Fantasy Summer Read online

  “Are you napping?” Ashley asked Robin, while plopping down on Robin’s bed. That way, if Robin had been asleep, she’d be bound to wake up. Robin had known Ashley for less than a week, but she was starting to figure out a lot of her tricks.

  “Wide-awake,” Robin admitted. “Just resting my feet forever.”

  “You’re sixteen years old,” Ashley said. “You’re in the most exciting city in the world, and you finally have some time to yourself, and what do you do with it? You rest your feet. Is this how our Image readers imagine you?”

  “They can imagine me any way they want,” Robin said. “My feet hurt. Don’t your feet hurt?”

  “What’s pain?” Ashley said. “Come on, rise and shine. We have a city to conquer.”

  “Ashley …” Robin grumbled, but she did sit up. Ashley smiled at the approaching triumph.

  Robin wasn’t sure why she allowed Ashley to bully her into things, but she did, and just then she was too tired to puzzle out the answer. The funny thing was, she liked Ashley enormously. If any of her friends at home had been so bossy, she would have killed them, but with Ashley it just amused her. And Ashley was right; it was foolish to waste a beautiful July afternoon hiding in a hotel room with swollen feet.

  “I thought shopping,” Ashley informed her. “And then dinner and a movie. We can do all that and be back here by eleven easy.”

  “Earlier than eleven, please,” Robin said. “I never seem to get enough sleep. I absolutely swore to myself I’d go to bed early tonight.”

  “Ten, then,” Ashley said. “We can go to an eight-o’clock showing of a movie and be back here by ten-fifteen at the absolute latest. How does that sound?”

  Robin admitted sadly to herself that it did sound better than staying in the hotel room and watching reruns on TV. “All right,” she said. “But the minute it turns into a late night, I’m coming straight back.”

  “It won’t, I promise,” Ashley said. “Put on some sneakers for your feet, and let’s go see if Torey and Annie want to join us.”

  “Okay,” Robin said. Sneakers sounded wonderful. If Ashley had even mentioned the word “shoes” it would have been hotel rooms and reruns for the night.

  Ashley watched Robin get ready with glittering impatience. Robin deliberately took a few moments extra just for the pleasure of seeing Ashley struggle to stand still. Finally Robin had to admit she was ready, and the two girls went next door and knocked.

  Torey opened the door. “Hi,” she said. “What’s up?”

  “Adventure,” Ashley said. “Can we come in?”

  “Sure,” Torey said, and Robin and Ashley soon found places to perch.

  “Shopping,” Ashley said. “Dinner in a real New York City restaurant. And then a movie. Maybe even something with subtitles. How does that sound?”

  “Expensive,” Torey said.

  “Exhausting,” Annie said. She was lying on her bed in a position Robin recognized as being identical to the one she herself had been in just a few short minutes before.

  “Don’t worry about expensive,” Ashley said to Torrey. “I’ll treat you.”

  “That isn’t necessary,” Torey said. “I don’t have to go.”

  “But I want you to,” Ashley said. “Dinner won’t be that expensive, and neither will the movie. I can afford to pay for you. Besides, you’ve got to have some fun while you’re here. You can’t just work and save up your money.”

  “I’m not saving up my money,” Torey said. “I’m sending it home to my family. And I am having fun. I’m having lots of fun. You don’t have to worry about me, Ashley.”

  “I’m not worrying,” Ashley replied. “I figure it’s just an investment. You’re the only one out of the four of us who is bound to be wildly successful. I’m going to go through my inheritance in no time flat once I finally inherit it. This way you’ll remember me as that nice person who helped you out when you were down on your luck, and you’ll treat me to all kinds of goodies in my old age. If I ever make it to old age. I’d like to put in right now for lots of beautiful young men. Want to make a note of that?”

  Torey laughed. “What if I’m not successful?” she asked.

  “I’ll take my chances,” Ashley said. “Besides, that way it can go down as one of my rare good deeds. I have no intention of becoming a philanthropist with the old man’s millions.”

  “Have a good time, girls,” Annie said, still not moving from her bed. “Send me a postcard.”

