Dead Girl Moon by Charlie Price Read Free Book Online

never, so how would Grace search their bedroom? Maybe she could catch him when he was distracted with Jon, whisper with a little beg in her voice. Ask if she could go in their bedroom and look through some of Tina’s old makeup to wear for a work picture tomorrow.
    *   *   *
    Gary and Tina were in their usual places, Jon at Gary’s feet. JJ was at the river. Gary said yes, said don’t bother Tina, said she wouldn’t mind.
    In their bedroom, Grace was repelled by the wad of clothes, mostly underwear, on the floor on Tina’s side of the bed. Went to their closet first. Gary’s shirts, one pair of khakis hung cuffs on top. Mostly Tina’s slips and housecoats. Way on the side, a couple of rayon dresses. She held up the black one with orange and yellow flowers. Probably short enough. Pretty deep V in the neck but it could work. She brought it closer, smelled it. The front was musty but not too bad. Smelled the armpits. Ancient deodorant, a little white crust on the inside. It would do. Searched the bottom of the closet, gagged over more dirty clothes, but found a pair of medium heels, gray, no, black but covered in dust.
    Next to the dresser. Nothing usable. End table on Tina’s side. Top drawer had a cellophane pack of tissues, half-empty bottle of face cleanser, Q-tips. Grace guessed Tina had trouble standing to do this stuff in the bathroom. The vibrator under the ratty washcloth surprised her. Tina seemed too spaced for sex. Bottom drawer, old movie magazines, a tangled mess of necklaces that the woman had probably given up on. So where? Bathroom? Theirs was across from the bed, set off by a folding door. Medicine cabinet had maybe thirty over-the-counter med bottles and some scripts in Jon’s name. Scissors, tweezers, rusted bobby pins.
    Finally, between the toilet and the wall, a plastic container holding a pile of ancient makeup: dried and cracked tubs of base, broken eyeliners, tubes of lipstick mostly in garish colors that only zombies would wear. Grace was able to salvage a dark eyebrow pencil and a soft red lip gloss that looked unused.
    Now, how to get the stuff out past Gary and Tina?
    Grace pushed her black jeans down, wrapped the dress around her waist and pulled the jeans over it. Opened the bedroom window, pitched the shoes out. Carried the liner and lipstick and flashed them at Gary on the way across the trailer, mouthed thank you. He smiled, stuck his thumb up, none the wiser.
    Grace hung the dress in her closet, hoping the wrinkles would fade. Opened her bedroom window and went out to get the heels and toss them inside before JJ came back. She’d pack them to work tomorrow, try them on there.
    *   *   *
    Even in the pantry, the outfit looked pretty good. Not a style Grace had ever worn before. Drapey, kind of sexy. Grace solved the deep neckline with a safety pin. At closing, Cookie had her put on the outfit and get a ride with Larry Cassel to a local bar a block north of Main. He’d let her out and she’d walk around to the side parking lot. A guy in an older model Cadillac would flash his lights and she would get in. The man would probably start kissing her. As soon as he got grabby, Grace would scream and Larry Cassel would walk up and knock on the window. Ask the guy what was going on. Ask Grace how old she was. Grace would say … what?
    “Tell him fifteen,” Cookie said, not realizing how close he was to the truth.
    Larry would threaten a citizen’s arrest and Grace would jump from the car and hustle back to the street, where Cookie would pick her up and drive her home. Pay for five minutes’ work? Three hundred dollars.

 
    17
    W HEN SCHOOL ENDED , Grace started a new work rhythm. Go to the motel at one, clean rooms for a couple of hours, take a break and go to the café for evening shift, four to closing. Usually got a day or two off mid-week. That left late evenings to go out a little on her own, mornings to sleep late after JJ went to work. Good time to make some