In just a few weeks, everything changed. Vera had agreed to stay behind until Kelly finished veterinary school. The new plan was that as soon as Kelly graduated, Vera would join Adam wherever the Peace Corps had sent him.
Now everything was going to change again. Burke Hatten’s horse threw him and he’d died instantly, so Adam had returned. But this time when he left the country to go back to his job in Africa, Vera wouldn’t be kissing him goodbye. They’d leave together. The goodbyes would be to her mother and sister, to the farm, to her job at the travel agency. Goodbye to the town of Mason. The world she’d been reading about was out there and calling to her.
At last, she was going to answer its call.
She heard Kelly before she saw her. But that had always been the case. Schoolkids tended to call her Pig-Pen after the Peanuts character. But while he was surrounded by dust, Kelly was followed by and covered with animals. Today there was a parrot on her shoulder and some kind of lizard had its tail wrapped around her neck. Three dogs, tails down, were following her. In her hand was a fat textbook that had bird droppings on the cover.
Kelly was almost finished with veterinary school and the “almost” was the key to Vera’s life.
When Kelly was out of the school, Vera could go!
“So where is he?” Kelly asked as she sat down. She removed the lizard from her neck and put it on the porch railing. The bird flew to land on the lizard’s tail. One of the dogs looked longingly at the bird, but Kelly gave the dog a stare that made it lie down, head on paws. Kelly didn’t believe in discourteous animals.
“He’ll be here,” Vera said.
“Sure? I saw Miranda Miller at the funeral. She was eyeing him and she looked good in her miniskirt. I bet she was afraid to sit down or she’d show all.”
Vera didn’t take the bait. For one thing, Kelly didn’t like Adam. She thought he was too full of himself, too bossy. Too much like his father. “I didn’t talk to him, and we didn’t reaffirm our love for each other, if that’s what you’re hinting at. And Miranda Miller is an idiot.”
“Men like dumb girls,” Kelly said.
“Until they marry them,” Vera shot back.
“And that’s when she gets to stop pretending to be stupid.”
Vera laughed.
The bird had flown back to Kelly and she was feeding it something she took from her shirt pocket.
All their lives, they’d heard, “You two are sisters?” said in an incredulous tone. They looked very different. When they were younger, they’d answered truthfully. Vera explained that she took after her father’s family while Kelly was like their mother’s side. As they grew up, they began to play jokes. Kelly was a good actress and she would pretend to be shocked. Sometimes she’d even pull up tears, saying that maybe her father wasn’t really her father. Mac Exton had played along with the joke but his wife had never liked it.
Vera was tall and thin, flat chested, and had an explosion of corkscrew ringlets of light brown hair.
As best she could, she kept her hair pulled back and tightly tied down. Her face was pleasant but not cutesy pretty. Even as a child she’d looked like an adult. Her truly spectacular feature was her legs: long, lean, shapely. Vera in a swimsuit was a sight to behold.
Kelly was the prettiest girl in the county. Big blue eyes, naturally blond hair, a perfect figure eight of a body, and she was inches shorter than her sister. She was so pretty that she surprised everyone by being smart.
Their personalities differed as much as their bodies. Vera was acerbic; Kelly was sweet. When someone annoyed Vera, she told them so. Kelly was the diplomat. Vera wanted to save the world; Kelly wanted to save all the animals in Mason. For her, Kansas City was too big and as far away as she wanted to go.
They were so opposite that they never collided. They were a perfect match.
For minutes they were silent, looking out from the front of the old house. There was a gravel drive shaded by fifty-year-old oak trees. Every sunny spot was filled with flowers, lovingly tended by Nella.
There had been a running joke in their family. Nella took care of the plants, Kelly looked after the animals, Mac took care of the farm. “What about me?” an eight-year-old Vera had