The Pillow Friend Read Free

much that he goes into the office every day because he wants to? Don't you think he might rather spend more of his time traveling and reading; haven't you heard him say how much he'd like to live near the water and have a boat?”
    Agnes felt a little wobbly. She knew her mother was unhappy, but her dad, too? Despite her fear that her mother might run off to Hollywood, given half a chance, she had never imagined the possibility that her father might leave them. . . .
    “Hey, don't look like that! Your dad's happy enough—he made his choice, he got what he wished for, and he doesn't complain. Everybody has some regrets, including me. . . . Christ, me and my big mouth! I keep forgetting you're just a kid. Which reminds me. You haven't had your breakfast. Your mother would shoot me, letting you starve. What do you want? Eggs? French toast? My special pancakes?”
    “What about my wish?”
    “Hmmm?”
    “When do I get it? When does it come true?”
    “Oh.” Marjorie pursed her lips. “Well, when do wishes most often come true? You have a birthday coming up soon, don't you?”
    “Not until May. I'll be seven in May.”
    Her aunt smiled her mysterious smile. “Well, May sounds like a very good month for wishes to come true.”
     
     
    The Greys lived in a two-story wood house on a corner lot on Rosemary Street, in a subdivision of Houston called Oak Shadows. When it was built, in the early 1950s, Oak Shadows was on the edge of the city, but Houston was booming, and by the time Agnes started school her neighborhood was considered a very desirable, central location. It was a quiet, residential enclave, the homes in their green, tree-shaded yards set well back from the street, with sidewalks for roller-skating, and little traffic to threaten the bicycle-riding children. The adults were all agreed that it was a good place to live, the ideal setting for a happy childhood.
    For Agnes' seventh birthday on May 23 the weather was clear, hot and humid, as it had been all week. She went to school in the morning wearing her new red and white birthday dress with the flounced petticoat underneath. It was too heavy for the weather, but it would have been unthinkable to wear anything other than her birthday dress on her birthday. It was looking a little limp and bedraggled by the late afternoon, but she was still buzzing with excitement.
    Her mother had tied red balloons and paper streamers to the branches of the big pecan tree behind the house and pushed the picnic table, covered with a festive cloth, beneath it. A pile of presents waited for her at one end of the table, and her mother was in the kitchen putting the finishing touches to her birthday dinner as Agnes ran between the front and backyard, watching for the rest of the guests to arrive, despite pleas from her father to sit still.
    It wasn't a large party, just the family, her father's parents who had come up for the day from Beaumont, and Leslie and her parents. When Leslie's family arrived, Mary Grey emerged from the kitchen with a pitcher of drinks and began directing the others to carry trays of food outside. “We might as well start with the cake, before our little birthday girl explodes.”
    “Mom,” said Agnes urgently. “Mom, not yet. Marjorie's not here!”
    Her mother's beautiful, made-up face tightened. “We can't wait on her, I told you, she probably won't come.”
    “Did you send her an invitation?” Agnes had nagged her mother on this subject for weeks.
    “Of course I did. But I haven't heard back. It might not have reached her. She could be anywhere. You know what she's like. She turns up when she feels like it. Family birthday parties aren't really her scene. If we have to wait on her, we could all starve.”
    Agnes hadn't seen Marjorie since February, and not a day had passed without thoughts of her, the wish, the dream, the doll. She was certain she would get the doll for her birthday, and had imagined that Marjorie would bring it. But Marjorie had