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Lindsey blinked She cleared her throat "Uh, well, I’m an artist A painter"
"Like Picasso?"
"Not that style, no, but an artist like hi poker," the girl said "Did you paint that?"
Lindsey said, "No, I’m afraid I didn’t"
"Good It was stupid I saw a picture once of a bull and a bullfighter, it was on velvet, very bright colors Do you paint in very bright colors on velvet?"
"No," Lindsey said "But if you like that sort of thing, I could paint any scene you wanted on velvet for your rooina crinkled up her face "Puh-leeese I’d rather put a dead cat on the wall"
Nothing surprised the folks froer priest actually smiled, and Sister Imreeing that such a bit ofon velvet
"My style," Lindsey said, eager to rescue her reputation after offering to paint so of neoclassicis ," Regina said, as if she had a hoot-owl’s idea in hell what those styles were like and what a blend of theht resemble "If I came to live with you, and if I had a roo a lot of your paintings on my walls, would you?" The "your" was emphasized in such a way as to imply that she still preferred a dead cat even if velvet was not involved
"Not a one," Lindsey assured her
"Good"
"Do you think youwith us?" Lindsey asked, and Hatch wondered whether that prospect excited or terrified her
Abruptly the girl struggled up froht topple headfirst into the coffee table Hatch rose, ready to grab her, even though he suspected it was all part of the act
When she regained her balance, she put down her glass, from which she’d drunk all the Pepsi, and she said, "I’ve got to go pee, I’ve got a weak bladder Part of enes I can never holdto burst in the ht here in Mr Gujilio’s office, which is another thing you should probably consider before taking s, being in the antiques and art business, nice things you wouldn’t wantit or, worse, I get a bursting bladder attack all over soe, and I’d be so emotional about it, I’d cluic suicide, which none of us really would want to see happen Niceyou"
She turned and wrenched herself across the Persian carpet and out of the rooait--sccccuuuurrrr … THUD!--which no doubt sprang frooldfish ventriloquislinted like fire
They all stood in silence, listening to the girl’s slowly fading footsteps At one point, she buainst the ith a solid thunk! that must have hurt, then bravely scrape-thudded onward
"She does not have a weak bladder," Father Jilassful of a bourbon now "That is not part of her disability"
"She’s not really like that," Father Duran said, blinking his owlish eyes as if shtful child I know that’s hard for you to believe right now--"
"And she can walk much better than that, immeasurably better," said The Nun with No Naotten into her"
"I do," Sister Immaculata said She wiped one hand wearily down her face Her eyes were sad "Two years ago, when she was eight, we ed to place her with adoptive parents A couple in their thirties ere told they could never have children of their own They convinced the Then, teeks after Regina went to live with them, while they were in the pre-adoption trial phase, the wo to have their own child, after all, and the adoption didn’t seeina back?" Lindsey asked "Just due them," Sister Ih love for a child of their own and poor Regina, too, in which case they did the right thing Regina doesn’t deserve to be raised in a home where every minute of every day she knows she’s second best, second in love, so of an outsider Anyway, she was broken up by the rejection She took a long tiet her self-confidence back And now I think she doesn’t want to take another risk"
They stood in silence
The sun was very bright beyond the s The palli center and business complex at the perimeter of which Gujilio’s office was located
"Sometimes, with the sensitive ones, a bad experience ruins any chance for theina is one of those She came in here determined to alienate you and wreck the interview, and she succeeded in singular style"
"It’s like somebody who’s been in prison all his life," said Father Jiets paroled, is all excited at first, then finds he can’t et back in The institution --but it’s known, it’s safe"
Salvatore Gujilio bustled around, relieving people of their elasses He was still an enorone froer dominated it as he had done before He had been forever dile coray-eyed child
"I’ hand on Lindsey’s shoulder "We’ll try again, o back to square one and match you up with another child, the perfect child this time"
2
Lindsey and Hatch left Salvatore Gujilio’s office at ten past three that Thursday afternoon They had agreed not to talk about the interview until dinner, giving themselves time to contemplate the encounter and examine their reactions to it Neither wanted to make a decision based on emotion, or influence the other to act on initial iret it
Of course, they had never expected the one Lindsey was eager to talk about it She assumed that their decision was already irl, and that there was no point in further contereed to wait, and Hatch did not seereement, so she kept her mouth shut as well
She drove their new sporty-red Mitsubishi Hatch sat in the passenger seat with his shades on, one arainst the side of the car as he listened to golden oldie rock-’n’-roll on the radio "Please Mister Postiant date pal Newport Center Drive and turned left onto Pacific Coast Highway, past vine-covered walls, and headed south The late-April day arm but not hot, with one of those intensely blue skies that, toward sunset, would acquire an electric lus Traffic was light on the Coast Highway, and the ocean gliold-sequined cloth
A quiet exuberance flowed through Lindsey, as it had done for seven weeks It was exhilaration over just being alive, which was in every child but whichup She’d lost it, too, without realizing A close encounter with death was just the thing to give you back the joie de vivre of extreme youth
More than two floors below Hell, naed beneath a blanket on his stained and sagging ht hours in sleep His slumber was usually filled with dreams of violated flesh and shattered bone, blood and bile, vistas of hu in agony on barren ground beneath a black sky, and he walked a the common rabble of the damned
The dreae and remarkable for their ordinariness A dark-haired, dark-eyed woman in a cherry-red car, viewed froer seat beside her Palht