The Right Thing by Amy Conner

Author:Amy Conner [Conner, Amy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2014-04-18T05:00:00+00:00

When I got home, I was cold and wet, dirty and tired. I sneaked in the back door and slipped out of my muddy shoes. Methyl Ivory must have been busy in another part of the house because no one answered my subdued “Hello?” With a weary relief, I went into the kitchen. A pot roast simmered on the stove, filling the air with its good smell. There were snap beans in a colander by the sink, a paring knife and a bowl of red potatoes on the table.

My mother’s purse wasn’t there.

She must have gone out today after all. However was I going to get the lipstick back in her purse now? My stomach plummeted to the linoleum. The lost umbrella suddenly seemed like nothing compared to the trouble I was going to be in when my mother came home. I was too wrung out to cry, so I bit my lip, thinking hard.

The only idea I could come up with was to sneak into her bedroom, leave the lipstick on her dressing table, and hope she never found out I took it. It was a feeble idea—she never went anywhere without making up her face and so was bound to have missed it already—but it was the only idea I had. Lipstick in hand, I plodded up the stairs and down the long, dark hall to my parents’ bedroom.

Their door was shut. I eased it open and poked my head into the room to the sound of someone singing in the adjoining bathroom behind the closed door. My parents must have been going out that evening because draped across the end of their massive half-tester bed was a Christmas-red chiffon gown and a black velvet wrap.

Next to the dress was my mother’s purse.

Holding my breath, praying for grace, I tiptoed across the floor to the bed.

But in the bathroom, the singing stopped. There was the splash of water sloshing, the glug of the bathtub draining. Catching a glimpse of my face in the marble-topped bureau’s mirror, white and dirt-smeared but determined, I opened my mother’s purse and dropped the lipstick inside her makeup bag. I had just snapped the pocketbook shut when the bathroom door opened. My mother came out in a cloud of steam, her hair in a towel, belting her bathrobe.

“Annie!” she exclaimed. “You gave me a fright—and what are you doing in here? You’re soaking wet and filthy. However did you get so dirty reading Bible stories?”

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