Carcass Trade by Noreen Ayres Read Free Book Online Page B

carpet. “Shit,” I said. “Oh, not you. I spilled something.”
    â€œYou want to get it?”
    In the kitchen I tugged paper towels off in a long white train that wouldn’t stop rolling till I put my foot on it. “It’s okay.” While I mopped, I said, “Talk.” Then: “You’re still smoking. I can hear you. Your lungs are black sponge.”
    â€œYou’re going to tell me you’ve seen cases.”
    â€œYeah, exactly. Ugly black sponges. Californians don’t smoke anymore. Don’t smoke in my apartment when you come, okay?” I sat on the couch arm, holding the bunched towels like a torch.
    â€œYou always this cranky when you get up?”
    â€œI’m sorry. I have things on my mind.”
    I expected him to say something equally carping. What he said was, “I miss you, Sammi.” Sammi, my little sister name.
    â€œYou’re a businessman,” I said. “You don’t miss anybody.”
    But I listened intently when he said, “Do you remember when I let you fly that red radio airplane off Humpback Hill?”
    â€œBoy. That’s going back some.”
    â€œRemember?”
    â€œYou notice I didn’t enroll in flight school for a career,” I said.
    â€œI’m sorry I yelled at you then.”
    â€œAre you drunk, Nathan?”
    â€œI’m not drunk. You’ve never seen drunk until you’ve seen your big brother blotto. You didn’t know that about me, did you?”
    â€œThat’s a picture that takes some imagination, yes.” I got up to go back in the kitchen. “I’m glad to hear it.”
    â€œGuess what? Tightasses are people too. Are you going to help me, or am I going to have to stop filling your bank account anonymously?”
    I laughed and threw the wet wad of paper towels into the sink and glanced at the clock. “Sure.”
    â€œYou’re a great girl, you really are. Only remember, I’m drunk and I don’t really mean that.”
    â€œGet off the phone so I can get some things done.”
    â€œSee you around noon.”
    â€œMake it one.”
    â€œSo long, Smokey.” He used my other name. And took advantage of my pause.
    â€œSee,” he said, “I know more about you than you thought. And your old, your very old, brother never rubbed it in, now did he?”

6
    He said he needed to walk. “Let’s go down to the bay,” I said, since the fog had lifted by the time Nate got to my place. The sweet fragrance of white sage, encouraged by the sun, drifted through my open slider as he paced and I sat.
    â€œI think I want to eat,” he said.
    â€œFine. There are great places on the island.”
    â€œMaybe we should just stay here.”
    â€œOut,” I said, pointing to the front door while I unfolded from the couch.
    We drove down Jamboree, a boulevard wide enough to be a freeway. It was named for a vast Boy Scout gathering that took place decades ago, when there was nothing around for miles and bulldozers could scrape out a campsite without people yelling about endangered gnatcatchers. At its end a mile down, we crept across the tiny bridge that leads to Balboa Island, which lies between the inland mass and the nearly four-mile-long Balboa peninsula, leaving a channel of water on both sides. A small strip of what’s called town runs down the middle of the island, and the rest is a packed architectural mix of houses that range from funky to grand. We could stroll the sidewalk that runs right next to the sand, and watch the ducks waddle up from the beach to nip at flower salads in people’s plate-sized yards.
    I parked next to a bakery that offered sandwiches for lunch, and sprang for drinks and bean sprout–walnut-avocado–cream cheese fodder on wheat bread for us both. Halfway down the walk, he told me to hold his sandwich so he could peel off his green cable-stitch sweater, revealing a burgundy knit