Bad People by Evan Cobb, Michael Canfield Read Free Book Online

notice her until she was almost at his shoulder.
    “How are you guys getting along?” she asked. She was smiling. She was radiant, actually. Barry would have said so had circumstances permitted. The wake had drained the tension from her; she looked like she could breath again, for the first time in days and days.
    Stephen-David said nothing to his mother’s question and Barry did not want to speak first, so he shrugged. Connie hovered a moment.
    “Am I intruding?” she asked.
    “Of course, not. How could you?” Barry said. He offered her a chair.
    She sat and looked at them. “Your aunt was happy to see you,” she said finally to Stephen-David.
    “Good,” he replied.
    “When’s the last time…? You must have been three or four, not in school yet.”
    “I’ve never met her before.”
    “You just forgot.”
    “No I haven’t.”
    “You don’t remember but that’s because you were little.”
    “No, you don’t remember. Dad once said I’d never met her.”
    “He must have been mistaken. No, I remember it.”
    “Why must I be mistaken? Why can’t it be you that’s mistaken?”
    “Stephen…“
    “Answer me.”
    Barry interrupted. “Come on Stephen, don’t talk to your Mom that way.”
    “No one is speaking to you,” said Stephen-David.
    “Now look…” said Barry.
    “Stephen—excuse me Barry—Stephen, no more. All right? No more today.”
    “Really, your Mother…“ said Barry.
    Connie put her hand on Barry’s arm. “Will you excuse us now please?”
    Barry nodded and kept silent. Connie put her head down, and again said, “Barry…”
    The point dawned on him. “Oh right. I’ll get myself another,” he said, standing up, feeling red-faced. He backed away, dejected. He headed to where the bar had been set-up, but now nothing was left, so he had no real destination. He placed his empty in the one remaining trash can the catering staff had left out for the stragglers, then walked to the far end of the hall without knowing what to do with his empty hands.
    Looking back, trying to act casual, he saw Connie and Stephen-David still engaged, Connie whispering with animation, Stephen-David looking at her passively. Barry thought he might go, then decided he wanted to stay. He really hadn’t had a moment alone with Connie, she’d been so preoccupied with the wake, and now with Stephen-David’s behavior.
    The doors to the hall stood propped open and Barry stepped out into the sunlight, intending to linger there casually. Connie would come out eventually, and then he’d be able to hug her goodbye.
    Some of the catering staff, two men and a woman, were hanging out by their van, vests open, bow ties loose. They smoked and bantered back and forth, work done now, all except collecting the check. Still, they did not seem desperate to grab that check and get away. Rather, they basked content in the warm sunshine. Hours of afternoon still before them.
     

 
     
    Chapter 7: Connie, Tommy
     
    The morning after Robb’s wake, the police came for a longer interview, asking Connie more questions. Strange questions, questions that must be about some other Robb entirely. They sat in her living room, their big cop legs looking clumsy and cumbersome above the line of the coffee table. They declined beverages, even coffee. Cops supposedly liked coffee.
    The old one, Tommy Brussels, who looked like he’d never been in the vicinity of a fruit or vegetable, let alone ever ingested one, and putridly ugly, asked the most questions.
    His entire body seemed to hang loosely on his frame, like he’d recently had all the muscle and some of the fat sucked out of him. And maybe he had; though he was still obese, the brown belt he wore around his gray knit slacks had several new buckle holes punched into it, possibly with a nail. The tip of the belt hung slack, curling out to reveal the belt’s rough underside. His weight loss did not look like the type that anyone would be happy about, nor compliment one on. It