Carrie was glad for it, in a way, because it gave Genie time to carry out the first part of her plan-calling the Express and subscribing to the paper. Carrie still couldn’t get over how bold Genie was.
Still, it might not have worked. Maybe the person in Circulation at the Express had not been fooled by Genie, had recognized that this was a child’s voice. The phone had rung a few times later in the day-maybe the paper had called to confirm something, and Mom had said that there was a mistake.
No, if that had happened, the paper would have asked about the address and the credit card, and she would have pressured both girls into telling her what they had done. The thought of this happening at some later point made her feel scared.
Last night the boys blurted out the news to Dad that Uncle Dex had visited, of course. Dad was cheerful with the boys about it, but he looked at Mom, and she gave him a smug kind of smile. After that, Mom and Dad didn’t look at each other all night. They didn’t talk to each other. Dad went out for a while and didn’t get back home until late. Thinking about this made Carrie’s stomach hurt.
“Listen!” Genie whispered.
They both heard the noise before they saw the headlights, a low motor sound punctuated by drawn-out, high-pitched squeals. A pickup truck with bad brakes was coming up the street. It was going slowly, as if the driver wasn’t sure of his destination. He stopped the truck in front of their house.
Hurry up and get out of here! Carrie screamed inside her head. At long last the paper was tossed and landed at the foot of the driveway with a soft thump. The truck drove off. The girls hurried silently to the stairs. Carrie followed Genie’s method of going down them, stepping at the outer edges, avoiding the one that sometimes creaked.
Genie was at the front door in a flash and waited there for Carrie to reach the security system controls.
Ignoring the shaking in her fingers, Carrie entered the code on the keypad exactly as Genie had told her to. This did not set off the howling alarm, as she had feared it might, but the three quick beeps acknowledging that it was disarmed seemed loud enough to wake the whole household. Genie smiled at her, but Carrie cringed, expecting their father to come running down the stairs. He didn’t-the house slept on, even through the soft swooshing of the opening of the door. Carrie hurriedly grabbed the door before it could swing shut. Genie was already on her way to the end of the drive.
It would be easy! It would be easy after all!
Then, as Carrie watched in dismay, Mrs. Pherson came out of her house. She halted and stared at Genie. Her attention moved to Carrie, standing in the doorway.
“Good morning,” she called to the girls. “You two are up early!”
Carrie felt her shoulders hunching up, as if she could become a turtle. But Genie smiled and nodded, then hurried back inside.
Carrie softly shut the door as Genie rushed upstairs, then Carrie reset the alarm.
Carrie was halfway up the stairs when her parents’ bedroom door opened.
Her father stepped into the hallway and shut the bedroom door behind him. He was fully dressed and seemed distracted. He did not see her, frozen in place, until he reached the top of the stairs. “Carrie?” he asked in a low voice, freezing in place as well.
“Good morning, Dad,” she said softly back.
“What are you doing up?”
She shrugged. “I couldn’t sleep.”
His brows drew together in worry. “Your hand bothering you?”
She nearly lied, but foresaw that this might lead to further worry on his part, or a trip to see Dr. Susan, where her fakery would be exposed. “Not really.”
He moved down to where she stood, sat on the stairs, and patted the place next to him. Obediently, she sat.
“You’re cold,” he said. “You should have put slippers and a robe on. Or…” He frowned, seeming to notice she was dressed. “Shoes and a sweatshirt.”
She found herself wondering, as she looked more closely at his own attire, why he was fully dressed so early in the day. He saw her notice, and seemed to try to head off any questions about his own early rising. “Not feeling sick, are you?” he asked.
“No, I’m fine.”
He studied her face.
“Carrie, is anything troubling you?”
Suddenly it seemed as if the truth had become a big fish inside of her, swimming hard, wanting to break to the surface. He asked this question so sincerely, so lovingly, she felt the certainty of his love for her, and of her own love for him in return. But she had Genie to think of.
And then, looking at him, she saw the trouble in his own eyes. The big fish changed into a question of her own.
“Daddy, what’s wrong with you and Mommy?”
She hadn’t used these younger child’s terms for them for so long, but she felt small now. Afraid.
He tensed, then looked away. “We’ll be okay,” he said.
“I don’t like Uncle Dex,” she blurted out.
He put an arm around her and hugged her to him. “It’s okay,” he said. “It’s okay.” His voice sounded funny, almost as if he might cry or something, which made her very afraid. She took his hand in hers and held it. He smiled and took a deep breath and said, “Don’t be mad at Uncle Dex, honey. He’s not a very happy man. Right now…well, your mother’s not very happy, either.”
“Why?”
“Hard to explain. But no one would want to worry you, not me, not Mom, not Uncle Dex. Soon things will work out. I promise you. Everything will be all right, and you and I won’t let anybody worry us or make us get up early in the morning.” His voice had lightened by the end of that, as if they shared a little joke. He squeezed her shoulders again and said, “Think you can get back to sleep?”
“I think so,” she lied.
“Good. Now, I’m going for a little drive, just to clear my head.”
“You aren’t leaving us?” she asked anxiously.
“Never, Carrie. Never. You remember that, okay?”
“Yes.” She hugged him hard, smelled his aftershave, and felt comforted by the familiar scent. He ruffled her hair, then helped her to her feet as he came to his own. She promised she would go back to bed, and he kissed her cheek before he left.
He was gone from the house for several minutes before she climbed the stairs to her bedroom. Everybody was acting so weird. Where was he going so early in the morning? What was bothering him?
Genie was waiting for her, her eyes wide and her face pale. She seemed scared, but at the same time wore an expression that Carrie immediately recognized as her most determined look.
“Don’t worry,” Carrie said. “I’m not in trouble. And he doesn’t even know you’re awake.”
It was as if she hadn’t spoken.
“What kind of animal is Squeegee?” Genie asked.
“A lion,” Carrie said.
Genie burst into tears and handed her the A section of the Las Piernas News Express.
CHAPTER 37
Tuesday, May 2
6:25 A.M.
HUNTINGTON BEACH
WHAT are you doing?” Carrie asked.
In the time since Carrie had read the article, they had whispered questions that could not be answered and reassured each other a dozen times that they were “sisters no matter what.” They had cried softly while hugging each other, then sat quietly together. They had made and discarded half a dozen plans. Now Genie had taken her by the hand and was leading her downstairs again.
“We have to call her now, before Mom wakes up,” Genie whispered back.
“Who?”
“Irene Kelly.”
Irene Kelly was the reporter who had written the story about Carrie. Or a story about a girl named Carla, whose picture looked like pictures Mom had of Carrie as a baby, but who seemed to Carrie to be a different girl. The room-the room that belonged to that little girl named Carla-looked familiar.