DON’T read this, Mrs. Dunphrey.
All week I’ve been real jumpy, scared someone would find out, scared some bill would come I couldn’t pay, scared of everything. But it’s weird, life is going on just fine without Mom.
Last night I got the nerve to call Mom’s friend Brenda, to kind of feel her out and see if she knew anything. I pulled this trick we used to play on people back in junior high—I pretended she was the one who called me, and I was just talking to be polite. Back in junior high, Sandy used to be real good at confusing people, doing that. I remember she made Jenny Marlin cry one time with that trick. I wasn’t sure Brenda was dumb enough to fall for it, but it worked. (I think she’d been drinking when I called.) What I got out of Brenda was this: Mom quit her job at Haggarty’s, but she told everyone it was just because she got a better job somewhere else. (Yeah, right. She’s lucky she never got fired at Haggarty’s, the way she kept taking sick days.) Last Brenda heard, Dad was somewhere out west, California, maybe. Brenda didn’t know anything about Mom going to find him. She just thought Mom had gone kind of snobby since she got this other job.
The funny thing is, right before we were hanging up, Brenda said to me, “Well, I just called to tell your mom she shouldn’t forget all of us at Haggarty’s, just because she’s making twice the money now. Tell her to stop in and say ‘hi’ sometime, if she wants to keep her friends.”
Guess I have to give Mom some credit for fooling Brenda, too. Except, Brenda’s a pretty dim bulb.
At least I know now for sure—or pretty sure—that nobody’s out there nosing around, finding out about Mom leaving us, wanting to split Matt and me up.
Tish,
You only have three entries this time, but your first one is so exceptionally long that I’ll give you full credit, anyhow. Try to write four entries next time, okay?