Hydroplane: Fictions by Susan Steinberg Read Free Book Online Page A

for the cat, that she is irresponsible as she hates her own life and cannot possibly care for the life of another, not even a cat, and the friends deciding to leave the cat where it is, suffering under their coats, until they know what to tell the hostess.
    The cops telling my mother that they even have gone to the new kid's house to question his mother on whether or not the girl has crossed the street at the corner that day, not that we ever cross atthe corner, and the cops telling my mother of a neighbor of the new kid noticing the cop car in front of the new kid's house and this neighbor coming outside of her own house to say, They're out of town, of the new kid and his mother, and me saying, That fucking liar, of the boy-looking girl, and my mother saying, What did you say, and me saying, Nothing, and the cops saying, Come on miss, and, as the girl, it turns out, is a liar, and is, therefore, nothing but talk, me telling the cops that perhaps the girl is in the woods, alone, that she often goes to the woods by the crossing guard's house to be alone, and the cops leaving and finding her there in the woods sitting under a tree by a fire, and the girl calling me from her bedroom late Friday, after being driven home in a cop car, after being yelled at by her mother, and whispering to me, You're dead.
    Everyone leaving, except me, except the last guest, as the hostess is clinging to him, begging him not to leave just yet, and except the two friends who are somewhat frantic in the bedroom, the hostess gripping the elbow of the last guest with one hand and fanning smoke with the scorched dishcloth with the other, saying goodnight to the guests when they leave, fanning all the while toward the window where I, again, sit in a chair and breathe that smell of campfire in a circle of rocks, that smoke that stays on one's clothes for days, that scorched smell we can smell in each other's hair when we play CB radio, both of us Kitten and both Man of Steel, groping each other under the bed, and the hostess letting go of the last guest's elbow and sliding down the wall to kneel to pick up a crushed cigarette and staying there, slumped, looking as if she has forgotten something, like who she is, or where she is, the sky starting to lighten, despite the rain, the hostess slumped against the wall, looking faint by the last guest's feet.
    In the cafeteria on Monday, sitting alone before the boy-looking girl comes over saying, You're dead, and me saying, You're a liar, and her saying, Fuck you, and me saying, Liar, and her saying, I'll kick you, and me saying, Fuck you, and her saying, I'll kick you I swear, before I get up to return my tray, before he, coming from somewhere, from I don't know where, grabs me from behind, saying, Ugly, in my ear, and, Stop calling me, before I crumble, before she kicks my legs and he walks off and my mother has to come get me.
    The hostess fainting on the floor, her back against the wall, her legs out crooked like dolls' legs, her head crooked, too, hanging, mouth open, the last guest standing by her legs, unmoving, knowing he has decisions to make, at this point, as she faints, to wake her or not, to leave her or not, to fuck her or not, trying to see, one can tell, his near future, the late morning, the feeling of that.
    The two friends trying to wake the hostess with a light tap on the arm, saying, Wake up, Wake up.
    My mother laughing, saying, Boys will be boys, when she gets me at school the day I cannot pull my body off the dirty cafeteria floor after the new kid grabs my tits and calls me ugly and the girl kicks my legs and calls me lesbo and the crowd of kids is screaming, Lesbo lesbo, and the science teacher walking through and all the kids walking away and the science teacher leaning over me, saying, What is it, and, Can you get up, and then, when I do not get up, the science teacher calling down the hall to the school nurse, and the school nurse lifting me up from the floor as one would lift a heavy