Niagara Motel by Ashley Little Read Free Book Online

shouldn’t. She falls asleep a lot. And she also gets these attacks where she’s not really asleep. She just can’t move or talk or anything. It’s called cataplexy. She can’t control it.”
    â€œAnd they took you away for that?”
    â€œNo. Not for that. They took me away because she passed out in the middle of the road and got run over by a mini-van and now she’s in the hospital.”
    â€œNo shit.”
    â€œIt’s very serious. She has bruising on her heart.”
    â€œThat sucks.”
    â€œShe actually died for two minutes. But they brought her back.”
    â€œNo way.”
    â€œCode Blue, it’s called.”
    â€œ Shit .”
    We stared out at the thundering water. A seagull sailed over us and dropped a crap on Nikola Tesla’s head.
    â€œWhat did your mom say about it?”
    â€œAbout dying?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œShe said it was like there’s no chalkboard at all.”
    â€œWhat is she, a teacher or something?”
    â€œNo.”
    â€œWhat’s her job?”
    â€œShe’s sort of like you, I guess.”
    Meredith looked at me for a too-long second. Then she picked at a hole in her pantyhose.
    â€œMostly she dances at clubs and stuff, but she also does … the other things. Sometimes.”
    â€œSo, you know what I do?”
    â€œI guess.” I shrugged.
    â€œAnd your mom does it too?”
    â€œSometimes. Mostly just dancing.”
    â€œYou mean stripping.”
    â€œExotic dancing.”
    â€œStripping. She’s a stripper.”
    I shrugged.
    Meredith took out a cigarette. She watched me out of the corner of her eye while she lit it. “You want one?”
    I looked out to the falls, at all the white mist billowing up. It was like a giant cloud was trapped inside the waterfall and wanted nothing more than to get back up to the sky with its other cloud friends. “Sure.” I took the cigarette from her and stuck it between my lips. She flicked her lighter, and I leaned toward the flame. Her lighter was black and so were her fingernails. I blew out a mini-cloud of smoke and coughed. I had smoked before, once, in Prince George, behind the grade-six portable, after school with Bryce. It was a menthol cigarette he had stolen from his mom. I smoked half of it, then puked in a garbage can while Bryce laughed at me and smoked the rest. This time wasn’t so bad though, because Meredith didn’t smoke menthols. She smoked Export A Gold. And also because I wasn’t really inhaling, I was just trying to make little smoke clouds. Meredith blew a smoke ring like it was the easiest thing in the world.
    â€œTake a picture, it lasts longer,” she said.
    â€œSorry.”
    She blew another white o that floated above my head. “Where are you from, kid?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œCome on, you don’t know where you’re from?”
    â€œParis, I guess.” I tapped my cigarette and the ash drifted down and dissolved into the grass.
    â€œ Paris? You speak French, then?”
    â€œParis, Ontario.”
    â€œ Ah . But of course ,” she said in a French accent.
    â€œBut I’ve lived a lot of different places. I’ve gone to sixteen different schools. That’s why I said I don’t know.”
    â€œWhere have you lived the longest?”
    â€œI’m not sure. I’d have to ask Gina.”
    â€œGina’s your mom?”
    â€œYep.”
    â€œWhat’s her stripper name?”
    â€œAngel.”
    â€œAngel,” Meredith smiled. “That’s a good one.”
    â€œDo you use another name?”
    She took a drag that lasted an age, then said, “Mary.”
    â€œThat’s a nice name.”
    â€œYou like it?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œI don’t really like it. I thought that it might make the johns be nicer to me. Even if it’s only subconsciously.”
    â€œYou mean because Jesus’s