Twillyweed Read Online Free Page B

ready—yet. She shut it. She placed the blue stones in the sack carefully, pulled the drawstring shut, and dropped it into her pocket. Then she made her way up to the kitchen. Ascending from her fluorescent-lit cave, she was startled by the sunshine in the windows. It was a relief.
    â€œGood morning,” she greeted Patsy Mooney, who jumped guiltily and sprang to her feet. She’d been holding the Newsday and doing the Jumble. Nibbling delicately at a slice of cinnamon toast, she set another place for Jenny Rose. She danced around the table, light on her feet, the way some heavy people are. She had dainty hands and feet and unblemished skin, and very little, darting eyes.
    â€œCoffee?” She held up the pot.
    â€œIf you don’t mind, I’d love a cup of tea. I could make it myself if it’s too much trouble.”
    â€œDo I look like it’s too much trouble?” she said sharply.
    â€œOh! My, no. I’m sorry. Yes. I’d love a cup of tea.”
    â€œOh, all right. I’m sorry, too. Start fresh, all right? I’m not much for the morning.”
    â€œNeither am I,” Jenny Rose said, relieved, although she loved mornings, but she didn’t want to start off on the wrong foot.
    They sat together and waited for the pot to boil. A collection of white seashells rimmed Patsy Mooney’s workspace and her jars of wooden spoons. Jenny Rose studied her with her artist’s eye: the woman’s arms short and hairless, the skin of a beautiful woman stretched like a balloon over a sly face. Stupid, but sly. A taste for the flashy. This morning she wore a dress of cherries dancing over cotton cream. Her chubby wrist strained under a bauble of red and white poppets and her eyes strayed back to the paper. Jenny Rose realized she’d destroyed the woman’s happy solitude and decided from now on to bring a book to the table so as to restore her peace. She knew she’d been staring at her, but kept memorizing her just the way she was so she could draw her later. There was no eye like that of a first glance.
    In an odd, falsely cheery voice from left field, Patsy Mooney pried suddenly, “Didn’t like things at home, huh?” It was like she’d heard it from someone else and had been saving it up. “Nowhere else to go?”
    Jenny Rose didn’t see why she always had to be so cross. She extended her spine and settled her most forbidding look on the older woman.
    Catching on to this new restraint, Patsy stirred her coffee counterclockwise. “Seems to me”—she spilled a little and sucked a tooth, revising her approach—“most young girls stay close to home …” She let that hang in the air.
    â€œIt’s true,” Jenny Rose said pleasantly. The woman was just being friendly. “I like to travel, though. Are you from New York, then?”
    â€œThat’s me. Born and raised in Oceanside.” She paused. “That’s the South Shore. You won’t see much of that.” She nudged her chin, indicating the rest of the house. “This here is the fancy North Shore. The gold coast, they call it. They think anyone lives on the South Shore ain’t worth the time of day.”
    Jenny Rose laughed politely and inquired, “When will I see the little boy?”
    â€œLook at that! Almost forgot what I was supposed to tell you! Dear diary, I’m thick as a post! Now. Wendell’s adopted. They told you that, right?”
    â€œNo,” she answered simply, delighted. Now she liked him even more. But she wasn’t about to tell busybody here that her reason for coming to the United States was to find her own birth mother. She smiled pleasantly.
    â€œRight. Well, he is. But that’s neither here nor there. He goes to school every day, see. I get him off to the bus and that’ll be your job.”
    â€œSchool? Isn’t he just four?”
    â€œAlmost five. You wouldn’t want him to