Flying Shoes by Lisa Howorth Read Free Book Online Page A

the day outside, and shivered, but instead of closing the window, she pinched out the cigarette butt between two leathery fingers and lit another. The butts would be stashed in the pocket of her warm-up pants, and later when she cleaned one of the bathrooms she’d flush them. Air things out, then close the window.
    In the master bedroom—Mary Byrd just referred to it as “her” room, or “our” room, but Evagreen insisted on calling it the “master” bedroom to Mary Byrd’s aggravation—she picked up a bottle of lavender body oil and some Q-tips from the dresser top and headed to Eliza’s room.
    The room, a messy pink lair, gave off the bright message that a girl child who considered herself to have outgrown the room’s furnishings and décor lived here. Somewhere between a dorm and a nursery, faded pink eyelet curtains hung at the windows and a gauzy mosquito net floated above a bed piled with gaily printed Home Barn pillows. Three big bulletin boards covered the walls, and each was thickly shingled with snapshots. Every photo was the same as the others: tight gaggles of pubescent girls grinning ferociously with glittery, braced teeth, arms around each other, mostly blonde heads pressed tightly together, the girls on the ends with one leg, toe pointed, raised coyly behind. Mardi Gras beads, beer huggies with fishing jokes, invitations, ticket stubs, and words and phrases clipped from magazines festooned it all—masterpieces of new-hormone collage. Alicia Silverstone vamped from a Clueless poster on the closet door. In a corner, a number of dingy, matted stuffed animals were mounded carelessly next to a battered dollhouse that vaguely resembled the Thorntons’ Victorian home.
    “Breaking a perfectly good plate,” Evagreen muttered, stiffly lowering herself to her knees in front of the dollhouse. “Not even on accident.” From beneath the diminutive claw-footed bathtub she pulled a paintbrush and began gently dusting the dollhouse surfaces. When this was complete to her satisfaction, she took a Q-tip, dipped it in the lavender oil, and carefully swabbed the tiny rosewood and cherry furniture and the walnut wainscoting and chair rails, turning the Q-tip to the dry end to buff it all down to a rich, miniature luster. Sometimes Evagreen would arrange the rubbery play people and beds, tables, and chairs, narrating to herself: “They’s a new baby. Everyone got to move around.” Or, “They mama died. Good riddance. They grandmama got to move in an’ take over.” She longed to redecorate the old dollhouse, to cheer the place up and paint over the faded old miniscule forget-me-not wallpaper in a warm, bright color, peach or aqua or sunflower; crochet some cozy acrylic granny squares for rugs—you could wash those—and throw away the stiff, stained little “Aubussons” with their ugly moth holes.
    The dollhouse furniture was quality, Evagreen knew that, and although she herself preferred furniture styles that were more substantial and more comfortable, she appreciated the beautiful woods and craftsmanship of the pieces. All the little drawers worked, tiny gateleg tables opened, the cast-iron oven door folded down; it was something for things so small to work so well. “Hmph. Not like around here in this house. They’s some nice furniture, family things, but knobs gone, veneer peeling, drawers warp and don’t close, even if I do run over ’em with bar soap. Don’t nobody care. Umn .” Although Evagreen was happy to fail to notice cobwebs and dust bunnies and fingerprints around the real house, and tarnish could darken the Thorntons’ silver and brass, for Evagreen, the dollhouse and its family was a model of good housekeeping and family behavior, and she planned to keep it that way.
    Eliza took little notice of Evagreen’s efforts except to remark to her mother, “Mom, my dollhouse smells like you when you get out of the shower.”
    “Does it?” Mary Byrd had answered. She’d vaguely noticed the