Circle of Three by Patricia Gaffney Read Free Book Online Page B

probably forty degrees and spitting rain, but all “Raven” had on was leather pants and a black fishnet top. Fishnet. He had white makeup all over his face, and black lipstick on his mouth, the sides curling up in a creepy smile—it gave me the willies. He’d dyed his hair black, you could tell by the inch-long light-brown roots, and he wore it hacked off short on one side and combed over long on the other, long and stringy and absolutely ridiculous, like Michael Jackson’s hair, like Dracula’s. I was dying to hear what he had to say for himself, so I smiled at him and held my arm out the car window until he had to come over. Well, it was like shaking hands with the undead. His black lips moved, so he must’ve said something, but what I could not say. Then he walked backward, into the crowd of kids at the bus stop, and before I knew it he was gone. Like Bela Lugosi turning into a bat.
    Ruth said, “I’m watching something on TV,” and started to leave.
    “But I’m sure he’s a lovely boy. Hey, how about some ice cream? Want me to bring you some?”
    “No, thanks, Gram.”
    “We’ve got chocolate and vanilla.”
    “No, thanks,” she called from the dining room.
    I could hear football coming from the TV room. “Make Grampa turn on something you like!”
    Carrie shook her head at me.
    “What? What did I say? I shouldn’t have said Halloween. Okay, all right, I shouldn’t have—but have you seen that boy?”
    “He’s actually very nice.”
    “Sure. That’s what they said about those two at Columbine.”
    She turned her back and started drying the glasses.
    I let a little time go by. “Now, listen. I hope you know I’d never want to push you into anything, but—” This time her laugh wasn’t as pleasant to the ears. A snort, it sounded like. I ignored it. “ But . I’m thinking you should take Brian Wright up on his offer.”
    “Oh, God.” Her shoulders slumped. “I don’t know.”
    “You should, for a lot of reasons. One, it would save you the trouble of looking for something yourself.” Which she’s not in any shape to do anyway; she could hardly leave the house to buy groceries. “Two, it sounds like a nice job, very responsible, with plenty of room in the future for growth. Three, it would get you out of your slump, because you’d have to get out and be with people. Four, Brian would make a great boss. And five, you need the money.”
    “You’re right,” she said lifelessly, elbows on the counter, staring at her reflection in the black window. “You’re right, you’re right, you’re right.”
    “And six,” I said to lighten the mood, “nobody else has offered you a job except Jess Deeping. To build ark animals!”
    “Why do you always call him Jess Deeping?”
    “What?”
    “You always say his last name. You never call him Jess—you never did.”
    “Really? I never noticed.” Why was everybody mad at me tonight? “Anyway. I still can’t get over that ark business. Wasn’t that the funniest thing? Even your father had a good laugh. You building ark animals—now I’ve heard everything. What was he going to pay you for that?”
    “I don’t know, Mama, we never got that far.”
    “I guess not.”
    “Jess wouldn’t have paid me anyway. The church would have.”
    “The Arkists . My Lord, it never ceases to amaze me what people will start up a religion over. Next we’ll have the Sons of Jonah—the Whalists.” Carrie eked out a smile. “I didn’t know you and Jess Deeping—excuse me, Jess —were friends again. I was surprised to see him at Stephen’s funeral, in fact.” But not as surprised as I was to see him in Carrie’s kitchen . What a jolt that was. I hadn’t been going to bring this subject up at all, and here I was smack in the middle of it.
    “Why wouldn’t we be friends again? It’s—I thought Ruth might’ve mentioned him to you.”
    “Why would Ruth mention Jess Deeping to me?”
    “Because they—well, it started when we ran into him at