Birds of America by Lorrie Moore Read Free Book Online Page B

woman was struggling to get back up from where the leprechaun had left her. She wiped her mouth and made a face. “That vuz awfhul,” she grumbled.
    Panic seized Abby. “You know what? I don’t want to do this,” she said again to her mother. There were only two people ahead of them in line. One of them was now getting down on his back, clutching the iron supports and inching his hands down, arching at the neck and waist to reach the stone, exposing his white throat. His wife stood above him, taking his picture.
    “But you came all this way! Don’t be a ninny!” Her mother was bullying her again. It never gave her courage; in fact, it deprived her of courage. But it gave her bitterness and impulsiveness, which could look like the same thing.
    “Next,” said the leprechaun nastily. He hated these people; one could see that. One could see he half-hoped they would go crashing down off the ledge into a heap of raincoats, limbs, and traveler’s checks.
    “Go on,” said Mrs. Mallon.
    “I can’t,” Abby whined. Her mother was nudging and the leprechaun was frowning. “I can’t. You go.”
    “No. Come on. Think of it as a test.” Her mother gave her a scowl, unhinged by something lunatic in it. “You work with tests. And in school, you always did well on them.”
    “For tests, you have to study.”
    “You studied!”
    “I didn’t study the right thing.”
    “Oh, Abby.”
    “I can’t,” Abby whispered. “I just don’t think I can.” She breathed deeply and moved quickly. “Oh—okay.” She threw her hat down and fell to the stone floor fast, to get it over with.
    “Move back, move back,” droned the leprechaun, like a train conductor.
    She could feel now no more space behind her back; from her waist up, she was out over air and hanging on only by her clenched hands and the iron rails. She bent her head as far back as she could, but it wasn’t far enough.
    “Lower,” said the leprechaun.
    She slid her hands down farther, as if she were doing a trick on a jungle gym. Still, she couldn’t see the stone itself, only the castle wall.
    “Lower,” said the leprechaun.
    She slid her hands even lower, bent her head back, her chin skyward, could feel the vertebrae of her throat pressing out against the skin, and this time she could see the stone. It was about the size of a microwave oven and was covered with moisture and dirt and lipstick marks in the shape of lips—lavender, apricot, red. It seemed very unhygienic for a public event, filthy and wet, and so now instead of giving it a big smack, she blew a peck at it, then shouted, “Okay, help me up, please,” and the leprechaun helped her back up.
    Abby stood and brushed herself off. Her raincoat was covered with whitish mud. “Eeyuhh,” she said. But she had done it! At least sort of. She put her hat back on. She tipped the leprechaun a pound. She didn’t know how she felt. She felt nothing. Finally, these dares one made oneself commit didn’t change a thing. They were all a construction of wish and string and distance.
    “Now my turn,” said her mother with a kind of reluctantdetermination, handing Abby her sunglasses, and as her mother got down stiffly, inching her way toward the stone, Abby suddenly saw something she’d never seen before: her mother was terrified. For all her bullying and bravado, her mother was proceeding, and proceeding badly, through a great storm of terror in her brain. As her mother tried to inch herself back toward the stone, Abby, now privy to her bare face, saw that this fierce bonfire of a woman had gone twitchy and melancholic—it was a ruse, all her formidable display. She was only trying to prove something, trying pointlessly to defy and overcome her fears—instead of just learning to live with them, since, hell, you were living with them anyway. “Mom, you okay?” Mrs. Mallon’s face was in a grimace, her mouth open and bared. The former auburn of her hair had descended, Abby saw, to her teeth, which