  “I have never seen such a collection of lazybones,” Ashley said. “What’s your excuse, Annie?”

  “I don’t have an excuse,” Annie said. “I’m just not in the mood to wander around while you shop.”

  “You can shop too,” Ashley said.

  “I don’t need anything,” Annie said. “And I’d love to have some time absolutely alone without anybody around. Understand?”

  “I think she’s trying to tell you something, Torey,” Ashley said. “Okay, Annie. Have your quiet time. But think of us exploring New York while you moan and whimper by yourself tonight.”

  “I’ll certainly try to remember,” Annie replied. “’Bye girls. Have a good time. Stay out as late as you like.”

  “I only wish,” Ashley grumbled.

  Torey brushed her hair, grabbed her bag, and the girls were off.

  “Mass transit,” Torey declared.

  “Certainly,” Ashley said. “I thought we might try Greenwich Village. We can take the Fifth Avenue bus down. And then when we go back uptown tonight, we can take a cab.”

  “I can’t afford a cab,” Torey said.

  “You’ll give us the cost of the bus,” Ashley said. “Robin and I can split the rest. Okay, Robin?”

  “Fine,” Robin said. “Just as Jong as dinner isn’t at some really expensive place.”

  “I thought we’d eat ethnic and cheap,” Ashley said. “I want to eat all the sorts of food you don’t get to have in Ashley, Missouri.”

  “Something exotic,” Torey said.

  “Some country we’ve never even heard of,” Ashley said. “Come on, girls, I see a bus coming.”

  In spite of her feet, Robin managed to run the few yards to the bus stop. Sure enough, just after they arrived, the bus did also. Robin dropped some coins into the change collector and pushed and shoved along with Ashley and Torey to find a place to stand. It was still rush hour, and there were no seats to be had.

  The crowd thinned out as the bus drove straight down Fifth Avenue. Robin didn’t bother getting a seat, since she wasn’t sure whether she’d ever bother to stand up again if she sat down, but she was better able to see out the windows. They weren’t on the glamorous part of Fifth Avenue, but it was still Fifth Avenue in New York City.

  “Last stop,” the bus driver announced as they reached Fifth Avenue and Eighth Street. Robin could see the arch at Washington Square Park. She regretted having worn sneakers. Probably nobody in all of Washington Square Park was wearing sneakers.

  The girls got off the bus and looked around. On one side were beautiful brownstones. Robin could just imagine what the homes were like inside. Beautiful people, all novelists and painters, in apartments with brick walls and lots of bookshelves and fireplaces. They were probably all preparing at that very moment for dinner parties with other beautiful novelists and painters. They probably wouldn’t even recognize a sneaker, let alone wear one.

  On the other side was Washington Square Park, which was loaded with people. There were people running, and people playing Frisbee, and people playing with kids, and people playing with dogs, and people just playing guitars. It wasn’t a big park, but it certainly was a busy one. Robin could spot an occasional bum and some bag ladies to boot, but it still looked like the friendliest park in the world. Robin yearned to be part of that carefree world.

  “This is so great,” Ashley said for all of them. “This is what I’ve dreamed of for so long.”

  “Come on,” Torey said after a moment. “We have to do something. We can’t let d
own the millions of readers of Image magazine.”

  “Shopping,” Ashley proclaimed. “Let’s find a fabulous Village boutique where I can spend scads of money on clothes they won’t let me wear to work.”

  The girls walked down Eighth Street, which certainly didn’t lack for stores. None of them were what Ashley wanted, though. It took a few blocks of walking on side streets before the boutique of Ashley’s dreams materialized.

  “This is it,” she declared, practically pushing the other girls in.

  “Boy, does this look expensive,” Robin said. Torey didn’t say anything, but Robin could see how wide her eyes had gotten.

  Ashley didn’t seem to care what the prices were on the clothes. She went through rack after rack with abandon, taking things out, analyzing them, and then putting them back. To entertain herself while Ashley shopped, Robin started looking around too. She found a blouse she loved. It was short-sleeved, eggshell-colored silk. Very grown-up, Robin felt. Not dissimilar to blouses she’d seen Alice and Shelley wear.

