Sanctuary Read Free Page A

which I have really been trying to curtail my tendency toward violence, thanks to a lawsuit I got slapped with not too long ago for deviating a certain someone’s septum.
    Though I still think she deserved it.
    “African-American, Rose,” my mom said. “And he is our neighbor, Dr. Thompkins. Can I get anyone some more wine? Skip, more Coke?”
    Skip is Ruth’s twin brother. He is supposed to have a crush on me, but he always forgets about it when Claire Lippman is around. That’s because all the boys—including my other brother, Douglas—love Claire. It is like she gives off a pheromone or something that girls like Ruth and I don’t have. It is somewhat upsetting.
    Not, of course, that I want Skip to like me. Because I don’t even like Skip. I like someone else.
    Someone who was expecting me for Thanksgiving dinner. Only the way things were going—
    “What’s wrong with saying colored?” Great-aunt Rose wanted to know. “He
is
colored, isn’t he?”
    “Can I get you a little more creamed spinach?” Mr. Abramowitz asked Great-aunt Rose. Being a lawyer, he is used to having to be nice to people he doesn’t like.
    “What’d Dr. Thompkins want?” Skip asked.
    “Oh, nothing,” my mother said, a little too brightly. “He was just wondering if any of us had seen Nate. Who’d like more mashed potatoes?”
    “What’s wrong with saying colored?” Great-aunt Rose was mad because no one was paying any attention to her. Though she probably would have changed her tune if I’d paid the kind of attention to her that I wanted to.
    “I heard the only reason Dr. Thompkins took the chief surgeon job over at County Medical was because Nate was getting into trouble at their old school.” Claire looked around the table as she dropped this little bombshell. Being an actress, Claire enjoys seeing what kind of reactions her little performances generate. Also, since she babysits for all the rich doctor types when she is not attending rehearsals, she knows all the gossip in town. “I heard Nate was in a
gang
up in Chicago.”
    “A gang!” Mrs. Lippman looked upset. “Oh, no! That nice boy?”
    “Many a nice boy’s fallen in with the wrong crowd,” Mr. Abramowitz said mildly.
    “But Nate Thompkins.” Mrs. Lippman, who was big-time involved with the PTA, shook her head. “Why, he’s always been so polite when I’ve seen him at the Stop and Shop.”
    “Nate may have been involved with some unsavory individuals back in Chicago,” my dad said. “But everybody’s entitled to a fresh new start. That’s one of the ideals this country was founded on, anyway.”
    “He’s probably out there right now,” Great-aunt Rose said, with certain relish, “with his little gang friends, getting high on reefer cigarettes.”
    Mike, Douglas, and I all exchanged glances. It was always amusing to hear Great-aunt Rose use the word “reefer.”
    My mom apparently didn’t find it very amusing, though, since she said, in a stern voice, “Don’t be ridiculous, Rose. There are no drugs here. I mean, not in this town.”
    I didn’t think it would be politic to point out to my mom that the weekend before, at the
Hello Dolly
cast party (Claire, of course, had gotten the part of Dolly), two kids (not Claire, obviously—she doesn’t do drugs, as an actress’s body, she informed me, is her temple) had been hauled out by EMTs after imbibing in a little too much Ecstasy. It is better in the long run that my mom be shielded from these things.
    “Can I be excused?” I asked, instead. “I have to run over to Joanne’s house and get those trig notes I was telling you about.”
    ”
May
I be excused,” my mom said. “And no, you may not. It’s Thanksgiving, Jessica. You have three whole days off. You can pick up the notes tomorrow.”
    “You know somebody graffitied the overpass last week,” Mrs. Lippman informed everyone. “You can’t even tell what it says. I never thought of it before now, but supposing it’s one of those