Christine - Stephen King [90]
'Dad, stay here,' Arnie said. 'Please, Let's get this over.'
Michael Cunningham looked at his wife; his son; at his wife again. He saw flint in both places. He retreated to the kitchen clutching his wife's glass.
Regina turned grimly back to her son. The wedge had been in the door since late last summer; she had perhaps recognized this as her last chance to kick it back out again.
'This July you had almost four thousand dollars in the bank,' she said. 'About three-quarters of all the money you've made since ninth grade, plus interest - '
'Oh, you've really been keeping track, haven't you?' Arnie said. He sat down suddenly, gazing at his mother. His tone was one of disgusted surprise. 'Mom - why didn't you just take the damn money and put it in an account under your own name?'
'Because,' she said,' until recently, you seemed to understand what the money was for. In the last couple of months it's all been car-car-car and more recently girl-girl-girl. It's as if you've gone insane on both subjects.'
'Well, thanks. I can always use a nice, unprejudiced opinion on the way I'm conducting my life.'
'This July you had almost four thousand dollars. For your education, Arnie. For your education. Now you have just over twenty-eight hundred. You can go on about snooping all you want - and I admit it hurts a little - but that's a fact. You've gone through twelve hundred dollars in two months. Maybe that's why I don't want to look at that car. You ought to be able to understand that. To me it looks like - '
'Listen - '
' - like a great big dollar bill flying away.'
'Can I tell you a couple of things?'
'No, I don't think so, Arnie,' she said with finality. 'I really don't think so.'
Michael had come back with her glass, half full of gin. He added tonic at the bar and handed it to her. Regina drank, making that bitter grimace of distaste again. Arnie sat in the chair near the TV, looking at her thoughtfully.
'You teach college? he said. 'You teach college and that's your attitude? "I have spoken. The rest of you can just shut up." Great. I pity your students.'
'You watch it, Arnie,' she said, pointing a finger at him. 'Just watch it.'
'Can I tell you a couple of things or not?'
'Go ahead. But it won't make any difference.'
Michael cleared his throat. 'Reg, I think Arnie's right, that's hardly a constructive atti - '
She turned on him like a cat. 'Not one word from you, either!'
Michael flinched back.
'The first thing is this,' Arnie said. 'If you gave my savings passbook more than a cursory look - and I'm sure you did - you must have noticed that my total savings went down to an all-time low of twenty-two hundred dollars the first week of September. I had to buy a whole new front-end kit for Christine.'
'You speak as if you're proud of it,' she said angrily.
'I am.' He met her eyes levelly. 'I put that front-end kit in myself, with no help from anybody. And I did a really good job. You wouldn't' - here his voice seemed to falter momentarily, and then firmed again - 'you wouldn't be able to tell it from the original. But my point is, the total savings are back up six hundred dollars from then. Because Will Darnell liked my work and took me on. If I can add six hundred dollars to my savings account every two months and I might do better if he puts me on the run over to Albany where he buys his used cars - there'll be forty-six hundred dollars in my account by the time school ends. And if I work there full-time next summer, I'll be starting college with nearly seven thousand dollars. And you can lay it all at the door of the car you hate so much.'
'That won't do any good if you can't get into a good school,' she countered, shifting her ground deftly as she had in so many department committee meetings when someone dared to question one of her opinions which