  “That’s a beautiful blouse,” Ashley told her. “Very classic.”

  “It also costs a fortune,” Robin said. “Just about all my spending money for the week.”

  “But it’s an investment,” Ashley said. “You could wear that when you go for college interviews. Try it on.”

  Robin took the blouse to the try-on room and put it on. Silk, she found, felt like nothing else in the world. It was like wearing warm butter. With a sigh she realized she never wanted to take the blouse off.

  “Let us see,” Ashley commanded, so Robin came out with the blouse on.

  “Oh, Robin, it looks great,” Torey said. “That’s a wonderful color for you.”

  “It is very becoming,” the saleswoman said.

  “A real investment,” Ashley said. “A blouse you can wear forever.”

  Robin stared at herself in the mirror. The blouse looked wonderful on her, even though she was wearing jeans and sneakers with it. With the right skirt, it would probably be the most perfect blouse in creation. And it did look startlingly good on her. It made her look older, but not artificially so. Just more self-assured, like Torey and Ashley. More in control of things. More grown-up.

  Besides, her first week in New York was practically over with and she had hardly spent any money at all. All her meals had been taken care of up until then, and this was her first trip without an Image editor guiding her about and paying for transportation. She’d bought a bunch of postcards to send to people, but she didn’t even have to buy stamps; her mother had made her pack a batch of them when she left Ohio. In the whole week, she’d just bought postcards, and some ice cream, and a couple of magazines, and that had been it. And her plans for the rest of the week were real inexpensive too. She was going out for the weekend to visit Annie’s grandmother. That would just be train fare. So why not?

  “I’ll take it,” Robin whispered.

  “Good for you,” Ashley said. “You’re never going to regret it, Robin. It’s such a perfect blouse.”

  “It is, isn’t it?” Robin said, having doubts already. She went back to the try-on room and took the blouse off. When she put her T-shirt on, she found she missed the feel of the silk on her body. Someday she’d be so rich her entire wardrobe would be made of silk, T-shirts, jeans, and sneakers.

  In all, the girls went into four stores. After the first one, Robin didn’t even glance at the temptations. Instead she watched Ashley try things on. Torey looked things over casually, but Ashley really checked things out. After four shops, though, Robin was the only one to have spent any money.

  “That’s not fair,” she complained as the girls started hunting around for an exotic restaurant. “How come you were the one who insisted on shopping, and I’m the one who ended up bankrupt?”

  “It’s important for me to see how things look,” Ashley said. “I am in fashion, after all.”

  “You mean this was just research for you?” Robin asked.

  “Not entirely,” Ashley said. “If I had found something as perfect as your blouse, I would have bought it.”

  “It is a perfect blouse, isn’t it?” Robin said, wishing she could remember a little better what it looked like.

  “Silk is so wonderful,” Ashley said. “It’s like roses and champagne.”

  “And food,” Torey said. “I’m famished. How does this place look?”

  “Thai cuisine,” Robin read out loud. “Well, somebody gave it two stars.”

  “Thai food is not big in Ashley, Missouri,” Ashley declared. “So it’s fine by me.”

  “Let’s try it,” Torey said. “Worse comes to worst, we’ll cancel our trip to Thailand.”

  The girls walked into the restaurant. It wasn’t very busy, and they were soon shown to a comfortable booth. Robin rested the bag with her blouse carefully by her side. She could wear it all summer long, she told herself, if she could find some skirts perfect enough to go with it.

  The waiter brought them their menus and glasses of ice water, which they all gratefully gulped down. The menus took longer to digest, since none of the food was familiar to them.

  They finally settled on fish, beef, and chicken dinners. That way they could each try what the others had ordered. The waiter took their order, refilled their water glasses, and walked away.

  “I love New York,” Robin said dreamily. “And think, after this, a movie.”

  “It isn’t just New York,” Ashley said. “It’s the independence. It’s the freedom of being away from parents and grandparents and editors. Have you noticed how everybody’s treated us like adults?”

