Free Rowing in Eden by Elizabeth Evans Page B

white-blond hair, which, for some reason, he had now chopped ridiculously short—Al Castor had said to Franny, “Of you three girls, Roz is coolest, and you’re second.” Though she secretly hadappreciated the fact that she had not ranked last on Al Castor’s list, Franny was offended on Martie’s behalf, and told Al Castor so. Who was Al Castor to make such a list, anyway?
    But, it was true, she thought as she returned the lipstick to Martie’s purse: She had never wished to wear the color of lipstick that Martie wore. And when people spoke of family resemblances, she always hoped the pronounced epicanthic fold of her own eyes (and the Ackerman dimple in her chin) would make it impossible for anyone to say, “You remind me of Martie.”
    Sometimes, when especially angry at Franny, Peg said, “You’re acting like Martie!” and, then, Franny felt hurt, and then, guilty for feeling hurt. What made it so terrible to be like Martie, really? In fourth-grade Sunday school, Mrs. Dahlberg—plump, frisky, wedges of dark curl pressing against her very pink cheeks—Mrs. Dahlberg had explained that the love of parents was not a pie that had to be divided among the children, no, it was an ever expanding balloon that got bigger and bigger so there always would be enough love for each child. As if it were an indisputable fact—that was how Mrs. Dahlberg said what she had to say about the love of parents for their children, and Franny had cherished it.
    There. Martie’s cigarettes sat on the dresser. Winstons. In the dresser mirror, Franny considered herself with a Winston stuck between her lips. A pair of castanets sat in a dusty yellow bowl on the dresser and, to add a little flare to her reflection, she tried to slip her fingers into the soft brown and orange strings, elicit a clap of wood against wood. Hopeless. The things confounded her. She dropped them back in the bowl. Which also contained a yo-yo. And a brightly painted Mexican street toy that involved spearing a heavy block of wood on a peg. Martie had always been good at mastering physical skills—the castanets, the pogo stick—that required practice and patience, and that drew bursts of admiration that Franny herself found too short-lived to envy.
    All that dust. She drew her index finger along the surface of Martie’s dresser and brought up a good quarter inch of gray fur. Ginny Weston and Peg had agreed that Ginny would not cleanMartie’s room as long as Martie kept the place a kind of shrine to her past.
    What did the girl guests think when they dumped their sleeping bags and purses in here? Franny hoped—hard, almost like a prayer—that the girls did not think poorly of Martie. Martie certainly did like them. Almost all of the guests were people Martie invited. Rosamund might tell Tim Gleason to stop by with his friends—his “little friends,” she always called the boys from St. Joe’s, as if to emphasize the fact that she took none of them seriously—and, now and then, Rosamund might dance with a boy guest, but that was it. She had made it clear at the beginning of the summer that she did not mean to house girl guests in her extra twin bed, nor did she want people stashing their purses and things in her room.
    Just in case her mother or father should be in the hall, Franny slipped the stolen cigarette down the front of her bra before stepping out of Martie’s room. In passing, she glanced into Rosamund’s room. Clean, spare. A single bottle of perfume sat on the dressing table and Franny knew its scent: Esoterique. The only item on the bureau was Rosamund’s stuffed frog, its green throat raised in song above its tiny guitar. How kind and intelligent that brown-eyed frog seemed. Like someone with whom you could have a decent conversation.
    A single travel poster adorned Rosamund’s walls: Blazing-white buildings climbed rugged hillsides above the teal