wouldn't ever be coming home again.
They all had to get used to things being different, but at least she hadn't had to change schools, and most of her friends hadn't cared that she lived in an apartment now, instead of a nice house with a pool.
So at least she'd still had her friends, and gone to the same school she was used to, and done the same things.
But now what was she supposed to do?
Now nothing was the way it should have been.
She stared bleakly at the little town they were coming into.
If you could even call it a town.
There wasn't even a shopping mall!
Just a bunch of frame houses sitting side by side, all looking alike, without even any fences between their yards.
They passed the school, and with a sinking feeling Julie saw that the elementary school was in the same building with the high school. Great, she groaned silently. Just terrific! She and Molly would be in the same school.
"Look," the nine-year-old piped from the backseat, as if she'd read Julie's mind. "The school's all together here.
We're going to be in the same one!"
"I can hardly wait," Julie muttered, then felt her mother's eyes fix disapprovingly on her and wished she'd kept the words to herself.
"Now come on, honey, give it all a chance."
They were driving through the downtown area now, and Julie had to stifle another groan as she spotted the movie theater.
One screen? Was that really all it had?
Hadn't they ever heard of multiplexes here?
Two more blocks, and they left the town behind. Once again there was nothing to see but the broad expanse of cropland, now backed by some hills rising in the west, with a few clusters of farm buildings here and there. Paralleling the road was an endless row of huge stanchions supporting high-power electric lines.
"You know, it still isn't too late, Mom," Julie said, deciding she might as well try one last time to talk her mother out of this terrible mistake. "I mean, like we could just stay a few days, and then go back to Studio City. I bet you could get your job back, and I could get one, too, and then we could even afford a better apartment!"
Her mother didn't even glance her way, let alone answer her.
As the fields rolled endlessly by, bringing them closer and closer to their destination, Julie's spirits sank still lower.
She would die out here-she just knew it.
And why?
Just so her mother could get married again!
It wasn't fair-didn't her mother even care how miserable she was?
Well, if it got too bad, and she hated it too much, there was still one thing she could do.
She could run away.
Maybe, just maybe, she would.
Karen Spellman sensed the darkening of her daughter's mood, and finally, if surreptitiously, glanced over to see her slouching Against the passenger door. Should she say something? But what good would it do? Each time she'd tried to talk sensibly with Julie, her daughter had refused to listen, standing with hands planted on hips, shaking her head and repeating over and over how stupid she thought her mother was. But despite what Julie thought, Karen was still certain that what she was about to do would be the best thing she'd ever done.
Her life, which had seemed to end that night five years ago when Richard Spellman had died, was about to begin again.
And it had all started with a letter from someone she barely remembered. A letter she'd been about to discard when a tiny voice inside her head had whispered that going to the reunion might be fun.
Fun?
A reunion of her class at Pleasant Valley High, fun?
Unpleasant Valley was what she and her mother had always called the town in which she'd grown up, and the week after she graduated from high school, she left for Los Angeles, a check from her mother carefully folded in her purse.
"I saved it from my household allowance," Enid Gilman had told Karen almost twenty-one years ago. Her mother's thin lips had set firmly together as she once more rehearsed what her life might have been like had she not married Wilbur
They all had to get used to things being different, but at least she hadn't had to change schools, and most of her friends hadn't cared that she lived in an apartment now, instead of a nice house with a pool.
So at least she'd still had her friends, and gone to the same school she was used to, and done the same things.
But now what was she supposed to do?
Now nothing was the way it should have been.
She stared bleakly at the little town they were coming into.
If you could even call it a town.
There wasn't even a shopping mall!
Just a bunch of frame houses sitting side by side, all looking alike, without even any fences between their yards.
They passed the school, and with a sinking feeling Julie saw that the elementary school was in the same building with the high school. Great, she groaned silently. Just terrific! She and Molly would be in the same school.
"Look," the nine-year-old piped from the backseat, as if she'd read Julie's mind. "The school's all together here.
We're going to be in the same one!"
"I can hardly wait," Julie muttered, then felt her mother's eyes fix disapprovingly on her and wished she'd kept the words to herself.
"Now come on, honey, give it all a chance."
They were driving through the downtown area now, and Julie had to stifle another groan as she spotted the movie theater.
One screen? Was that really all it had?
Hadn't they ever heard of multiplexes here?
Two more blocks, and they left the town behind. Once again there was nothing to see but the broad expanse of cropland, now backed by some hills rising in the west, with a few clusters of farm buildings here and there. Paralleling the road was an endless row of huge stanchions supporting high-power electric lines.
"You know, it still isn't too late, Mom," Julie said, deciding she might as well try one last time to talk her mother out of this terrible mistake. "I mean, like we could just stay a few days, and then go back to Studio City. I bet you could get your job back, and I could get one, too, and then we could even afford a better apartment!"
Her mother didn't even glance her way, let alone answer her.
As the fields rolled endlessly by, bringing them closer and closer to their destination, Julie's spirits sank still lower.
She would die out here-she just knew it.
And why?
Just so her mother could get married again!
It wasn't fair-didn't her mother even care how miserable she was?
Well, if it got too bad, and she hated it too much, there was still one thing she could do.
She could run away.
Maybe, just maybe, she would.
Karen Spellman sensed the darkening of her daughter's mood, and finally, if surreptitiously, glanced over to see her slouching Against the passenger door. Should she say something? But what good would it do? Each time she'd tried to talk sensibly with Julie, her daughter had refused to listen, standing with hands planted on hips, shaking her head and repeating over and over how stupid she thought her mother was. But despite what Julie thought, Karen was still certain that what she was about to do would be the best thing she'd ever done.
Her life, which had seemed to end that night five years ago when Richard Spellman had died, was about to begin again.
And it had all started with a letter from someone she barely remembered. A letter she'd been about to discard when a tiny voice inside her head had whispered that going to the reunion might be fun.
Fun?
A reunion of her class at Pleasant Valley High, fun?
Unpleasant Valley was what she and her mother had always called the town in which she'd grown up, and the week after she graduated from high school, she left for Los Angeles, a check from her mother carefully folded in her purse.
"I saved it from my household allowance," Enid Gilman had told Karen almost twenty-one years ago. Her mother's thin lips had set firmly together as she once more rehearsed what her life might have been like had she not married Wilbur
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