The Almost Archer Sisters by Lisa Gabriele Read Free Book Online Page B

her rancid outbursts, Lou began to miss her long before her goodbye. Once, over breakfast, I watched as he became momentarily lost in Beth’s puffy lips. She was absently stuffing pancakes into her mouth, her other hand negotiating an unruly sketchpad, the stainless-steel fan pivoting back and forth, mutely following what wasn’t being said between them. I remember wondering if he was thinking, like I was, that Beth’s lips were just like our mother’s, before Nell’sbegan to wrinkle around the edges like the dozens of clay ashtrays we brought home from art class. Every birthday and Mother’s Day we’d bring her some kind of handmade round thingy which eventually took the form and function of an ashtray. Pick her some flowers, Lou would beg. Buy her candy, something she can’t stub a goddamn cigarette out on. Lou was not being lascivious that morning, but something odd had made itself at home across his stubbled face, something I would call now nostalgic ardor. Finally, Beth looked up at him and grinned, her tiny teeth studded with pancake bits.
    “Loo-ooou?” She slammed down the sketchbook. “You were, like, totally staring at me all weird there for a second.”
    Her syrupy finger hovered six inches away from Lou’s face.
    “Sorry, Beth Ann. I was staring and that is rude.”
    I tried to change the subject.
    “Hey Beth, where’s my book I lent you?”
    Beth ignored me, waving the fork in Lou’s face like a court lawyer.
    “Why are you looking at me funny? Do you think I’m very beeeeoootiful?”
    Lou threw down his napkin.
    “Actually, yes, I do, Beth Ann,” he said, crossing his arms and leaning back from the table as though he’d been challenged. “You looked just like your mother there for a second, and I was thinking, I miss Nell very much and I wish she could see how beautiful her daughter has become. And what a great success she’ll be in New York. You do have your ma’s mouth. Is there something wrong with that?”
    “Yeah, old man. It’s creepy,” she said, seductively closing her mouth around a forkful of pancakes.
    As Lou stood up to leave the kitchen, Beth rose too, and smashed into him. It looked like an accident. “Ow. Lou. My boobs!”
    Beth covered her breasts and glared at him as he stomped towardthe foyer. While he scrambled to put on his shoes, she dramatically collapsed back into the vinyl chair and laughed like a diva.
    “Jeez, Peach. That was funny.”
    Lou headed outside, slamming the door behind him. Beth ran to the kitchen window, still giggling, as I wordlessly joined her, unsure of whether I could handle the image of Lou crying into his hands in the carport. But instead he seemed to be looking for something to smash to bits against a wall. His hand found the novel Beth had been reading, the one I had asked about, sitting dog-eared on the corner of his workbench. It was
Flowers in the Attic
, Nana Beecher’s old book. He glanced at the back cover where it described a “tale of passion” between “innocent and beautiful siblings” who were “locked away from the world by their selfish mother.” The opening chapter was titled “Goodbye, Daddy.”
    He must have skimmed through the book for ten minutes, seeming to stop on the first of several sex scenes between the young brother and sister.
    “Beth reads this shit and passes it on to Peachy?” Beth said, mimicking Lou with a deep-voiced, Southern accent. “No wonder she’s overly sexed-up and makin’ funny ’bout incest!”
    Lou wiped his eyes and carefully shut the book. In a house full of estrogen, he was the only one easily brought to tears by teasing. That was Beth’s cue. She left my side, slapped open the door, and stood like a superhero, fists on waist, in the carport.
    “
There
it is,” she said, startling him. “You shouldn’t read that book, Lou. It’s not your kind of book. Or
is
it?”
    “I’m sorry. I just found it over there. Here you go.”
    She snatched the book out of his