Skeleton Key(12)

Sally looked across at her daughter, Mallory, sitting in the other bucket seat, her hands folded in her lap, her mouth set. Mallory had always been heavy, but since Frank left she had literally ballooned. The dress she was wearing now had to be at least a size twenty-four. It wasn’t only the size, either. Mallory had changed in every way it was possible to change. Frank was willing to pay for her college tuition, but Mallory wasn’t willing to take it—in spite of the fact that she’d fantasized forever about going to Smith, and had even gotten accepted. These days Mallory was in a nursing program at the University of Connecticut branch campus in Waterbury. She drove into class every morning just before Sally went to work, except on weekends. On weekends Mallory went to the club and sat at the big circular tables in the main dining room with all the other girls, acting as if nothing had happened. It was all wrong, Sally thought, all wrong, everything that had happened to them. Things like this were supposed to happen to other people, who deserved them.

The road dipped and swayed. Up ahead, Sally suddenly saw the lights she had been looking for, winking like fairy auras in the blackness. She relaxed a little, but only as much as she thought she could afford.

“Well,” she said, “we’re practically there. I thought I’d gotten lost for a moment.”

“You took the right road,” Mallory said. “I saw you do it.”

“I know I did. It didn’t look familiar. Maybe I’m not used to being out here so late.”

“I can’t believe you’ve done this before,” Mallory said. “I can’t believe it. What are you going to do if they catch you at it? What am I going to do if they put you in jail?”

“We’ve got to eat,” Sally said. “We can’t go on keeping the thermostat at sixty-eight all through the winter. We can’t live on the cranberries I grow in the backyard.”

“We could sell the house and move someplace smaller.”

“It would take forever to sell the house.”

“If we moved someplace small enough, you could take the extra money from the house and use that to help us live on. We could quit the club. We could give up on my being a debutante. Lots of people live on less money than you’re making now. I’ve met them.”

“I don’t want to live on less money than I’m making now,” Sally said.

Mallory turned her head away, so that she was looking out the window on her side, into the dark. “It’s like a disease you have,” she said. “It’s like you think there’s some kind of cosmic meaning to all this stuff. It doesn’t have anything to do with life.”

“You don’t know the first thing about life,” Sally said, feeling suddenly furious—but she had to tone it down. The lights were right ahead of her now. She could see the two low stone pillars that marked the entrance to the club. She could see the gravel drive winding up the hill right to the lodge itself.

“Here we are,” she said, making the car turn slowly. She didn’t want to end up in a ditch with all this ice on the road. “When we get there you can go into the dining room and see who’s around that you know.”

“I don’t want to see who’s around that I know. I don’t like the people I know. Not at this place.”

“Even your father understands the need for contacts, Mallory. These are the best contacts you’re ever going to have, unless you come to your senses and let your father put you into college next fall.”

“Contacts for what?”

“Contacts,” Sally said stubbornly. “You really have no idea how the world works. No idea. I wish I could get you to see what you’re trying to get me to give up on and throw away.”

“I wish you could see what I see.”

“You’re romanticizing poverty. That’s all you’re doing. It’s very common in adolescents who’ve never had to fend for themselves.”

“You’re romanticizing money.”

They had reached the wide gravel parking lot. This was a weekend night in the country. The lot was more than half-full. Sally put the car into a space at the back, being careful not to hit either of the two Volvos that surrounded her. Her own car was a Volvo, too, because it had been bought before Frank left them. If she’d had to buy a car of her own these days, she wouldn’t have been able to afford anything expensive, because she wouldn’t have been able to get the credit.

She pulled the key out of the ignition and dropped it into her purse. “I don’t know what you’re going to do if you don’t go into the main dining room,” she said. “You’d look much too conspicuous if you came with me. And you can’t hide out in the ladies’ room for an hour.”