Some Kind of Miracle by Iris R. Dart Read Free Book Online Page B

Louie. I was looking through some old photos, and I found that locket, the one that she and I exchanged years ago, and I had this rush of feeling to see her.”
    Louie whirled on her now. “She’s not her. I took my kids with me last time. Why I did that, I don’t know, but it scared the livin’ shit out of them. They had seen all those gorgeous pictures of her when she was younger, and they couldn’t believe what she was like now or how she could live in that place. Kassie threw up in my car on the way home from going there! Can I find something for you?” he said, suddenly turning into Mr. Nice Store Owner, as a tall thin man in a Hawaiian shirt rounded the corner into the aisle where Louie and Dahlia stood. The man wanted a hasp, and it was obvious that Louie was happy to have a reason to leave Dahlia so he could find it for him.
    “ Go adopt a pet, ” he’d said to her. Well, a song in amovie was worth too goddamned much to her to let that little dork get in the way of her having it. Why would he take kids to a board-and-care for schizophrenics anyway? The guy was a moron. But she was going to get the address out of him somehow, and then she’d go there and find Sunny. Marty’s secretary had called that morning to say she was sending over the paperwork for the release of the song. Dahlia had to get to Sunny soon, or Marty could change his mind.
    God, would it be great when the song was up there in a hot new movie. Sung by Jennifer Lopez or somebody big like that. It could win an Oscar, for God’s sake. There was no way she was leaving here without the information she needed. She’d be patient with Louie. Kiss his ass even. Whatever it took to get to Sunny, get the papers signed, and get the song sold. The customer was paying for the hasp, whatever the hell a hasp was, and some shaggy-haired young clerk wearing a Gordon Hardware T-shirt was helping a lady choose which combination lock she wanted, and Louie would be free again. Dahlia searched her brain for a way to get through to him.
    The hasp-buying guy walked past her and out the door, and she approached Louie again. “So fill me in on your kids,” she said, slapping on a smile and hoping to sound as if she actually cared about his three little children whom she’d seen only once, when the third one was born and Louie and Penny had invited her to the bris.
    “Ahh,” Louie said, lighting up, “they’re stars.”
    It worked, Dahlia thought as a grinning Louie rattled on for a long time about the kids and their schooland their big parts in plays and their sports activities and Dahlia nodded, pretending she knew what AYSO meant and other kid stuff, and when Louie laughed while he told her about all the adorable things they said to him, Dahlia laughed, too, hoping he couldn’t tell she was faking it.
    “My girls both play the piano also,” he said. “And they’re great at it. My Kassie has white-blond hair, too. Now, my Michael…he’s a demon,” Louie went on, and her forced smile made Dahlia’s face ache. In Louie’s endless stories, his son sounded as if he were the same kind of monster Louie had been at his age, and when Dahlia mentioned that, Louie seemed to soften a bit, and then he must have drifted off into the past for a minute, because eventually he said, “You and Sunny always got all the attention. I was just the little troublemaker in the background. You girls would sing and everybody was hooked. I remember how you used to climb up on the bench next to Sun and put your arm around her and then you’d start singing.”
    Dahlia nodded and kept on smiling, as if she and Louie were old buddies reminiscing. Louie had a big grin on his face when he reached into a bin of hose nozzles, then held the nozzle vertically in front of his mouth as if it were a microphone. And of all the songs he could have chosen, the one that came out of his mouth gave Dahlia a stomachache.
    “Stay by my side forever. Stay by my side, my friend.” He was