Trouble at Home Read online

"Shouldn't we wait for Mom?" Jessica asked.

  Elizabeth shot her a look. Tactful, Jess, Elizabeth thought. Very tactful.

  For the first five minutes or so no one said a word. The only sounds were the clinking of glasses and the sounds of forks tapping plates. Then suddenly the back door burst open, and Mrs. Wakefield rushed in, out of breath and looking very excited.

  She stopped short when she saw they were all eating. "Oh, no! You poor things, you must have been famished," she gasped, setting down her briefcase, slipping out of her jacket, and sliding into her chair. "I'm so sorry, but we went into a meeting at five, and I couldn't get away. Not even long enough to make a phone call. But do you know what happened? We were meeting about the design project for the mall, and one of the decisions to be made was who should be in charge of the group running the project. They decided they want me to do it!"

  "Mom, that's wonderful!" Elizabeth cried.

  Jessica nodded enthusiastically. "Does that mean if your plan gets chosen they'll name the wing after you? Or do we at least get discounts from all the new stores?"

  Mrs. Wakefield laughed. "I don't think so, Jess. But it does mean I'll be supervising the whole thing. We have to decide on the lighting, the colors, how the space will be used . . ." She stopped talking long enough to glance at her husband. "Ned, you haven't said anything."

  Mr, Wakefield wiped his mouth carefully with his napkin. "Heading up the team sounds like even more work than being part of the team," he said quietly. "Isn't it going to mean awfully long hours? I'm sorry to say this, Alice, but right now—especially with my commitment to Mr. Santelli—is it really such a good idea for you to be taking on this much extra work?"

  Mrs. Wakefield flushed. "It will mean some extra work, Ned, but this is the kind of project I've dreamed of for years! You know that."

  Mr. Wakefield's mouth tightened. "Let's discuss this later, Alice," he said.

  "There isn't anything to discuss," she said lightly. "I already told them I'd be happy to do it."

  Dead silence fell over the table. Mr. Wakefield looked angry, but he didn't say anything.

  "How was work today, Ned?" Mrs. Wakefield asked finally.

  "Fine," he replied shortly.

  Elizabeth felt miserable. Why had her mother agreed to take on the position without talking it over with her father? And why was her father being so unsupportive of her mother's wonderful achievement?

  The tension in the air seemed to intensify when dinner ended and Mrs. Wakefield poured coffee. She thanked Elizabeth for making dinner, then turned to Jessica and said, "You might want to try to help your sister a little more now that your father and I are both going to be so busy."

  "Thanks a lot," Jessica whispered to Elizabeth, shooting her twin a dirty look.

  "Don't forget," Mrs. Wakefield said, "that we're all invited to go out on Doug Phelps's boat this Sunday." Doug Phelps was the senior partner in her design firm, and this outing was an important one.

  Mr. Wakefield cleared his throat. "This Sunday? I thought it was next Sunday."

  "You know it's this Sunday, Ned. And you know how important it is for us all to be there," Mrs. Wakefield added, sounding agitated.

  "Well, I'm afraid I have a conflict. I told Peter Santelli that I'd spend the entire weekend working with him on preparing his defense. The trial is due to start on Monday," Mr. Wakefield said. Mrs. Wakefield looked surprised.

  "You didn't tell me the trial was starting so soon," Her face looked pale. "At any rate, we have a commitment, Ned. It isn't going to look very good if we cancel out."

  "We don't have to cancel out, I do," Mr. Wakefield said stubbornly. "Alice, you know how these things work. Peter is my client, and I have to respect his schedule. I can't just say we're not going to meet on Sunday because my wife wants to go boating!"

  "Going boating," Mrs. Wakefield said coldly, "is not a fair way to describe what happens to be one of the most important social events my company has all year."

  Angry silence filled the room, and Elizabeth kept her head down and stared at her plate. She hated hearing her parents argue.

  "Well, I'm sorry, but you'll have to count me out on Sunday," Mr. Wakefield said in a quiet voice.

  "That's just fine," Mrs. Wakefield snapped. Without another word, she stormed out of the room.

  "Wow," Jessica said. "Mom sounds pretty mad."

