V.C. Andrews - Secrets 01 by Secrets in the Attic

Author:Secrets in the Attic
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2012-01-17T01:26:47+00:00

12

A Collect Call

My parents prepared for our trip to New York as if we were going to another country. They carefully planned the travel schedule, how and when we would get to our hotel, where we would eat dinner before the show so we would be close enough to walk to the theater and, if we wanted, to walk back to the hotel.

Since we had moved up to Sandburg, none of us had been to New York. Because we had lived so close to the city, we never stayed overnight in a hotel there, either. My mother was excited about it, because my father, through a friend, had gotten us a great deal on a suite in a very fancy Manhattan hotel, the St. Regis.

I didn't know it before we left, but my bedroom in the suite had its own phone. When we arrived and I saw what our accommodations were like, I thought my opportunity to make the phone call Karen wanted was that much better and easier for me to accomplish, but I underestimated how hard my mother would work at having me do things with her in the city every minute, and it occurred to me that it would be unwise to have the call traced to our suite.

Almost as soon as we checked in, my mother plotted out our every move, and from there until we returned, I was never out of her sight. Together, we would walk up Fifth Avenue and go from one wonderful department store to another. She was eager to see and to show me the new fashions and buy me some new clothes. She wanted us to have lunch at a restaurant that looked out at the skating rink in Rockefeller Center. Our jaunt was to be girls only. My father was happy about that. He was meeting some old lawyer friends for lunch, anyway, and said he would then look for a new suit and some new shirts and shoes on his own, "without anyone looking over my shoulder."

I began to worry that I would have no

opportunity whatsoever to make the call, but after we had walked and shopped and had our lunch and shopped some more, my mother decided it was time to go back to the hotel, rest, shower, and spoil ourselves with bubble baths and facial creams she had bought in a beauty shop on Madison Avenue. She was doing so many things she normally did not do. I sensed she wanted to splurge and be extravagant and carefree to help us all forget, especially me, what she called the Pearson tragedy.

We had two full bathrooms in the suite. I waited for her to step into hers to take her bath, and then I took the tape recorder out of my suitcase. It was nearly four-thirty. I was afraid Karen's mother might not be home, of course. What would I, do if that happened? We were to go to dinner and then the show. My parents would be with me all the time, and afterward, back in the suite, I couldn't risk playing the tape.

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