She watched a movie on TV then. She was tired and would have gone to sleep, but she wanted to wait up for Allyson. Page had not yet reached the point of being able to assume that she would come in. She wanted to know for sure, so she sat up and waited.
At eleven o'clock she watched the news. Nothing too remarkable had happened, and Page saw with relief that there had been no disasters in the air, or at the airport. Whenever Brad was traveling, she was always nervous that something terrible might happen to him. But nothing had. There had been the usual shootings in Oakland, the gang wars, the politicians insulting each other, and a minor crisis at a water treatment plant. And other than that, there had been an accident on the Golden Gate Bridge, and a few minutes before they had closed the bridge, but at least Page knew that she didn't have to worry about that. Brad was in the air, and Allyson had stayed in Marin, with the Thorensens. Andy was in bed next to her. All her chickens were accounted for, thank God. It was something to be grateful for, as she glanced at the clock and waited for Allyson to come home by eleven-thirty. It was eleven-twenty by then, and knowing her well, Page knew she would come racing through the door at eleven twenty-nine, eyes bright, hair flying …and probably with a huge spot of spaghetti sauce on the borrowed pink cashmere sweater. Page smiled to herself, thinking of it, as she settled deeper into her bed, to watch the weather.
Chapter 2
As Allyson hurried down the walk when she left her house, she was already five minutes late for her appointment with Chloe. Her house was three blocks from Allyson's, but she didn't even have to go that far this time. Allyson and Chloe had agreed to meet at the corner of Shady Lane and Lagunitas, halfway between their two homes, and just around the corner from Chloe's.
Chloe was already there when Allyson arrived, breathless and flushed in the slightly too warm pink cashmere sweater.
“Wow! That's neat!” Chloe admired. “Is it your mom's?” She no longer had the vast pool of her mother's wardrobe to draw from, and she had borrowed the black sweater she was wearing from the older sister of a girl in school. Or actually, Chloe's friend had stolen it from her older sister, and assured Chloe that they'd all be dead if it wasn't returned, without fail, by Sunday morning. It was a black turtleneck sweater, and she was wearing it with a black leather miniskirt she'd borrowed from another friend, and a pair of black tights her mother had forgotten in a drawer when she left for England.
“You look cool,” Allyson nodded, impressed with the sophisticated outfit. She started to worry then that she looked like Little Bo Peep next to Chloe. But in any case, their looks were very different. The black sweater and skirt set off Chloe's shining dark hair, in sharp contrast to her creamy white skin. She was a very pretty girl, and she stood next to Allyson, looking like a nervous ballerina. She had done eleven years of ballet, and it showed in her every movement. She was hoping to transfer to the San Francisco Ballet School in the fall, and had just been accepted after a series of gruelling auditions. Allyson was looking at her uncomfortably, as Chloe looked at her watch repeatedly and glanced down the street with obvious expectation. “Stop it! You're making me a wreck! Maybe we shouldn't have done it,” Allyson said' looking ready to cry, and suddenly remorseful.
“How can you say a thing like that?” Chloe looked terrified. “They're the two best-looking guys in the whole school. And Phillip Chapman is a senior!” Phillip was Allyson's date, and Jamie Applegate was the boy Chloe had been dreaming of since she was a freshman. He was a junior now, and both boys were on the swimming team.