Talking to Each Other
Talking to Each Other Talking to Each Other Even though Chris and Amanda spent a lot of time together, they never talked. Amanda didn't mind this much. In her opinion, people talked too much. That went for the girls at school, commercials on television, and even Mom sometimes, though that wasn't a nice thing to think. She suspected that Chris thought people talked too much, too, which was why they let the silence lie when they were alone together. "Amanda! Get your shoes on. We need to go shop
登录后可以听外教原声朗读。
Talking to Each Other
Talking to Each Other
Even though Chris and Amanda spent a lot of time together, they never talked.Amanda didn't mind this much. In her opinion, people talked too much.That went for the girls at school, commercials on television,and even Mom sometimes, though that wasn't a nice thing to think.She suspected that Chris thought people talked too much, too,which was why they let the silence lie when they were alone together.
"Amanda! Get your shoes on. We need to go shopping," Mom yelled from the back door.
"Haw ..." Amanda groaned. She was lying in the grass,staring straight up at the treetops and imagining she was floating on her back in her very own swimming pool.Chris sat in a lawn chair near her, watching the football game on the little black-and-white TVwith the rabbit ears and the twist-dial channel changer.Kansas City was losing but coming back strong,and Amanda didn't want to leave with ten minutes still on the clock.
"Did you hear me?"Mom shouted again, her voice coming through the windows along with the jingle of her keys.
"I hate shopping," Amanda said.
"You'll hate starting school in worn-out clothes even more,'' Mom chimed back.
"I like my clothes. I'm just going to wear out the new ones anyway," Amanda said.
Amanda felt a nudge on her leg. Chris had tapped her with his sneaker.He nodded toward the house, letting her know that she should stop arguing and go with Mom.Amanda sighed, got up, and headed inside.
"I'll let you know," Chris said, meaning the score of the game.When he did talk, it was like that - short and direct, without a single extra word.She thought to herself that when she got home, it would be like that again.He'd say, "Twenty-one, fourteen," without introducing it or explaining what he meant. But she'd get it.
In the car, Mom nervously sipped her iced tea. Then she started talking.
"What's up, baby doll? How've you been?" she asked.Amanda wasn't sure how to answer.She saw Mom after work every day.Was there anything new she should report?''How's your summer going?" Mom pressed.
"It's going okay."
"Are you disappointed that you couldn't go to camp?"
"No." Amanda had gone to Lake Pines Summer Camp for the past two summers,but Mom couldn't afford to send her this year after she and Chris paid for their wedding.Amanda didn't mind at all.For the past two years, her counselor had told her that the woodworking class she wanted to take was "just for boys."
"Mom, is there something you need to tell me?"
Mom sighed. "I don't know, honey. Things don't seem to be going as I imagined." She paused.Amanda knew that unlike Chris, Mom would always go on to explain what she meant, even if Amanda had already guessed."I mean with Chris," Mom said.
"I like Chris. I like having him around," Amanda said.
"Well, I do, too, honey, but just being around isn't enough sometimes," Mom said."You haven't talked about this with him, have you?No, you guys don't talk about anything," she said, answering her own question.
"No. We don't really need to talk," Amanda said.
The car stopped at a light, and Mom took a deep breath in and out."Well, I need someone to talk to. Another grownup.And Chris just... well…" Mom trailed off.Amanda felt bad about having thought that her mother talked too much.
"Are you getting a divorce?" Amanda asked.Amanda was very familiar with divorce.Mom and Dad had gotten one when Amanda was barely three years old - so young that she didn't even remember.
Then there was Mom's boyfriend, Chuck, with his blonde mustache and all his action figures.He was fun, and even though he and Mom were never married,it still hurt like a divorce when he left.Even Gram and Gramps were divorced,though they lived in the same building and still shouted at each other from their porches the way they had when they were married.
Mom started to sniff a bit, and she didn't answer.They pulled into a space in the MegaMart parking lot,and Mom reapplied her makeup in the rearview mirror before they got out and went inside the store.They shopped for hours before heading back home.
"We lost," was all Chris said when Amanda and Mom got home.Their shopping bags were filled with new, itchy clothes.As usual, Mom had tried to get Amanda to try on the pink shirts with all the ribbons and ruffles,but Amanda insisted on plain colors - red, blue, and green, and nothing girly.Amanda was going to ask what the score was, but if they'd lost, it really didn't matter much.Across the street, she saw her neighbor Cameron on a big pile of dirt,planting a stick into the top like a flagpole on a mountain.
"Going out to play," she shouted as she ran to join Cameron.The dirt pile had been left there when the town dug holes for new telephone poles,and the work crews had never come back to take it away.
"Where were you?" Cameron asked. "School shopping," Amanda said.
"Did you get any cool stuff?" Cameron asked."My mom said I could save my paper-route money and get a graphing calculator."
"No, just clothes." "Hmm." Cameron started absentmindedly smacking the dirt pile with his stick.Amanda had had big plans for the dirt pile.She'd wanted to make a fort by hollowing out the inside and building a long, low window facing the street.Then she was going to plant junglelike plants all over the top to camouflage it.But Cameron never put up much of an effort,and he tore down half of what they'd done each time she went to Dad's for a weekend.
"You'll be going to Hogan Elementary, right?Now that your mom and Chris are married,you'll definitely be staying here and not going to your dad's for the school year, right?"
"Who knows how long they're going to be married," Amanda said.She dug some loose dirt out of what had almost been the entrance to their fort, and started to reshape it.
"Are you serious?" Cameron asked.
"That's what Mom said. She said that it wasn't as she imagined,and when I asked if they were getting divorced, she didn't say anything.
Beside her, Cameron began carving out a long channel down the side of the pile.''Hey, don't be mad at me when I say this," he said.He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand."I never really liked Chris all that much. Chuck was more fun.Remember when he got all those bottle rockets for the Fourth of July?"
"I guess he was sort of more fun," Amanda said."But Chris and I are more alike. We understand each other."
"He seems kind of grumpy sometimes," said Cameron.
"Well, I do, too," said Amanda, now feeling kind of grumpy at Cameron.She didn't really hang out with him at school - just during summers,when they were the only kids in the neighborhood.
"I'm going to get an ice pop," Amanda said, without even bothering to offer Cameron one.