  Mr. Wakefield picked up his coffee cup. "Let's just forget it," he said tersely. But it was hard to ignore the sound of the bedroom door slamming closed.

  "Would you mind finishing up the dishes, Liz?" Jessica said at eight-fifteen, the appointed time for calling in to talk to Charlie. "I have some . . . uh, homework that I have to do."

  Jessica felt a tiny bit guilty, but she couldn't keep Charlie waiting. And besides, she could hardly wait to talk to him!

  She ran up to her room and quickly dialed the 900 number. Charlie was talking to Sara. "Have you heard the joke about the politician and the minister?" he asked her.

  "No," Sara said, giggling in advance.

  "Hi," Jessica cut in, making her voice sound as sultry as possible. "Charlie? It's me, Jessica."

  Sara sounded annoyed. "Charlie's just telling me a joke. Go on, Charlie."

  Charlie paused for a minute. "Actually, Sara, Jessica and I have . . . well, we have sort of a phone date. Don't we, Jessica?"

  Sara snorted. "A phone date?"

  "It's true," Jessica cut in. She loved the feeling of daring and intimacy the party line gave her. She also loved being flirtatious over the phone with a total stranger. "Hey," she asked Charlie, "did you think about me today? Even once?"

  "I thought about you without stopping. You were the substance of every breath I drew," Charlie announced.

  Jessica giggled. "You're so . . . you talk so beautifully," she said.

  "Charlie's a real poet," Sara chimed in. "That's why we all have crushes on him."

  "To tell you the truth, I really am a poet," Charlie told Jessica. "In fact, I wrote you a poem today. But I'm too shy to read it to you—yet."

  Jessica was completely charmed. A poet . . . on a teen talk line? What were the odds of that happening? Lila was going to be completely freaked out!

  "I wish I could write you a poem," she said in a suggestive voice. "But I'm sure I can't write as beautifully as you."

  "Jessica, from your voice . . . from your name . . . you are poetry," Charlie said.

  This was too much. Here was this guy saying these incredible things to her—right in front of the others on the line!—and he hadn't even seen her yet. Jessica had always been convinced that her looks were about ninety-nine percent of the reason that guys asked her out. But Charlie couldn't see her. So why did he like her and not the others?

  She was dying to find out. "Charlie," she said, "are you . . . I mean, when you heard my voice the first time I called, was there something in particular about me, or was it just . . .? I don't know . . ."

  She let her voice trail off. She loved the sense of letting her voice expose so much about her. She held her breath as she waited for Charlie's reply.

  "I can't explain what happened, Jessica. All I know is, the minute I heard your voice I knew you were the one," Charlie said solemnly.

  Jessica felt her cheeks get hot. This guy was terrific. If he was this great to talk to on the telephone, she could just imagine how wonderful he'd be in person!

  Four

  The weekend had passed quickly, but by Monday morning Elizabeth could hardly remember the last time her parents had spent five minutes together. She and Jessica has accompanied their mother on the boat outing on Sunday, minus their father. On Monday evening Mrs. Wakefield had set up a temporary office in one corner of the living room, since Mr. Wakefield needed the den for working on his project. It was hard not to notice the fact that work was intruding on their family life.

  The mall project was all that Alice Wakefield could talk about. It was clear that this project was the turning point in her career. If her firm won the competition and actually got to design the new wing of the mall, she would be the one in the limelight, since she was in charge of the whole thing. This would open up all sorts of opportunities for her in the future. Mrs. Wakefield had never really designed the interior of such a large public space, and this could mean the beginning of a wonderful stream of jobs.

  "It's funny," she confided on Tuesday night at dinner. "But so much of what designers have to do to earn a living these days is purely functional. It's a real challenge to have a public space of this size to work with. The whole job is so exciting. I really feel we can do it, too, that we can win the competition."

  "That's great, Mom," Elizabeth commented. "I have a feeling you're going to win." She noticed that her father didn't even respond. In fact, he never seemed to want to talk about Mrs. Wakefield's mall project. He rushed through his meal, then went into his study to do some more work for the trial.

