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Dr Lichme used to say that maybe I liked it, just a little He used to say thatsolve other people’s issues keptabout my own
That’s the problem with therapists: you have to pay them to say the same dumb shit other people will tell you for free
I thud down the stairs, not bothering to be quiet this tied it on so fro but work pants and a bra She freezes when she seesme closely, as if she doesn’t trust me not to morph into someone else She looks awful, pasty-faced, like she hasn’t slept
"Yeah" When I go intoin the doorway as if waiting for an invitation
"What were you doing?" she asks carefully As out of it as she’s been, there’s no way she hasn’t noticed that Dara and I have perfected the art of circling around each other without touching, vacating roo patterns of wake and sleep
I shove my feet into my sneakers, which have over the summer become deformed, distended into shapelessness by water and sweat
"It’s her birthday," I say, like Mom doesn’t know "I just wanted to talk to her"
"Oh, Nick" Mos herself "I’ve been so selfish I never even think about how hard it must be for you to be here To be hoets like this now: one second, fine; the next second, all ainst each eye in turn, as if she’s pressing back a headache "That’s good I love you, Nick You know that, right? I love you, and I worry about you"
"I’’s fine I’ll see you tonight, okay? Seven thirty Sergei’s"
Moht, I reat," I say--which, if you’re counting, is already the third lie I’ve told this h the blankets are all balled up on the sofa and there’s an e that she did spend part of the night downstairs Dara’s like that,at will and never noticing, or , that other people worry about her
Maybe she went out last night for an early birthday celebration and wound up sleeping on souy’s couch Maybe she woke up early in one of her rare bouts of penitence and will co, hnuts froar Bear and a trayful of Styrofoam cups of coffee
Outside, the therrees There’s a heat wave due this week, ablast of oven-teet to the bus stop, I’ve chugged throughon the bus is on full blast, the sun still seeh the s and turn the whole interior the erator
The wo a newspaper, one of those obnoxiously thick ones packed with flyers and coupons and pa sales at a nearby Toyota dealership The headlines are, no surprise, still given over to the Snow case On the front page is a grainy picture of Nicholas Sanderson leaving the police station with his wife--both of the rain
Nicholas Sanderson just moments after he was cleared of involvement in the Snow disappearance, reads the caption
"It’s a da her head so that her chin shakes, too I turn away and look out the atching as the coast and its commercial clutter come into view and beyond it, the ocean, white and flat as a disk
The FanLand sign is partially obscured behind a gigantic mass of balloons, like a multicolored cloud A short distance away, the owner of Booest Firecracker E doleful In my nine days at FanLand, I have not yet been able to deter’s hours, which seem whimsical to the point of insanity Who shops for fireworks at eight in the roup of volunteers--none of the to be heard over the constant thrum of preteen chatter Even at a distance of twenty feet, I can hear Donna shouting into the phone, probably telling off so buns, so I steer clear of the office, figuring I can drop offlater Even Mr Wilcox looksdown to the Ferris wheel but barely grunts in response to my hello
"Don’t s pastsheath of napkins tucked under one ar Parker called in sick, and he’s freaking out about staffing"
"Parker’s sick?" I think of the way he looked last night in front of the wave pool, with the colors patterning his face and transfor up fingers to the sky