Free Return to Peyton Place by Grace Metalious Page A

snow smell, almost sweet; she thought she could taste it on the back of her tongue.
    Allison wet her fingers and then brushed them across the thick slab of snow on the outside window ledge. The snow stuck to her hand and she put her fingers quickly into her mouth.
    It's going to be sunny but cold, she thought, and nothing will melt away or change while I'm gone. It will all be the same when I come back.
    She ran downstairs to the kitchen to start the coffee and she paused as she was setting the pot on the stove.
    Except me, she thought suddenly. I'll be changed. I won't be the same.
    Suddenly, it was terribly important that she look at everything, and that she remember everything she saw. She sat down abruptly at the kitchen table. Her mother almost always kept a yellow cloth on that table, and a low copper bowl filled with yellow flowers.
    She does it so that even on cloudy days we eat breakfast at a table full of sunshine, thought Allison in amazement. I never realized that before. And in the living room the colors are subdued and relaxed so that you want to lean back and put your feet up, but in the bedrooms they are very soft so that when you lie down nothing glares on your eye. And all the curtains are really picture frames. I've got to remember everything just the way it looks this morning.
    The gas burner on the stove made a hissing sound as the coffee boiled over.
    â€œDamn it!” cried Allison, jumping up.
    â€œAnd what cloud were you on?” said Constance, coming into the kitchen. “I could smell coffee all over the house.”
    â€œI was thinking that I'd better hurry and get dressed,” said Allison.
    â€œSit down and have some coffee,” said Constance, laughing. “It's more than two hours until your train leaves.”
    â€œGood morning, Famous Author,” said Mike Rossi, coming into the kitchen. “Good morning, Famous Author's mother.”
    Constance kissed him. “Good morning, Maker of Bad Jokes Early in the Morning and of Which There Is No More Revolting Creature.”
    â€œThat talkative so early?” asked Mike. “This is going to be a day!”
    â€œYes, it is,” said Allison, “and I've got to dress.”
    â€œYou've got to eat something first,” said Constance.
    â€œI can't,” objected Allison. “I'll throw up on the train if I do. Hurry up, Mother. You have to dress, too.”
    Mike and Constance drove her to the station, and all of them went inside while Mike bought Allison's ticket.
    â€œClear through to New York, eh?” asked Mr. Rhodes. “Round trip?”
    â€œNope,” said Mike. “One way.”
    â€œSave money, buyin’ the round trip,” said Mr. Rhodes. “How long she gonna be gone?”
    â€œWho?” asked Mike.
    â€œWhy, Allison, of course,” said Mr. Rhodes. “She's the one goin’, ain't she?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œGoin’ down to get that book of hers sold, ain't she?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œWell, it don't take forever to sell somethin’ like that. Saves to buy the round trip.”
    â€œBut she may decide to fly back, or drive, or walk, for that matter.”
    â€œDon't make no difference. She can cash in the ticket, if she don't use it.”
    â€œAll right,” said Mike, resignedly. “One round-trip ticket for New York.”
    â€œThat man had me running around in circles when I first came here,” said Mike when they were outside, “and I've never managed to get the best of him yet. And how the hell does he know why Allison is going to New York?”
    â€œEverybody in town knows,” said Constance. “Does that surprise you?”
    â€œNo,” Mike admitted. “But I've never been able to figure out how it happens. If somebody farts on Chestnut Street, the guy in the stockroom at the Mills knows about it in a matter of seconds.”
    â€œYou're vulgar,” said Constance.
    â€œI know it,”