Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen by Glen Huser Read Free Book Online

has refilled my coffee cup twice, I’ve got it finished.
    1. Get Byron away for two weeks. (A trip to the Philippines?)
    2. Does Tamara know how to drive? If not, a crash (!) course. Where? From whom?
    3. Tickets to the Ring. Phone Ricardo.
    4. Story for Tamara to tell her foster parents (needs to be foolproof!). How often does the social worker check on her?
    5. Money for Tamara’s course. (Does she need a deposit?)
    Number five isn’t a problem. One thing Byron doesn’t know is how much money I’ve got tucked away here and there in my bedroom. If my heart had conked out during surgery, I wonder how much of it would have been found, hidden behind photos in my album and under the false bottom of my jewelry box. Inserted into telling chapters of books.
    I’ve written the list but as the day wears on I think more and more about tearing it up. Would they call it kidnapping, whisking a teenager off to another province, another country? Have they ever sent an eighty-nine-year-old woman to jail? Am I way off-base in my reading of Skinnybones? Wishing too hard for her to have the flint and fire of a Rhine goddess? Maybe she’s nothing more than a muddled adolescent with a crust of attitude.
    It might be absolute craziness to give her that much money. I could hire a nurse or a companion to go with me, wheelchairing me in and out of airports. Could I stand another Gladys?
    Even dear Byron might take me, at least as far as the opera house door, but he’d never agree to four days of Wagner. For Byron, there’s only one kind of music — the kind blaring from his car radio whenever he takes me out for a drive. Blaring for the few seconds it takes for me to demand he turn it off. Country andwestern. God, I hate it. Twanging guitars, sniveling lyrics.
    A couple of weeks with Byron might just do me in. That would appeal to him. He’d have the house and the Buick up for sale in forty-five minutes flat.
    No. For this last Ring, I see Tamara with me. The great adventures unfold for those willing to think beyond the narrow confines of everyday existence. Tamara, I feel, has that sense of adventure, the single-minded determination of a Marco Polo to seek new lands, a Wagner to seek new music. Spiky little bundle of nerves and energy and fake smiles.
    She does come with her class on Friday.
    Her hair is blue.
    Her smile is wide.
    I forgive her inattention for the first few minutes while the TV crew is filming. She manages to get herself in front of the camera at least three times in different parts of the lounge.
    â€œThe reading room?” she asks, returning to my corner as the cameraman is packing up.
    â€œNo, I think the patio if it’s not too cold. Mrs. Gollywatchit has her eye on us. If we’re inside, I know she’ll be checking every five minutes to see if I’ve lit up. And I must say I do like to puff on a cigarillo during our little chats.”
    I’ve brought my fur jacket with me. There’s a slight breeze but not too bad. Tamara helps me get my cigarillo lit.
    â€œDid you know Dickens wrote two endings for
Great Expectations
?” I ask her.
    She looks at me questioningly.
    â€œI’ve been thinking. Perhaps I was hasty...”
    â€œI could work for you. I could —”
    â€œI was thinking of something more like a trade-off.”
    â€œTrade-off?” She’s become very still, Skinnybones. Almost as if she’s afraid to breathe.
    â€œI had a chance to look at your brochure and what caught my interest was the fact that in August the course is being offered in Vancouver the week after the Ring Cycle operas are staged in Seattle.”
    Her eyes are getting bigger. The mascara is heaviest, I notice, along the underlids.
    â€œSo here’s the deal. I give you the money for your course but we go a week early. We go to Seattle and take in the whole glorious Ring Cycle of operas. For this you will serve as my companion. You will attend the