Living Dead Girl by Elizabeth Scott Read Free Book Online Page A

and touches my arm. I try not to flinch but no one other than Ray and the waxer who rips off flesh and sees my parted legs as money touches me, and I don't like it, I don't like hands on me. I have Ray's and they are so heavy I feel them all the time.
    Barbara nods like I have told her a secret and walks off. I wait until she is all the way over in the trees, near the swings where I am supposed to be, and then I turn around and leave.
    On the bus, I try to think of how to tell Ray what has happened. How I can say it so he will not think I have taken Annabel away from him and then think about what he said this morning and decide to do it.
    There is no way I can say "cop" without him getting angry. I take the card out of my pocket and tear it into tiny pieces that I sprinkle into the bag of the old woman sitting with me, jealously clutching her shopping bags like I want to steal her oranges and grapes.
    I do, but I won't.
    When I get home Ray is there, sitting on the sofa, waiting, and as soon as I see him I open my mouth andsay, "She's sick, so we can't get her tomorrow, but soon."
    "Sick?"
    I have lied to Ray. I have never lied to Ray, not since the gas station and what happened after, and I know he will know I am lying, but what he does is frown and say, "Did the boy say with what?"
    I shake my head.
    "Stupid," Ray says, and I start to sink to the floor, ready to crawl and beg, anything, but then he says, "Annabel will thank us for getting her away from people who don't take good care of her, won't she?" His eyes are gleaming and he stands up and he has been thinking about her while I've been gone and then whispers what he will do to her, what I will help him do, while I lie silent under him.
    Inside my bruised chest my heart beats a fluttering song, tiny notes but still there because I didn't tell Ray the truth and he believed me.
    Make his dinner, the corn gets into the potatoes and I have to apologize for that for a long time. My jaw is tired afterward, aching from being forced open, and my head hurts from where he grabbed it, clutching, and he turns to me when the lights are out and we are tucked into my pink bed, but I listen to my heart singing its tiny song and wonder.

36

    THIS IS THE SONG:

I lied, and he didn't know it.
I lied, and he didn't know it.
I lied, and he didn't know it.

    Ray doesn't know everything.

37

    MORNING AGAIN, ALWAYS MORNING again, always another day, and I actually eat breakfast with lunch, one yogurt, two, I am so lost in dreaming.
    I hadn't known I could still do that, thought my head only painted pictures of things that had blurred around the edges; those first few weeks with Ray or strange, faraway glimpses of that once upon a time girl and her happy, silly, stupid life.
    But I am dreaming, and I even have a plan. I know from talk shows and soap operas, my school, that plans have to be simple. I can't depend on one moment for everything, can't expect that Ray won't be thinkingof things I could do and planning ahead himself.
    I will get him Annabel. I will go to the park, talk to Jake, and Ray will take her. He will show her what she must do, what happens if you don't listen, don't behave.
    Then, when he is ready to go, I'll be gone. I will do more than talk to Jake. I will do whatever he wants and then open the door, piece of broken sidewalk in my hand, crack smack him down to sleep. Lay him out on the ground to dream.
    I will take his car. I've never driven before but I've seen Ray do it, seen people on TV do it, and I will get the key. The car will have gas in it, and Jake will have money--he must have money or a credit card, everyone on TV has one--and I will go. Jake on the ground, waiting to be found, bet Ray will find him first.
    But I will be gone.
    I will be gone, and Ray will have to decide. New Annabel, so smooth and young, with a body that does not have to be tamed into a straight line--or me.
    Little baby girl, with so much to learn, or me?
    He will pick her, better and newer,