Kiss River by Diane Chamberlain Read Free Book Online

camps that are starting up for the Japanese people. He said they are innocent people who are suffering and struggling just to survive. The way he explained it put tears in my eyes. I asked him how come Mr. Sato isn’t going to one of them internment camps, too, and he said because it’s only on the West Coast, so I guess Mr. Sato is lucky to be living here even if people pick on him.
    Dennis is the one who told me I should read The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter. I am the library’s best customer. I read more than anyone I know. I am the top reader in my school, although I guess since there are only twenty-three students in my whole school, and most of them are younger than me, that’s not saying much. But I read even better than the older ones. I’d finished all the Nancy Drews, and then Mrs. Cady told my parents I should be allowed to read whatever I want. They said it was all right with them. So I am now reading The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter and abook of stories by Eudora Welty, and I discuss them with Dennis on the weekends. I was reading at the kitchen table yesterday, taking notes with my pencil right on the tabletop, because I didn’t have any paper right there and the table is porcelain and the notes will wash right off, but Mama yelled at me anyhow.
    Mama says I’m not allowed to call Dennis by his first name. I’m supposed to call him Mr. Kittering, like I do with other adults. But Dennis laughs at me when I call him that. So around him, I call him Dennis. When I talk to Mama, though, I call him Mr. Kittering.
    The lantern’s getting low on oil, so I am going to turn it off now and go to bed. I’m afraid of having nightmares tonight after seeing that ship burn, but at least if I wake up afraid, I’ll be able to see the light fill up my room and know I’m safe.

CHAPTER 5
    G ina was touching him. Clay felt the heat of her body next to him in his bed, and he held his breath as she slipped her hand beneath the sheet, over his chest, lower. Lower. Touching him, teasing him. This is a dream, he told himself. He wasn’t responsible if it was only a dream. She smiled at him with those lovely white teeth before tossing the sheet aside and lowering her head, her mouth, to where he wanted it to be. He waited to feel her lips and her tongue on him, but instead, he was jolted awake by the touch of something cold and damp against his arm. Opening his eyes, he turned to find the bed empty next to him and Sasha nudging his arm with his nose. Clay groaned and rolled onto his back.
    He hated the weekend because he had no real need to go into his office, no way to lose himself in his work. During the week, he’d go in early and stay late, and that seemed to keep his mind occupied well enough to save him from too many disturbing thoughts. But the weekends were different. There was plenty of work to keep him busy around the keeper’s house, of course, butit was solitary work, for the most part, and gave him too much time to think. Some weekends, he went diving with his long-time buddy, Kenny Gallo, but Kenny had to work today. Clay decided he would replace the rotting boards in the cover of the old cistern on the south side of the house. That would take him most of the day and he would wear his Walkman and listen to jazz. Terri had hated jazz, so he would hear nothing that would remind him of her. A decent plan. He did this every day before he got out of bed: planned the day so that every minute was filled and safe from thoughts of Terri and any guilt that might accompany them. Maybe later, when he was done with the cistern and Kenny got out of work, they could meet at Shorty’s Grill and just hang out for a while. He relished spending time with Kenny these days. Kenny didn’t expect—or even want—him to talk about anything heavier than the results of the latest ball game.
    Sasha nudged his arm again, and he patted the bed, inviting him up. Sasha was another source of guilt. Poor dog. He had to miss the old days, when he