Three Quarters Dead

Three Quarters Dead by Richard Peck Page B

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Authors: Richard Peck
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Paris. She was a stylist, or had been. She wrote about fashion or something. She wasn’t in New York that much, and Spence might have known. Who knew what people knew? Besides, I didn’t want him walking me right up to her door. I couldn’t chance it.
    Tanya’s aunt Lily had been there at the memorial service, from Paris. She must have been her great-aunt or something. She was an old lady, dressed all in black. A lot of people were that day, except hers was Paris black. She was the only woman at the service in a hat. With a big black brim.
    Joanne had picked her up at JFK Airport and had taken her back there that night. I don’t even know why I knew that, or remembered. I was missing whole blocks of time.
    “You going to be cool?” Spence was saying to me. We were at the light at Sixty-ninth.
    “I’m going to be fine,” I said. “I’m practically there.”
    “If you’re sure,” he said. “See you at school.”
    I watched him cross Lexington Avenue, all the way up to the canopy of his building. Then I walked on toward Seventy-second Street and let the sidewalk crowds swallow me up.
    That was the moment I was most alone. The sun was still bright on the windows of the penthouses, but it was evening on the street. When I turned into Seventy-second Street, I saw I’d have the doorman to deal with.
    In movies New York doormen wear top hats and gold braid and open the doors of limos. In real life they wear parts of their uniforms and stand out by the curb, having an endless conversation with each other. With any luck I might just breeze into the door of Aunt Lily’s building. Whisk right in.
    The canopy was dead ahead. And what was I heading for? Anything? Nothing? In two minutes would I be walking back the way I’d come, from one emptiness to another?
    Trees grew in pots beside the front door. The doorman was there, blocking the way. Just my luck. A young guy. The night shift? He looked me over.
    “Miss Garland’s apartment, please.”
    He reached inside the door for the receiver of an old-time intercom telephone. “I don’t know if anybody’s up there,” he said. “But I’m part-time. And I just came on duty.”
    He was poking a little metal button. Somewhere high above us a bell was ringing in Aunt Lily’s apartment. And echoing in my head.
    And I thought, just for a moment: I’m on my own here. I can still back out. I can make this not happen.
    “I’m her niece,” I said, for some reason. Lie Number Three or so. “She’s my aunt.”
    But then he said, into the intercom phone, “Young lady to see you.”
    I swallowed hard. I could feel my spine all the way down. The doorman jerked his head. “You can go on up.”
    Who? Who had said I could go on up?
    I was crossing the dark-paneled lobby now, under the heavy beams. I was walking on eggs, not looking back for fear he’d change his mind. Forty-nine percent of me wanted to turn back. Run.
    In the elevator I pushed 13, the button just below PH for penthouse. So if it was Aunt Lily up there, or her maid, I needed to have something ready to say—ready and rehearsed—another alibi. Unless—
    The elevator door rolled back, and I stepped out into a shadowy space. It wasn’t very big, with Chinese wallpaper and dim lights behind parchment shades. Only a couple of doors because there were only two apartments on a floor, two huge and echoing apartments. I was turning to the door of Aunt Lily’s when the door to the back apartment opened. The door cracked and then creaked, and someone was there, behind it in dark shadow.
    I only caught a glimpse. It was someone ancient and weird with eerie orange hair. She was wearing dark glasses in this gloom. And an apron. I flinched, made myself look again, and the door was closed.
    I turned then, to the other one. I didn’t knock. I didn’t have to. The door was inching open, and before I could see, a scent drifted out to me. The scent of apple blossom.

CHAPTER FIVE
    Glitter City
    IT WAS BRIGHTER inside. Light

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