Cheating at Solitaire(126)

“Oh, God,” Mrs. Normand said. “She is a shrink. That’s just what we need. A shrink. Maybe we can get a psychological note. Maybe we could have you checked into the hospital for exhaustion.”

“She’s not that kind of doctor,” Arrow said again. She sounded mulish and resentful. Annabeth got the impression that Arrow was mulish and resentful around her mother a lot. “She’s a doctor of philosophy. She’s like a college teacher. She teaches history.”

“A college teacher,” Mrs. Normand said.

“Well, no,” Annabeth said. “I don’t teach. I mean, I used to, you know, but since the books have become reasonably successful, there’s been no need, so—”

“You write books,” Mrs. Normand said. “What kind of books? Do you write romance books? I like those. Nora Lofts. That kind of thing. Arrow read a book once. Chicken Soup for the Soul.”

“Oh, for God’s sake,” Arrow said.

Annabeth poured her a cup of tea and handed it over, but she had no idea how Arrow liked her tea. She gestured to things on the tray and Arrow got up to fuss among them for a moment, but she had said what she had to say to her mother. It was Marcey who was leaning forward to enter the fray.

“She writes history books,” Marcey said, picking up a ladyfinger and turning it over in her hand. She wasn’t looking at it, though. She was looking straight at Mrs. Normand. “She writes books about women in American history, mostly, but sometimes about the founding fathers, and that kind of thing.”

“You mean she writes schoolbooks?” Mrs. Normand said.

“I mean she writes real books, for real people,” Marcey said. “The kind of books you see in bookstores. She writes about what history was really like instead of what we’re told it’s like. Stewart Gordon bought me one to read. It’s about Abigail Adams. In case you’re completely clueless, she was the wife of John Adams, who was the second president of the United States.”

“And people read history books when they don’t have to and they’re not in school?” Mrs. Normand said. “Well, it can’t be too many people who do that, can it? I mean, what’s the point? History has already happened, hasn’t it. It’s not important to people the way things are that happen today. I like to read about people, that’s what I like, when I read. I don’t do it much. It takes too much time.”

“You should read Shakespeare,” Marcey Mandret said. “He knew about people.”

“Nobody can read Shakespeare,” Mrs. Normand said. “He doesn’t make any sense. People have changed too much, that’s the problem. People aren’t what they used to be like. They aren’t even what they used to be like when I was growing up. And the music.” She stopped still, as if she had just realized there was music playing in the background, which there was. It was the first prelude of Bach’s Well-Tempered Clavier. “Well,” Mrs. Normand said. “There isn’t much point to the music, either, is there? It’s just depressing most of the time, and if there’s one thing I know, it’s that people don’t like to be depressed. What are we doing here, anyway? I mean, what was the point of bringing us here? This place gives me the creeps.”

“We’ve got to be somewhere,” Arrow said. “We can’t go back to the house—the paparazzi will have totally staked it out. We’ve got to be somewhere while Carl Frank finds us another place to stay. If Kendra was still alive, maybe we could stay at the Point.”

“You couldn’t stay at the Point,” Marcey said, sounding sharp. “Don’t you know that? She wouldn’t let any of us stay at the Point. She wouldn’t let any of us get in the way if there was something she wanted to do.”

“I think it’s a terrible thing,” Mrs. Normand said. “A young girl like that, so beautiful, and so rich. I think all the flags ought to fly at half-mast for a week. After all, we fly them at half-mast for politicians nobody has heard about for years. I mean, I thought Ronald Reagan was dead long before he actually died, and then when he did die, they made all that fuss about him, and who really cared? I mean it. Who really cared? You couldn’t turn on the television for days without seeing something about it, and then there was the funeral, and it was on a million stations, you couldn’t get away from it. Kendra Rhode did more for America than Ronald Reagan. She was a cultural icon.”

Annabeth had poured a cup of tea for Mrs. Normand. Now she extended it across the table. Mrs. Normand looked into it and made a face.