Circuit Of Heaven by Dennis Danvers Read Free Book Online Page B

people in here don’t pay any attention to anybody but themselves. Why should they? Everybody’s okay. Everybody’s got what they want. You’re different.”
    She looked down, as if ashamed. “I haven’t been in here very long. Maybe I’ll change.”
    “I don’t think so,” he said, though he couldn’t have said why.
    She looked up at him and took his hand. “We should go in,” she said. “Show me the way?”
    He offered his arm like he’d seen in old videos. She smiled and wrapped her arms around his and walked close beside him as they moved slowly toward the house. He could smell her perfume, feel each place where her body touched his. He didn’t care whether she was real or not. He liked her. He liked her a lot.
    At the back door, she said. “I never answered your question.”
    He couldn’t remember asking a question she hadn’t answered. He wondered whether she knew some of the ones he hadn’t asked.
    She looked up at him, leaned forward confidentially. “I haven’t the faintest idea what I’m doing here with Senator Bozo,” she said, making a face. “He’s not my type.”
    “So what’s your type?” he heard himself asking.
    “Sweet nephews,” she said, and kissed his cheek.
    NO ONE SEEMED TO MIND THEY’D TAKEN SO LONG . THE food was on the table. The four of them sat there with their hands in their laps. Nemo expected Dad to make some remark about keeping people waiting and consideration to others, Winston to have that snooty look he got when he was pissed, Mom to be working on a second hankie because her son didn’t appreciate the marvelous dinner she’d worked all day to prepare from scratch. But they all sat there smiling and happy as you please, like some family from a hundred years ago about to say grace.
    Nemo seated Justine beside Winson and took the seat opposite her, next to Lawrence. Mom and Dad sat at either end, Mom closet to the kitchen. Everything was done in mid-twentieth century. It could’ve been Ozzie and Harriet’s house. A big drop-leaf table in the style they used to call Early American, a sideboard with coffee mugs hanging on pegs, saying things like MOM’s COFFEE and I NEVER MAKE MISTEAKS . Some of them had pictures of bunnies or kittens on them. The food was laid out “family style,” as Mom called it. Some family, Nemo thought, their son laid out like a dead man, and they can’t even see it. The whole damn world laid out.
    Uncle Winston raised his wineglass. “To the birthday boy!” he said, and they all joined in, looking so damn happy it was weird. Nemo looked across the table at Justine, her eyes crinkled up in laughter, her glass held high, and he did feel happy. Maybe I should try to lighten up like Lawrence said, he thought. What the hell, it’s only for tonight.
    Mom had made lasagne, Nemo’s favorite when he was ten. She’d made it every birthday for the last eleven years. The smell of Italian sausage and cheese made his mouth water. He took a swallow of wine, and then another. While he was here, he figured he’d eat and drink too much. When he got back to the real world, he’d be sober and hungry. He and Lawrence planned to cook up a rabbit later, maybe have a few drinks from the still Lawrence had built to fuel the generator he’d rigged up. Maybe they’d watch
Harold & Maude or Harvey
again on the antique VCR .
    “The lasagne’s great, Mom,” he said, and she beamed at him. At his fourteenth birthday party, when the law had just changed, and Mom and Dad were ecstatic, figuring he was coming into the Bin, he’d refused to eat a bite, pointing out the absurdity of virtual people eating virtual food. Mom had sniffled throughout dinner while Nemo and his dad yelled at each other. He’d tried to hurt them, make Mom cry and Dad clench his jaws till the veins stood out on his neck. But venting his rage hadn’t made him feel any better. It hadn’t changed anything. He used to think anger was something you could use up, purge from your