"I could pretend I'm dumber than I really am."
"That kind of pretending and lying will only get you in trouble. There's more. You'll have to learn what girls your age do and how they think. You'll be an outsider from the start because all the students will have grown up with each other. You don't even know their language, the music they listen to, how to use a computer." The look on Karen's face showed she was beginning to understand. "You mean like when we went to the mall?"
Right. You can't be shocked if someone says piss or a lot worse."
Karen was dumbfounded. "I have to learn to swear?"
"Not necessarily but you should know what the words mean; what's acceptable and what's not. Not just the swearing but everything. There's stuff to do and stuff not to do, like smoking and pot and drugs and the whole question of boys. You need a lot more education than Sister Rose has been giving you."
"You can teach me stuff."
"We're getting ahead of ourselves, Karen. I'm not even sure what your father would think of this conversation. He's been a party to your sheltered life so he might not agree to your stepping out into the world."
Look!" Karen yelled, startling me. She pointed to a stately old home on a tree-lined avenue with a for Sale sign out front. The beautiful white building sat on a large lot behind a slopping lawn. A screened in porch on the east side looked out to the ocean a block and a half away.
"That's about the right size, isn't it?"
"It is indeed." I braked the car and made a U turn in the empty street. We parked in front and for the first time Karen reached for my hand as we walked up to the edge of the lawn.
"This is it, isn't it? I can feel it's meant for us!"
As foolish as it seemed, I felt it too but I refrained from admitting it. "It seems to be about the right size and it is beautiful."
"Do they let you go in?"
"That's not how it works." I pointed to the realtor's sign. "We'd have to contact the real estate broker and make an appointment to tour the house."
"Let's do it! Look," she said, pointing to the sign. They're here in Summerside."
"It's Sunday. I doubt the Real Estate office is open." I could see the disappointment in her eyes. "It looks empty. Let's at least peek in the windows."
We crept along like burglars and stepped up to the front door. Drapes were left open as if encouraging peeking but all the windows were too far off the ground for either of us to see inside.