  “I love it all,” Robin said. “I especially love my blouse.”

  “I can’t wait to be a grown-up,” Ashley said. “It doesn’t seem fair somehow that you have to go through so many preliminaries before you officially grow up. I’m ready for R-rated movies. I’m probably ready for X-rated ones, if you want to know the truth. Why should I have to wait?”

  “You don’t have to be so impatient,” Torey replied. “Enjoy the time you’re stuck being young. There’s all the time in the world waiting for us. That’s the one thing everybody has. Time.”

  “That’s just not true,” Robin said. “Not everybody has time.”

  The other girls turned to face her.

  “Sometimes you think you have forever, but you don’t,” Robin said, feeling her face turn red. “My sister, Caro, she thought she had all the future, but then she was in an accident and she didn’t have any time left at all.”

  “I didn’t know you had a sister,” Torey said. “You just mentioned a brother.”

  “Caro was older than me,” Robin said. “She died from the injuries two years ago. She was seventeen.”

  “Oh,” Ashley said. “I’m sorry, Robin.”

  “It must still hurt,” Torey said.

  “It’ll hurt forever,” Robin said. “But it taught me one thing, and that is not to assume you can do something tomorrow. You might not have a tomorrow. Not everybody gets to have a tomorrow.”

  “Well, I’d better get more than my share of time,” Ashley said. “Because my yesterdays have been just terrible, and my todays could stand some improvement too.”

  Torey smiled. “You know, Ashley, you complain a lot, but you never give us specifics,” she said. “Just what is so bad about life in Ashley, Missouri?”

  Robin was glad they’d gotten off the subject of Caro. She wasn’t in the habit of blurting out things about her sister. Of course, back home, everybody knew everything there was to know about Caro.

  “Are you kidding?” Ashley replied. “That would take years.”

  “How about summing up the high points,” Torey said. “I don’t think any of us really want to hear years’ worth of complaints.”

  “Well, for starters, everybody hates my guts there,” Ashley said. “I wouldn’t blame them if they hated me for the right reasons. Like I hate their guts. That would be a reasonable reason. But they just hate me because of my name
.”

  “Boone?” Torey asked with a grin.

  “Ashley,” Ashley replied, making a face at her. “It might be okay if it was a coincidence, but it obviously isn’t. Think about it. They have to cheer me at football games. ‘Go, Ashley, go!’ ‘Who’s the greatest? Ashley’s the greatest!’ Cheerleaders all over Ashley have hated me since the day I was born.”

  “That’s bad, all right,” Torey said.

  “And teachers never know what to do with me,” Ashley continued. “They hate me too, but they don’t dare show it, in case they ever want to apply for a loan at the old man’s bank. I once had a run-in with my elementary-school principal, and the old man saw to it his contract wasn’t renewed.”

  “He sounds a little overprotective,” Robin said.

  “Just of the precious name,” Ashley said. “It isn’t as if he likes me. All he really likes is money and power.”

  “What about your mother?” Torey asked. “Is she happy?”

  “You really want to hear about my mother?” Ashley said. “This is the story of my mother. My mother fell in love years ago with some guy, and they got married. My grandfather didn’t approve, but it was the one act of rebellion my mother ever managed. She got married to her Mr. Right. Only for some reason my mother couldn’t get pregnant. My grandfather convinced my mother she had to bear him grandchildren, so she divorced Mr. Right and married my father, who is no great shakes of a human being, but belongs to the right country club. They had me and they stayed together for as long as she could stand it, which wasn’t very long, and then she ran back to her daddy. And that is the story of my mother.”

  “So nobody is happy in Ashley, Missouri,” Torey said.

  “Nobody I know,” Ashley said. “I think the truly happy people leave as soon as they can.”

  “This is sure turning into one morbid dinner,” Robin declared. “How about if we start talking about something a little cheerier?”

  “Like food,” Torey said. “Food is always a cheerful topic.”

  As though he’d been waiting for them, the waiter appeared, carrying a tray with their dishes on it. He placed them on the table and then came back to refill their glasses. “The food’s hot,” he warned them. “Be careful.”