Lilac Mines by Cheryl Klein Read Free Book Online Page A

Lisa just stands there thinking, lobsters on hips. “There’s one health food kind of place in town, but they close early on Sundays. Could you find something to eat at a lunch counter-type joint?”
    â€œSure, yeah, no problem,” Felix says eagerly. Anna Lisa is butch in that older-woman way. Short hair, the same brown as Felix’s, clothes you could change a tire in. You can’t quite tell if she’s fucking with gender or is just fed up with pantyhose. And really, should anyone have to wear pantyhose more than five or six times in a lifetime? Felix wants to make her aunt feel as comfortable as white-kneed jeans would, even as she wants to be the newcomer in moon boots, footwear no one here is advanced enough to understand.
    The lunch counter place has a tin ceiling, a dark-wood-and-marble soda fountain and, Felix counts, 32 wall-mounted signs saying things like, “Hungry, Homeless, Need a Job? Call the Sierra Club & ask about Their no-growth Policy.” Felix bristles at the sentiment and the sloppy capitalization. Over a bowl of limp spaghetti Felix asks her aunt, “What are the politics like here?” She’s learned to call the red parts of the map “fly-over territory.” That way she can dismiss them before they can hate her.
    Anna Lisa shrugs. “Like anywhere, I guess. A little of everything.”
    The shelves behind the counter where they sit are stocked with canned soup and different types of ore, labeled with kindergarten-teacher handwriting. Silver. Gold. Copper. It’s hard to tell what’s for sale and what’s not. What Felix meant was, How are you a lesbian here?
    The only other person here is the waitress, who leans against the soda case, smoking. Felix is pretty sure that’s illegal, but she’s not about to call her on it. She looks older than she is, 40 going on 50. She has stringy orange hair and penciled-in eyebrows. She watches them, and Felix tells herself that the woman is probably just bored. Still, it makes her nervous. Now that the rules have changed, anyone might turn on her—say something that will cut into her, pull her down a dark alley.
    Felix says, “That dog of yours wasn’t very happy to see me,” meaning, Why do you have a poodle when you’re so butch? And, But you’re happy to see me, right?
    â€œCoalie? Oh, he’s not as bad as he sounds. Or as goofy as he looks. He’s great at hunting mice, and he chases rabbits out of the yard. He’s smart, too. I got him at the shelter when he was six weeks old, this little fluff-ball. No one knew where he came from.”
    The dog conversation runs out quickly, and Anna Lisa seems content to sit there eating her cheeseburger. Forks clink against plates. The noise reminds Felix of movies about unhappy families. She wants to make pithy comments about the plaques on the wall, but what if Anna Lisa does hate the Sierra Club? They haven’t talked about the attack. Suzy told Anna Lisa, but when Felix and her aunt talked directly, they spoke of the trip as if it were strictly a vacation. Felix doesn’t know what to say. Her questions are too big, and she feels tiny, ignorant. A stupid Red Riding Hood who spent too much time talking to wolves about nightclubs.
    â€œI’m thinking of going to New York after this,” Felix volunteers.
    â€œAfter this?”
    â€œAfter, you know, after staying with you for a while. I’m going to send away for some applications to fashion design programs and apply at the end of the summer.”
    Anna Lisa brandishes a pickle spear. “So you could use the free room and board, and the peace and quiet?”
    â€œI didn’t mean it like that,” Felix says hurriedly. No-bullshit people scare Felix. They seem capable of anything. And Anna Lisa is proving to be a no-bullshit lady. Felix likes a little bullshit; she likes her conversations safe and accessorized.
    After another pause, Anna Lisa