A Solitary Blue by Cynthia Voigt Page B

heaven’s sake — what do you think I’m here for?”
    â€œHow old are you?” he asked.
    â€œOh dear, the worst first.” She smiled across the table at him. “I’m thirty-two. What do you think of that?”
    Then you were twenty when I was born. Isn’t that young?”
    She leaned her chin on her hands and nodded her head. He had the feeling she wanted to laugh at him, but if she did, her laughter would be friendly.
    â€œHow tall are you?”
    â€œFive-six and a half.”
    â€œWhere did you go?”
    â€œHome. Here. I came right here, and I’ve been here ever since. I grew up here, Gambo raised me, well, from the time I was nine. This is my real home.”
    â€œWhat about your parents?”
    â€œMy daddy was killed in the Second World War, and after a few years my mother remarried. He was a nice enough man, I guess, but — they moved up to Minnesota, we all did, and he didn’t have any luck. One summer, when I was eight, I visited Gambo — and I was so happy. There wasn’t all the worry about money and keeping jobs and to make it worse my mother had had a couple of children in the meantime — I don’t know. It was what you said, as if somebody had taken so much trouble to make things look nice. So I asked Gambo if I could live with her. It didn’t matter how much it cost because she’s rich. And we got along so well, she sort of adopted me. I’m the only young person in her family, so it’ll all come to me someday anyway.”
    â€œI thought you said your mother was her daughter.”
    â€œShe is. Otherwise how could Gambo be my grandmother?”
    â€œBut didn’t you say there were other children? So you have brothers and sisters or something,” Jeff said.
    Melody shrugged. “Maybe, I don’t know; they don’t keep in touch — and they’re not the same kind of people at all. Gambo’s never even seen them.”
    â€œWhy not?”
    â€œMy mother never brought them here. Well, she couldn’t afford the journey, not on what he makes, so as far as Gambo’s concerned I’m the only one. More questions?”
    â€œHow old were you when you married the Professor?”
    â€œNineteen — I dropped out of school. He was my teacher in the World History survey course.
That
takes me back, it really takes me back.”
    â€œWhy did you go away?” Jeff finally asked.
    â€œOh, Jeffie.” She reached across to put the palm of her hand against his cheek. “There were so many reasons. What does the Professor tell you?”
    Jeff couldn’t answer. That irritated her, so he said quickly, “I never asked him. We never talk about you.”
    At that she laughed again and clapped her hands together. “Isn’t that like him? Just like him, just exactly like him. I thought I could save him, I thought I could wake him up, but I never could. Nobody ever could, that’s what I think now. Look,” she suggested, “you just got here, and you don’t know me, you ought to get to know me and then see what you think. Whether I could have been happy with him. OK?”
    â€œOK.”
    â€œIs that all the questions? After all this time?”
    â€œWell — what are those rings?”
    She held her right hand out. “These” — she touched the turquoises with a fingertip — “were given to me by a man I’m dating. You’ll like him. I hope you’ll like him. It’s his car. And this one” — the old-fashioned looking ring, with the reddish stone — “I found in an antique store. I thought it might be worth something, if the stone was a ruby, and the dealer didn’t have any idea of what she had — she was just some old lady who didn’t know anything; she had no business being in business, I felt so sorry for her — So I bought it, on speculation. But when I had it valued . . .”