Nancy and Nick by Caroline B. Cooney

Author:Caroline B. Cooney [Cooney, Caroline B.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-1-4804-5173-5
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-09-27T15:45:00+00:00

Nine

“NICK,” I SAID, USING my sexiest voice (or at least, the one I think is sexiest—never having had a reaction to any of my vocal selections, I don’t really know), “this is Nancy Nearing. The one from Virginia, remember?”

No, no good. I didn’t like that choice. I sounded as if I didn’t expect anybody to remember me, faceless personality that I was. I rehearsed it another way. “Hello there, Nick! It’s Nancy!”

And what if he really wasn’t sure which N. C. Nearing I was?

Maybe I should skip the name. “Hi, Nick. Mother says to tell you we’d be glad to have you spend the night.”

Actually, she wasn’t glad at all. She was ashamed of the apartment. We’d cleaned it ferociously, and somehow that made the place worse. Now it was scrubbed emptiness and there was no trace of it ever having any character or hominess. Mother didn’t feel like having visitors.

When I finally did manage to get my fingers up to the telephone dial and make the call, I got Aunt Catherine. “Nancy Nearing?” she said, puzzled. “It doesn’t sound like you, honey, we must have a bad connection. How’s Everett doing? He over his strep throat yet?”

“I think that’s a different Nancy Nearing,” I said. “I’m the one who drove in from Virginia and we tried to figure out if we were related?”

“Oh yes. That’s right. And are you?”

“Excuse me? Am I what?”

“Related.”

“Oh. I don’t think we ever found out.”

“Uh huh. Well. Were you calling about antiques, then?”

“No, ma’am. I wanted to speak to Nick.”

“Nick?” she said, as if she had never heard of him. I began to wonder if I myself had the right Nearing in mind. In great embarrassment I said, “Nick Nearing? With the ponytail?”

“Oh.” She laughed heartily. I held the phone away from my ear and my stomach knotted up again. I hate phone calls that don’t work according to my rehearsals. “You mean Ency,” she said. “Yes, of course, he’s right here.”

I had this terrible fear that “Ency” would be somebody else entirely. I would have this long conversation with some girl, also named N. C. Nearing, who happened to have long red hair in a ponytail. Nick was a mirage and his letter a dream.

“Hello, Nancy,” said Nick. “Sorry about that. Aunt Catherine gets very confused sometimes. Thanks for calling back.”

I sagged with relief. “We’re looking forward to having you,” I said.

“Oh, terrific. You sure I won’t be a nuisance to your mother?”

Maybe he knew he’d be no nuisance to me. “No problem,” I said, although in fact, Mother was uptight at the idea of an overnight guest on her dreadfully lumpy couch. “You might want to bring a sleeping bag, though. We haven’t got a guest bed.”

“I could sleep on the couch, couldn’t I?”

“Sure, if you like lumps.”

“I like lumps better than floors. I’ve got an interview that Friday afternoon in Richmond so I’ll get to your place about supper time. And Saturday morning I’ve got two more scheduled, one at ten and one at eleven-thirty.

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