Flavor of the Month by Goldsmith Olivia Read Free Book Online

others, but she and Dean didn’t have much, and that was a fact. Still, her red sweatshirt was clean, and her hair ribbon was pressed, and her jeans didn’t have no more holes in ’em than the other girls’. But it seemed like they bought their jeans with holes, while hers came naturally. That made all the difference, she reckoned. Sharleen winced for a moment. Even with the thought of Boyd glowin’ in the back of her mind, it didn’t feel good, knowing the other girls hated her. But the boys sure didn’t.
    Sharleen skirted the trailer next door, ready for the snarling dog on a chain, remembering, too, when the pit bull used to run loose. Six years the dog had known her, but it still reacted with fury when she approached. Only her brother, Dean, could quiet the beast down. Well, Dean could make any animal love him. “Shut up, Wally,” she told the snarling dog, feeling sorry for the creature. She knew what it felt like to be trapped and beaten. Poor Wally; its owner, a nasty biker, had never dignified the animal with a name. Only she and Dean called the dog Wally.
    “Oh, shoot.” Her father’s aged pickup truck stuck out from behind the end of the lot. The angle at which it was parked and the door left open told her that he was not only home but also drunk. She sighed. Nothing ever changed in Lamson, Texas. She paused for a moment, right there in the dusty road, and took out the Bible her momma had left her. She opened it blindly, then let her eye fall on the page. It was in Psalms, the prettiest part of the Old Testament. It was Psalm 21, and she read it through. All right, she told herself, then went to the door of the trailer and opened it quietly, not wanting to wake him if he was passed out. “Please, oh, Lord, let him sleep,” she prayed. She didn’t want tonight to be ruined.
    His smell hit her as she stepped inside, a rank mixture of body odor and beer. She could make sure he had fresh-washed clothes, but she couldn’t make him change them often or take a shower. Luckily, though, there wasn’t a sound in the trailer. She realized he must be in a stupor, because she also smelled the overlay of cheap bourbon he drank only when he was into a real bad bender.
    She turned on the light in the cramped living room where she slept. She sighed with relief to see that her father had made it to his own room in the back and bypassed the convertible sofa bed.
    Sharleen welcomed this time alone. Dean worked over at the feed-and-grain store after school let out. Tugging off her sneakers without untying them, she stepped out of the worn jeans and pulled the bright sweatshirt over her head in a single motion. Taking a towel from one of the hooks she used as a closet, she tiptoed toward the bathroom for her few luxurious moments of privacy. But before going in, she pressed her ear against the thin door of the room her father slept in, to confirm what she knew. Yep. His snores rattled like a snake in a bucket.
    She closed the equally flimsy door to the tiny bathroom, and once again bemoaned the broken lock. Sharleen had no privacy. Though Dean was supposed to share the bedroom with their father, he most often wound up sleeping on the sofa with Sharleen. Not that she minded. She would feel safer now if Dean were home, knowing that he would keep an eye on her father while she showered. Still, Dean in his own quiet way demanded a lot of attention. Perhaps it was better like this. She reached into the cramped bathroom and turned on the water, hoping that there was some. Lamson Trailer Park’s well occasionally went dry, or the pump broke. When she felt the first sting of the stream, she adjusted the temperature, pulled the cheap plastic curtain on the shower stall aside, and stepped in.
    She let the water fall on her head and down her sleek hair to her shoulders. Her hair turned darker as the water ran down it to her breasts. Her nipples hardened as the water touched them. She turned slowly with her eyes closed. The water