Fridays at Enrico's by Don Carpenter Read Free Book Online Page B

Charlie had unzipped his sleeping bag and laid it on the floor next to the cot, and they made love on that. Later when she felt sleepy she just pulled some clothes over her and slept. But she could not imagine living like that. She was a middle-class girl. She was not used to poverty. And anyway she didn’t think Charlie was going to be happy about being a father. There was really no other choice. Abortions cost money.
    She and her mother were living in the house while the realtors tried to sell it, and there were strangers in the house all the time. Most of the good stuff was gone, sold at auction, and the house was strange, full of odd echoes. It seemed as if her father were merely on vacation, and had gone off without them. She missed him, but she also felt a little resentful about his absence. Why didn’t he take us with him? She expected to see him coming in the front door, black topcoat collar up, wet gray felt hat pulled down to his eyes, specks of rain on his glasses and moustache. Her mother was busy selling things and looking for an apartment they could afford that wasn’t in a slum, and Jaime tried to do her schoolwork, pay attention in classes, and write. She’d been working on a short story about a girl much like herself. It wasn’t going very well and now seemed to have no point. Too much had happened to her since beginning the story. She threw the pages into her wastebasket. None of her personal furniture had been sold. Her room was intact, the only intact room in the house. The only one with a rug, though not a Persian. She hadn’t told Charlie she was pregnant yet. He’d pulled back after her father’s death, out of common decency, orbecause he found her too easy. When they ran into each other he always seemed friendly and concerned, but she made herself aloof, as if the death of her father had affected her deeply, as deeply as it might have affected a character in a Russian novel, although Jaime had read only one, Anna Karenina .
    Then finally one day in class when Professor Clark was looking something up in a book, Charlie tapped her on the shoulder and she turned. His eyes seemed gold that day. “Hi,” he said to her.
    â€œI’m pregnant,” she said, and turned back. Numbly she listened to Professor Clark reading from the Upanishads (they were reading A Passage to India ) and waited for Charlie’s reaction, although he could hardly interrupt the lecture. Then he touched her on the shoulder, and she knew, just from that single touch, that everything was going to be all right. She started to cry. At that moment Clark looked at her and must have seen the shine of the tears. His blue eyes widened, and he went back to reading. It’s not the lecture, Walt, she wanted to tell him. She got a Kleenex from her bag and blew her nose noisily.
    â€œGesundheit!” Charlie whispered and she felt his hand at the back of her neck. Clark grinned and kept on reading. When the bell rang Jaime stood up and turned to face Charlie. She knew her eyes looked terrible, but Charlie just pulled her in to him and she cried against his field jacket.
    Of course his place would be no good for them. The family house had been snapped up, probably at bargain prices, and Jaime and her mother had to move out within a month. Edna seemed distracted and was drinking too much. Jaime couldn’t talk to her. She did not know whether this was the happiest time of her life, or the worst. Only when she was with Charlie did she feel good. Only with Charlie did she feel safe. And this was insane. What did she know about him? He was from a small town in Montana, Wain, Montana. His mother was dead and his father worked in a lumber yard. He’d been a soldier and had won a medal her father envied. She knew he was an enthusiastic writer with few literary skills, and finally, she knew everybody around State thought he was their most promising student. Probably because he was big and strong