  Elizabeth couldn't even confide in Jessica about her concern. These days, her twin was wandering around the house as if she were walking on air. A few weeks before, Jessica had been extremely worried about the increasing number of arguments her parents were having. But now, Elizabeth noticed, Jessica seemed to be totally oblivious to the fact that things around the Wakefield house had taken a dramatic turn for the worse, especially since Mr. Santelli's trial had begun the day before. Now both the Wakefield parents were stressed out, frantically busy, and completely on edge.

  Elizabeth had noticed that her father had started giving different versions of stories about work to her mother than he gave to her and Jessica.

  The night before, for example, when her father had come home—finding only Jessica and Elizabeth, of course—he had confided that he thought Mr. Santelli's trial was going to be really to
ugh. First there was the problem of the money that had been deposited in Mr. Santelli's account. Peter claimed he knew nothing about it, but there the money was. Who had put it there? How could they get a lead? Even worse, the police claimed to have come up with other incriminating evidence against the defendant. Mr. Wakefield was sure Mr. Santelli was honest, but proving that in court was another matter altogether. The fact that Mr. Santelli was still running for mayor just raised all the stakes. It meant more publicity and more pressure. And it was beginning to appear that it would be a hard case to settle.

  As soon as Mrs. Wakefield had gotten home and asked about the trial, Mr. Wakefield's tune had changed completely. He had told her that it was going great, that all his preparatory work had really paid off, that it looked like an easy acquittal.

  "Really?" Mrs. Wakefield had said, looking surprised. "I would've thought it would be pretty difficult, especially with that issue of the deposit in his bank account."

  "Well, that isn't the case at all," Mr. Wakefield had said tersely.

  "If only they'd talk to each other!" Elizabeth moaned now to her twin. They were in Jessica's room, and Jessica was lying flat on her back on her bed, staring up at the ceiling. "Don't they have any idea what they're doing, that they're just moving further and further apart from each other—just when they need to be closest?"

  Jessica sat up with effort. "Liz," she said calmly, "try to stop hyperventilating. At first I thought it was terrible that they were arguing so much and both had so much to do, but things have been pretty blissful around here." She grinned. "With Mom so busy I don't even have to clean up my room anymore." She pointed to the mountain of clothes piled up on her desk chair. Elizabeth noticed that the room did look messier than usual. "I can come home whenever I want," Jessica went on. "She lets us each get our own dinner so we don't have to start dinner anymore. Plus neither one of them seems to care that I've been using this party line every night." Jessica flopped back down on her bed. "Kind of a great arrangement, if you ask me."

  "Don't you think that's a little selfish?"

  Jessica shrugged. "Mom and Dad know how to take care of themselves, silly. So what if they get a little tense with each other from time to time? It's not exactly like the world's falling apart, Liz. Why don't you just calm down and take it easy?"

  Elizabeth couldn't help getting aggravated. "That's easy for you to say. When was the last time you went to the grocery store—or even fed Prince Albert?"

  Jessica propped herself up on her elbows and glared at her twin. "Nobody's telling you that you have to do that stuff, Liz. You just go ahead and do it, and then you get mad at people! Well, you can't blame me if I'm managing to have a good time anyway."

  Elizabeth was about to make an angry retort when she realized that she and her sister were fighting now, too. "Never mind," she muttered. "I didn't mean to snap at you, Jess."

  "That's OK," Jessica said blithely. "Now, if you don't mind, I have a phone call to make. It's private."

  Elizabeth wandered back into her own room. Right then she would have given anything to be her twin sister—to be able to see the change in the family as nothing more than a chance for additional freedom.

  But that wasn't the way it felt to Elizabeth at all.

  That night there was a new boy on the party line.

  Jessica hadn't realized how quickly a feeling of community had developed among the regulars. By now everyone knew that something was going on between Jessica and Charlie. Michael took turns flirting with Nicola and Bea, and Sara just seemed to get upset and feel sorry for herself and interrupt all the good conversations.

  That evening the conversations were going particularly well. Luckily Sara was bothering Michael and Nicola for a change, and Bea was fairly quiet, leaving Jessica and Charlie to talk just to each other.

  "How're you doing, gorgeous? I've been thinking about you all day long," Charlie said.

