Crazy Horse's Girlfriend (9781940430447) by Erika T. Wurth Read Free Book Online Page B

used to his drunken rambling by now. Most of the time they would stare at him for a few seconds and then return to playing with their Barbies. Their favorite game was Barbie’s been captured by a mean guy who wants to kiss her and Ken has to rescue her. Though it was somewhat funky-looking, now that both of their Barbies were completely bald.
    â€œHow is Kimberly?” Mom asked, stirring the pot of spaghetti.
    â€œGood, I guess,” Dad said, shrugging and pouring himself another scotch.
    â€œDoug… you’ve had enough, idn’t it?” She hadn’t even turned around. She had a sixth sense for it.
    â€œNo.” I could feel his anger rising. “And don’t you tell me what to do, Christine.”
    â€œYou can be a real jerk,” she said.
    â€œAnd you can be a real bitch,” he said. She went silent and Dad walked into the living room to turn the TV on, returning quickly to the kitchen to sit down at the table. When the spaghetti was done, Mom poured it into the strainer, back into the pot, took the jar of sauce and poured it into the pot and stirred. She set the whole thing down on the table and I went to retrieve the bread from the oven.
    We all sat down and ate in silence, Dad drinking scotch after scotch and finally retiring to the living room, to watch the MacNeil/Lehrer NewsHour , which he loved. The TV had already been on all through dinner, and we had learned to be quiet while Dad watched.
    After a while, he called the twins to him. He would sit them on his lap almost every night and read them a bedtime story, one apiece. That was the thing about Dad. He occasionally did terrifyingly redeemable things.
    After he was done reading to them, I put them to bed and then went into my parent’s bedroom to say goodnight to Mom.
    â€œDid you do your homework?” She was flipping through channels, finally settling on Quincy .
    â€œYes,” I lied.
    â€œGood.”
    I got up. “Mom?”
    â€œYeah?”
    â€œWhat was it like when you first met Dad?”
    Mom muted the TV, put the remote down. “Wonderful. He was always buying me little things. He wanted to know what I thought. We talked all the time.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œMargaritte, come here,” she said, opening her arms. I came over, leaned down. She patted me on the back. “I love your Dad. But he drinks. That’s what’s wrong with him. I can’t make him stop. And I got pregnant before I was old enough to understand that.”
    She held me for a while and then I stood up.
    â€œGoodnight,” I said.
    â€œ ’ Night,” she said, and turned the sound on again.
    I walked downstairs and turned on the TV. I was ready to go out, I had to go. I loved Mom, but I just couldn’t be in that house, with Mom and Dad, with the twins, with the stupidity of it, the futility all around me. Futility. I had just learned that word in school.
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    Around 11:30 I climbed out the window. I drove over to Will’s, making sure to keep the headlights off until I was a few minutes away from the house. It was a short drive and a few minutes later, I was parking in the lot outside of the complex Will and Megan called home. I walked up the steps that led to their apartment and I could see Jake outside, smoking, sitting on the balcony of the complex. I sat down next to him. He handed me a smoke.
    â€œHow was the old guy tonight?”
    â€œDrunk.”
    â€œYeah,” he said. “Will’s still gone. Megan’s asleep.”
    â€œGod, Will’s such a fuck up,” I said.
    â€œI know.”
    â€œMan, I don’t want to go to school Monday, I really don’t,” I said. Jake had been drinking a beer and I picked it up and took a long swallow.
    â€œTell me about it.”
    I did pretty bad in school, but Jake, he was failing. The whole thing felt like a setup half the time. Most of the kids who went to