The Obsession(21)

“Why?”

“You need to talk with him. It’s his to tell.”

Naomi didn’t know what her uncle said to her mother, but after a couple of dark days, Susan came out again.

She took Naomi shopping for a new dress for homecoming, insisted on making a day of it. A rare thing.

“Anything looks good on you, honey, you’re so tall and slim, but don’t you want something with some color?”

Naomi turned in the dressing room, checked front and back on the short black dress with its cinched waist and square-necked bodice.

“I’ll be taking pictures more than dancing. The black’s better for that than the pink.”

“You ought to have a date,” Susan insisted. “Why aren’t you going out with that nice boy anymore? Mark.”

“Oh.” Naomi just shrugged. Her mother wasn’t the type you told a boy hadn’t been satisfied just touching your breast. “He’s all right, but I didn’t want a date for homecoming.”

“Well, when I was your age, having a date for homecoming was the most important thing in the world. So maybe you’re smarter than I was. But I just love the pink, and it has that sparkle on the skirt.”

“I don’t know if I’m a sparkle-pink girl.”

“Every girl deserves some sparkle pink. You want the black, that’s fine. Gosh, you’re so grown-up it takes my breath. But we’re getting the pink, too.”

“Mama, you can’t buy both.”

“I can. You can wear the black since you’ll be taking pictures, and save the pink for something special. I haven’t given you and Mason enough special.”

“Sure you have.”

“Not nearly enough, but I’m going to. We’re going to buy those dresses, and have a fancy lunch. Then we’re going to hunt up the perfect accessories.”

Naomi laughed, happy to see some sparkle—not on the pink but in her mother’s eyes. “My camera’s my accessory.”

“Not this time. You’d probably be better off with Seth and Harry there, but we’ll find just the right things. Shoes and a bag, and earrings. I know you wanted to go shopping with your girlfriends today, but—”

“Mama, I love doing this with you.”

“It all went so fast. I see that now. It seemed so slow, and some days—and nights—lasted forever. But I see now, looking at you, so grown-up, how fast it all went. I wasn’t with you.”

No, no, the sparkle was dying out. “You always were.”

“No.” Susan laid her hands on Naomi’s cheeks. “I wasn’t. I’m really going to try to be. I . . . I’m sorry about the movie.”

“It doesn’t matter. Don’t worry.”

“I love you so much.”

“I love you back.”

“I’m going to take the pink dress out to the saleslady, have her get started. You go on and change, then we’ll have lunch.”

They bought the dresses, and shoes, and a pretty bag that sparkled—and made her mother smile again. At Naomi’s urging Susan bought herself a red sweater and suede boots. They came home flushed and exhausted, modeled everything all over again.

When Naomi dropped into bed that night, she thought she’d had the best day of her life.

October turned brisk, and the light Naomi loved best slanted gold over the burnished trees of the parks.

To please her mother she wore the pink instead of the black to homecoming, and though it wasn’t a date, she asked Anson Chaffins, a friend—and the editor of the school paper—to pick her up.

And saw the glimmer of tears in her mother’s eyes from joy instead of sorrow when she and Anson dutifully posed for pictures before she could get out of the house.

On Halloween Susan dressed up as a flapper, coordinating with Seth and Harry in their zoot suits to hand out candy to the ghosts, goblins, princesses, and Jedi knights. As it was the first time Susan had dressed up for the holiday, Naomi browbeat Mason into spending part of the evening at home instead of out with his friends doing God knew what.

“It’s like she’s turned a corner, and she’s really moving forward now.”

Mason, who’d made himself into a vampire hobo, shrugged. “I hope you’re right.”

Naomi gave him an elbow in the ribs. “Try to be happy because I am right.”

But she wasn’t.

—

The third week of January, in a quick cold snap that blew in some thin snow, she rushed home at lunch. Anson came with her.

“You didn’t have to come,” she said as she dug out her keys.

“Hey, any excuse to get out of school for a half hour.”

Anson Chaffins was a senior, gawky and on the geeky side, but he was, to Naomi’s mind, a good editor and a really good writer. Plus, he’d done her a favor at homecoming.

He’d put what she thought of as half-assed, clumsy moves on her that night, but hadn’t pushed anything.

As a result, they got along just fine.

She let him in, turned to the alarm pad to key in the code.

“I’ll go up, get my camera bag. Which I’d have had with me if you’d told me you wanted shots of the drama club rehearsing.”

“Maybe I forgot so we could get out for thirty.” He grinned at her, shoved up his dark-framed glasses. He shoved them up constantly, as if his eagle-beak nose served as their sliding board.