Heaven Is Small by Emily Schultz Read Free Book Online

Gordon’s hand as if it were the hammer for the strongman’s bell at a fairground.
    Gordon stared at the kettle in the lunchroom. Wisps were coming out of it like spittle off a dog’s tongue in summer. It didn’t whistle, he’d learned the hard way, and he would be reprimanded if he went away and left it. He’d been told that someone had brought it in from home and they weren’t supposed to have it in the first place. The staff had been warned to be particularly careful with the few privileges they’d stolen.
    Georgianne Bitz came into the kitchen and took a tuna-fish sandwich out of the refrigerator. She held it like a dead thing. She went to the cupboard and took out a white plate that had her name on it in sparkly red paint. She cautiously laid the waxed paper parcel on the plate, between the G and the E . The letters were coagulated like old blood on either side of the tuna corpse. Gordon could see it had been cut down the centre after being wrapped — a white surgical incision. She stared at it, then at him.
    “What’s wrong?” asked Gordon.
    “What do you have?”
    “Tea, but not yet.” Gordon pointed to the renegade kettle.
    “Trade you.”
    He shrugged. The kettle began to lisp. He went back to his cubicle with georgianne in nail-polish letters beneath his thick thumbs.
    The hero had forgotten condoms. Then he remembered the one his friend had insisted he keep — as a joke. But he and the woman of his dreams were camping. A raccoon had gotten into their personal items. He chased the raccoon in spite of his erection. “Come back here,” he hollered. The woman rolled about on the bed, laughing until she cried. When he retrieved it, tricking it away from the raccoon, the condom was still in its package. He leaned in the doorway, suavely, nakedly. “Guess what I have for you . . .” “Whatever it is, it had better be long and it had better be hard.” She had never been so shameless in her life. But looking at him standing there, she could think of nothing to stop her. It was he who was making her this way. It was — oh my God, it couldn’t be — love for him that was making her behave this way. As he joined with her, penetrating her to her core, waves of capital- L Love washed over her. It was! It was love!
    Georgianne Bitz brought back Gordon’s empty cup. It was blue, with a sea-green band around the top. He handed her the plate.
    “Who makes the sandwiches?”
    “My kid. Jolene. She’s eight.”
    Georgianne and Jolene. Gordon thought they ought to be working a vegetable stand together, somewhere in Nebraska. “If you don’t like tuna fish, can’t you teach her peanut butter?”
    “Jo likes tuna. She thinks she’s doing me a favour. How can I say no?”
    Georgianne was tall and toothy. When she spoke, her mouth moved like a horse’s. Gordon thought of Mr. Ed. Ms. Ed. She laughed. He smiled.
    “You got a raw deal. A sandwich for a tea?”
    “I know.”
    Gordon looked into his cup. She had washed it. He hadn’t washed her plate. A halo of dark brown hair floated away over the tops of the cubicles. It was curled like an old lady’s, even though Georgianne was only a few years older than him. Thirty-nine or forty, forty-four tops. Gordon watched it go like some frothed-up chocolate ice-cream shake. She was nice. When he turned back to the hero and heroine, they were already engaged. They had done it two more times — without condoms. That rascally raccoon was cheering them from the cabin window. The lady was having his baby, but hadn’t told him yet. Gordon moved the mug to various positions around his desk. Georgianne was the first woman in two weeks to enter his cubicle without using the toll-bridge token of his ex-wife’s name. He put the cup to his nose and smelled it. Sunlight.

5
    Titus Bentley’s desk was stacked with boxes, the paper lips of envelopes emerging from the tops, each biting the one next to it.
    “Morning . . .” Gordon hustled by, eager to get his computer