Freaky Green Eyes by Joyce Carol Oates Page B

“It isn’t fair, it isn’t! Rabbit is our dog, too.”
    Sometimes when Mom was gone, the house was suddenly noisy upstairs and out on the redwood deck. Dad was “having friends over for drinks.” They’d arrive around six P.M ., and around nine P.M . they’d leave for dinner in one of the trendy Seattle restaurants Dad took Samantha and me to sometimes. On his way out of the house, Dad always came to see us downstairs to inform us he was “going out for a bite to eat” with his friends, and not to wait up for him.
    Samantha would say primly, “Daddy, you already ate with us .”
    Increasingly, a woman unknown to us would be hanging on to Dad’s arm and would want to say “hi!” and “good night” to Dad’s daughters. (Samantha camped out in my room until she went to bed next door in her own room. She wasn’t too much of a nuisance, except if I was talking with friends on the phone; I didn’t like her listening and butting in.) Samantha thought this woman was always the same person, but I knew there was more than one woman. It was easy to confuse them becausethey were all blond, glamorous, and years younger than Mom. They looked like TV news or weather girls. They looked like models. Dad never introduced them to us; maybe he didn’t remember their names. He’d knock on my door, push it open even as I called out, “Come in,” and he’d come inside just a few steps, and the blond woman would be beside him, but just slightly behind him, and he’d say proudly, “See? My good girls. Sam-Sam, the little one, and Franky, who’s a star swimmer at Forrester Academy. Terrific, aren’t they?” The blond woman would gaze earnestly at Samantha and me as if we were specimens of some rare unnamed species, and she’d squeeze Dad’s upper arm through his sports shirt and say breathily, “Oh Reid, gosh, yes . They take after their daddy .”
    Once, Freaky Green Eyes intruded. Saying, “Actually, we take after our mom, too. Have you met Mom?”
    The look Dad flashed me, even as he smiled, and laughed!
    Saying his usual, “Okay, girls. Don’t wait up for your old dad.”
    Samantha was okay, I guess. Learning to adjust to the New Schedule. I felt sorry for her. I could see she was crying in secret, because she knew that crying annoyed Dad; and sometimes, I have to admit, I got impatient with her, too. (Seeing Samantha cry made me want to cry. No thanks!)
    Samantha had friends from her school, but they didn’t live close by us, so when Mom wasn’t here to drive her, she was sort of stuck at home. She was lonely, and emotional. Just to get attention, sometimes, five or six times a day she’d ask if Mom had called, if I’d checked our voice mail. Actually coming into my room in the middle of the night—when I’d finally fallen asleep—pleading, “Franky? Did you double-check the messages for tonight?”
    Of course, we could call Mom. But Mom rarely answered her phone, and she didn’t have voice mail. I asked her why, and she said evasively, “Phonesmake me nervous. You never know who might be calling.”
    Mom wasn’t an e-mail person, either. She said computers made her nervous, so she didn’t take her laptop to Skagit Harbor.
    And Dad, too. Often he was out of reach. Sometimes an assistant would call. “Francesca Pierson? Hold for Reid Pierson.” After a long wait, and a series of clicks, Dad’s voice would come on the phone, loud in my ear and sounding harassed. “Hi there, sweetie. What’s up?” Somehow, wherever Dad was in the country, he had the idea I’d called him.
    â€œBut Dad, you called me .”
    â€œI did?” Dad sounded vague, bemused. He’d laugh, as if a third party had played a joke on us both, and Reid Pierson was too good a sport to take offense. “Well. Just saying hello, honey. Is your