The Quiet Room Read Online Free Page A

at school, sometimes walking there, sometimes biking. Little Steven took to kindergarten as if he had been going there all his life. And even Mark, who at first felt awkward and shy in his new neighborhood, eventually began to feel comfortable. The house really began to feel like home to us, with its big yard for snowmen and leaf piles, and even a kid's playhouse out back.
    My mom and I made excursions to museums in the city, both dressed alike in red and white checked blouses and wire-rimmed sunglasses. We ate foot-long hot dogs and chocolate milk shakes, and laughed at people's outfits on the train on the way home. Dad played paddle tennis or shot hoops with Mark and Steven. On Sundays he played golf, and he often let me come along to drive the golf cart or walk the course with him and keep score.
    Of course, I think our family could have been happy just about anywhere. Maybe it was because we moved so often that we never really got to know our other relatives. For us, the word “family” meant the five of us. We were all very close. One day when Daddy was taking pictures around the fireplace, he got irritated and raised his voice at me. I started to cry. And then, because I was crying, Steven started crying. Then Mark began sobbing, and pretty soon the whole family was in tears. No one of us could even feel anything without everyone else feeling it too.
    We had a whole private language, that only we could understand. When someone was sick, we'd call the sick person Ill-ke Sommer. A Telly was a short haircut, as in Telly Savalas. If someone yelled “GPY,” it meant “God is Punishing You.” That was what happened when someone, say, Mark, stole the biggest French fry off my tray, and then burned the roof of his mouth.
    After we moved to New York, Dad came home from work every night at 6:30. We were always so hungry that by 6:31 we were already seated on the wicker chairs around the butcher block table in the kitchen. We each had our own places, but because it was a kitchen set for four, the kids rotated the extra spot on the step stool.
    No matter how busy Daddy had been during the day, at night at dinner he was completely ours. We talked about politics. We talked about current events. Then Daddy went around the table asking us each one by one what we had done during the day. On Thanksgiving, Dad had another ritual: He went around the table again, only this time he asked us each to tell the family about the things we were thankful for. We kids always hooted and hollered, and cut up in embarrassment, but at bottom, we liked it. We all knew just how lucky we were.
    Growing up, I had always felt special. I was the oldest. I was the only girl. And I always liked having the center stage.
    I loved attention. To get it, I usually chose achievement. I was the kid in the Spanish class with the best accent. I was always vying for the lead in the school play. When I was only picked literary editor—and not editor-in-chief—of the school publication, I was really upset. Whatever I did had to be done all the way.
    Sometimes, though, I got my attention through pranks. I was always a show-off, and once I got myself kicked out of math class for stuffing a dissected frog into the light socket of the overhead projector where my teacher could find it when she went to see why it didn't work.
    From when I was a little girl, I loved performing. I remember my favorite toy wasn't a Barbie or a bicycle. It was a Jerry Mahoney dummy that I got for Christmas one year. I learned to throw my voice, and I loved entertaining my parents with my little skits. I decided that when I grew up I would be a ventriloquist.
    Scarsdale was filled with successful people—lawyers, doctors, stockbrokers—all of whom wanted their kids to be successful too. So demanding parents and competitive kids were nothing unusual. There was no question about whether you were going to college. Everyone went. The question was how good a school you could get into. Everyone