  Jessica's heart skipped a beat. "I'm fine," she said, twisting the telephone cord as she talked. That was how her tongue felt when she talked to Charlie—twisted! She wished she could be as clever and spontaneous as he was.

  "I've been building a mental picture of you today," Charlie continued. "I've decided—just from your voice—that you're blond. Am I right?"

  Jessica giggled. "You're right," she confessed.

  "I could tell," Charlie said triumphantly. "You have the blondest voice I've ever heard."

  Jessica felt shivers of delight go through her. Imagine how thrilled Charlie was going to be when he discovered just how blond she really was! She tried to imagine what it would be like when she and Charlie finally met. He probably thought she was sort of cute, or maybe even on the plain side. Jessica was sure there was no way he could think that she looked the way she really did. Jessica imagined their first meeting on the beach. Naturally it would be deserted, except for the two of them coming closer and closer. He would stare at her and say, in that wonderful husky voice of his, "Are you really Jessica? You're like a dream come true." Then they would fall into each other's arms and kiss—deeply and passionately.

  "And blue eyes, right?" Charlie continued.

  "Bluish," she revised. No point in spoiling the surprise by admitting that her eyes were as blue-green as the ocean, framed by long, thick lashes. There had to be some surprises for Charlie!

  He cleared his throat. "As for height," he murmured, "I don't think you're too tall, princess. But not too short either. Five-five, that's my guess."

  "Five-six!" Jessica cried with delight. Was Charlie psychic? He seemed to have guessed exactly what she looked like.

  What about her? Had she guessed what Charlie looked like?

  The funny thing was, until now she really hadn't thought about it. She listened to his warm, sexy voice for a moment and decided that naturally he was gorgeous. He probably had dark curly hair, maybe brown with some golden highlights. And warm brown eyes with little glints of green in them. And—

  She was just about to tell Charlie some of her ideas about his appearance when someone new cut in.

  "Hello? Is this the teen line? Did I get the right number? My name is Earl Wasserman," he announced.

  The conversation that had been going on between Michael, Sara, and Nicola stopped, and Jessica and Charlie were quiet, too. Jessica was a little annoyed at the intrusion, but she knew that wasn't fair. Hadn't she broken in on the others just a week ago?

  "How does this work?" Earl asked. "Do we all just talk at the same time? I saw the ad on TV and really wanted to try it," he explained with a nervous laugh. "Does it really cost a whole dollar a minute?"

  A dollar a minute? Jessica couldn't believe her ears. Was that possible? She'd been on the phone as much as thirty minutes a night!

  "Wow," she said to Charlie, "that's a fortune. Is that really what it costs?"

  "Princess," Charlie said in a teasing voice, "don't you know that you're worth a zillion times that?"

  Jessica swallowed hard. She could hardly tell him that she wasn't sure her parents would feel the same way. She just hoped the two of them stayed as busy and distracted as they'd been for a while. Maybe by some miracle they would never notice.

  "When I said I wanted to do something special, this wasn't exactly what I had in mind." Todd teased Elizabeth on Wednesday, stopping next to her in the frozen food section of the supermarket while she consulted her list.

  "Ice cream. Daddy loves this flavor," she announced, taking two pints out of the freezer. "Sorry, Todd," she added, leaning over to give him a quick kiss on the cheek. "But I don't know who else would go out and get food this week if I didn't. My mother's up to her chin in work for this competition. And my dad's just as bad, now that the trial is really under way."

  "How's the trial going? Has he said?"

  "Well, there are two different versions," Elizabeth admitted, moving the cart up the aisle. "When he talks to us about it—Jessica and me—he sounds pretty dispirited. I get the impression there just isn't enough to go on so far to be able to clear Mr. Santelli's name. And no one at the bank has been much help, either. My sense from my father is that the judge may just dismiss the whole case, claiming lack of sufficient evidence."

  "That wouldn't exactly do Mr. Santelli much good," Todd commented.

  "Right. But when my father's telling my mom about the trial, you'd think he was talking about a completely different event! He keeps telling her it's going perfectly, that his defense has been great." Elizabeth sighed. "I can understand why he's doing this, but it worries me just the same. He ought to be able to turn to her for help right now. And instead, he feels like he has to make himself look like a hero."