Our Town by Kevin Jack McEnroe Read Free Book Online

set. The decoration. She liked being the scaffolding that held up Dale Kelly and made him whole. And he liked it, too. For her, that is. He smiled for the camera, and as bulbs cracked and flashed in his eyes he felt alive. This was, in reality, what made his foundation strong. This was his scaffolding. And he’d chase it, and build it, as tall and high as he could, until his days were ultimately numbered, until his book was finally read.
    DOROTHY WASN’T HAPPY when she received her food. She was hungry. They made friends with the maître d’ once Dale slipped him a twenty for the table by the fireplace. Do loved a fireplace. So warm. The maître d’ was an actor, too. He recognized them. Both of them, which wasn’t usual. Dale from TV, he told them. Dorothy because she sometimes came around when Dale was busy shooting. As they finished their appetizers—a cheese plate and charcuterie, with pickled vegetables, olives in a walnut vinaigrette, and garlic shrimp in a sizzling skillet—the maître d’ came back and carried two small envelopes—folded in half and both reading Preferred Customer —in his ringed fingers. He removed the plate before Dale and replaced it with one of the envelopes.
    “Spread this on a roll,” he said. Then he took Dorothy’s food, as well, and placed her letter in her little fingers. “And enjoy this with your pasta. It’ll pair well with the Bolognese.” And he clasped his handstogether. “Enjoy,” he said and curtsied, long-necked like a swan. “We appreciate your business so.”
    So Dale ate his pot butter on a rosemary seed roll and Dorothy swallowed her mushrooms with a forkful of spaghetti. Dorothy’s mushrooms were bitter as she chewed them but she felt their effects fast and smiled the rest of the night through. Dale’s butter, though, was hard to get down—earthy. Gamey—and he didn’t feel it hardly at all. He couldn’t feel anything, he thought. Just fat from eating bread. And butter. He’d spend the rest of the dinner trying to swish the taste from his mouth. That made it hard to enjoy his steak. And Dorothy’s big grinning didn’t help much either.
    DOROTHY DIDN’T USUALLY enjoy dancing. She thought of herself too outside of herself, and then she imagined she looked stupid, usually. That’s what Dale figured, anyway. That’s why she never danced. It must be. But once they arrived home—oh, they lived in Topanga now, briefly, Dale complaining that Dorothy was getting too much sun and looking leathery. Dale also moved when he began to feel unsettled, overwhelmed. This is called a geographic. A series of starting over by which, you hope, the freshness of your new reality will displace your shame and your past and the fear of your present and your reluctance to look into the future. Dorothy, though, hadn’t yet noticed this pattern, distracted by the shininess of all her new things. And, anyway, right now, she could only think of dancing. That’s all she wanted to do. She slid open their glass sliding door and pushed past the screen and started spinning on the patio. The patio floor—gray-slate tiles, still hot from the daytime sun on the bottoms of her feet. She’d already taken her shoes off. She danced with the standing parasols, their umbrella heads still opened from afternoon sunning, now providing temporary reprieve from the moon’s unwavering eye. She spun from one pole to another—swinging from the grounded white aluminum like Tarzan to a vine—before she twisted off the patio and into the yard—short grass, slightly unkempt, a lemon tree, planted by previous owners, and a few corner cactuses. But pretty, still. Right now, anyway.Dorothy certainly made it look pretty. She opened her eyes momentarily, so as not to fall—she’d stepped on something sliding under her, and her eyes were open enough to see a salamander glide away, hidden almost immediately by a few brown shards of grass. She held her lids open long enough to whisper, “Bruce. Master