and looks so young that strangers occasionally mistake mother and daughter for sisters. Mrs. Laskey, of course, loves it when this happens. Wendy, of course, hates it.
    â€œIt was nothing.” I jab my elbow into Wendy’s arm. She jabs me back.
    â€œAre you kidding?” Tim materializes out of nowhere andsits next to me. “You saved Ms. Pearl, my favorite teacher ever. In seventh grade she told me that girls would like me better if I stopped shooting spitballs into their hair. Best advice I’ve ever gotten.”
    Wendy giggles and so does Mrs. Laskey, but I am statue-still, praying that the past stays past. Because I don’t want to remember when I had that huge crush on Tim. I don’t want to remember how I pined and pined, though I knew it was hopeless. Of course it was hopeless: Tim was older and funny and charming and popular and cute, so cute with his messy black hair and sleepy eyes and enormous laugh. And I was just that pesky girl who ran around with his kid sister.
    I don’t want to remember that, or what happened after that, so I concentrate on the hardness of my chair under my thighs. “How’s college life?” I ask him, casual as can be.
    â€œTerrible.” He sighs. “On top of schoolwork and studying, last semester I was working at the lab twenty hours a week. All these responsibilities really get in the way of my social life.”
    â€œDon’t listen to him, he just loves complaining,” says Wendy. “Whenever I visit he’s playing computer games with all his nerd friends.”
    Tim turns to his mother. “She’s making it up,” he says. “I promise you, Mom, I would never have nerd friends.”
    Mrs. Laskey beams at her bickering children. It’s always loud and jolly at Wendy’s house, which I appreciate, and appreciate even more right now—all these distractions seem to be holding back the memories. Perhaps my mind is too busy to gowandering into the past when there is so much to look at and listen to and laugh about and eat.
    And there is so much to eat. Dinner is a feast of grilled meat and fish and vegetables and potato salad and fruit salad and green salad and zucchini pie. My aunt calls