Claudia Silver to the Rescue (9780547985602) by Kathy Ebel Page A

it’s
okay.
”
    â€œThat’s right,” Darleen concurred.
    The Parkers headed for Seventh Avenue, and a corner table at Smiling Pizza. On the bus home, Darleen would flash the pass she’d been expertly doctoring since high school graduation, seven years ago.
    Claudia gently peeled Phoebe from her body. “Are you okay?” she asked, grave. Phoebe shook her head. “Is that a stupid question?” Phoebe gave a slight laugh and nodded, wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Let’s go inside,” Claudia said.
    They sat on the futon couch in Claudia’s small living room. Phoebe looked around, taking in the brick-and-plank bookcases, the hanging plants, the rocking chair draped in a Mexican blanket, the Richard Avedon poster of a bald man covered in bees. “Your house is really nice,” she said.
    â€œWhat’s going on?” Claudia asked. Phoebe’s face crumbled as she curled into Claudia’s lap. “Did you get my cards?” Claudia asked.
    â€œCards? No,” said Phoebe. “I don’t get any mail. Robbie confiscates all of it. He says I can have it when I’m eighteen unless he decides to burn it first.”
    Claudia clenched her jaw and stroked her sister’s hair. “It’s okay,” she said.
    â€œNo,” said Phoebe. “It’s not.” The only person she’d sort of told what life was like at home had been Ramona, which was why Mrs. Parker had banned her daughter from stepping foot in their house ever again. Phoebe wished she could stay right here, in her sister’s lap, and not talk about anything, but felt the nagging pressure that confiding in Claudia might be her equivalent of rent.
    â€œWhat I mean is, I will help you, Feebs,” said Claudia.
    Claudia told herself she would figure this one out. She would get another job, and her thousand bucks from Ricky Green and her credit cards would get her from here to there; she could have her own little corner of the Seventh Avenue flea market, and sell back her vintage purses. She’d call Bronwyn’s dad at his law firm and ask him about guardianship and he would find her a pro bono attorney. Phoebe could have her bedroom; Claudia would sleep on the couch. Phoebe would finish high school on an accelerated schedule and get a swimming scholarship to St. John’s and work part-time. She could model, people always said so.
    Claudia would make a raft from a rooftop, and she would pull her sister up beside herself. Someday, when the waters receded, they would find that there was a house still standing, and that it was mostly intact.

2
Liar’s Gap
DECEMBER 1993
    C LAUDIA SILVER HAD ALWAYS STRUGGLED with Christmas Eve in New York City. She knew that happy New York Jews weren’t supposed to ignore Christmas, they were supposed to
participate
in it with one of two rituals, and possibly both: the eating of the Chinese food and the going-to of the movies. Claudia wished she’d come from that kind of jolly Jewish household, taking on the gentile shopping season with an amused smile and deep pockets. Instead, her holidays were sponsored by Bronwyn’s family, with Phoebe as her special guest. The sisters had been roommates for the last month.
    Stepping from the shower into her apartment’s crooked little bathroom, Claudia wrapped her body in one of Bronwyn Tate’s monogrammed bath sheets and her hair in a coordinating bath towel. As she crossed the living room, she heard a voice coming from the answering machine, and realized that Phoebe, plugged into her Walkman on the futon sofa (
Ring the alarm, I don’t wanna stay calm cause I’m about to rip this psalm
), reading a
Betty and Veronica
comic she’d rescued from Edith’s house and eating a bowl of raisins, was making no move to answer the phone. Claudia’s brief annoyance turned to relief when she realized the nature of the call.
    â€œ . . . Office of Career Services.