The Anonymous Source by A.C. Fuller Read Free Book Online Page A

man stopped.
    “What?” Greta asked.
    The man stepped into the shadow of a streetlight as a panic rose in Alex’s chest.

Chapter Ten
    CAMILA SAT UP on the couch, catching a glimpse of herself in a mirror that hung from the bedroom door. She looked like hell. Her cheeks were red and her hair was a wild, tangled mess. She gathered it in her hands and pressed it down over her eyes. Sirens and car horns blared from the street below.
    Her cell phone rang. Mom. She walked to the kitchen, found a stale cookie in the cupboard, nibbled the edge, and threw it in the trash. When her phone beeped, she walked back to the living room, flipped open her phone, and called her voice mail.
    “Cam, it’s Mama. I thought you having a cell phone meant that we could reach you. Papa’s not doing very well, dear. Your cousins are coming down from Kansas City this week, and su tío is coming from Rosario. Please come. Your papa might not make it until Christmas break and we haven’t seen you in so long. I just was telling Georgette—”
    Camila closed her phoneand looked at herself in the mirror. I need to eat. She pressed her hair into shape, untangled some curls, and walked to the door.
    * * *
    The Gaslight Diner on 89th Street was empty. Camila slid into her regular red leather booth in the corner, catching the eye of the old woman behind the counter. “Hi Mirna. The usual,” she called over.
    Mirna was thin, her face wrinkled but bright, and her silver-gray hair was pinned up in a beehive style. She turned and shouted back to the kitchen. “Bacon and Brie burger, rare. Sweet potato fries. Roasted garlic aioli.” She turned to Camila. “You’re here late tonight. Been crying again?” she asked in a harsh but motherly voice.
    “Guess,” Camila croaked across the diner.
    “About Martin or your dad, or something else?”
    “At this point I’m not even sure anymore.”
    “Drink?”
    “At least one.”
    Mirna grabbed a shaker from the bar behind the counter, added a shot of gin, a dash of simple syrup, a splash of lemon juice, and a scoop of ice. She shook it hard. “You know, the boys in the kitchen talk about you,” she said. “Couple days ago, Fernando said, ‘How can someone so beautiful and so smart be so sad?’” She poured the mixture into a champagne flute and topped it off with champagne before garnishing it with a lemon rind.
    Smiling, she approached Camila then set down the drink. “I told him I had no idea.”
    Camila took a long sip and looked up at Mirna, but said nothing.
    “I’ve worked here forty years,” Mirna said, “and you’re the only person who’s ever ordered a French 75.”
    “You want to know why I started drinking them?”
    “Okay, but talk loud, I gotta wipe down bottles.” Mirna turned and started pulling ketchup and mustard bottles off empty tables, running them through a wet rag and replacing them.
    “We’re all about the glamour, huh?” Camilla smiled. “Two girls living the dream in New York City.”
    “You know it.”
    After dropping the lemon rind into the drink, Camila took a long sip, then turned toward Mirna. “When I was in my twenties, before grad school, I lived in Paris for a year. I thought I was going to be a philosopher.”
    Mirna smiled. “When I was in my twenties, I thought I was going to be Marilyn Monroe. You know, I slept with Joe DiMaggio before she did.”
    Camila laughed. “I’ll bet you did.”
    “If I looked like you, you know what a good time I’d be having?”
    “I’m not going to become a Derek Jeter groupie, if that’s what you’re suggesting.”
    “Wouldn’t hurt you to have a little fun.” Mirna set down a saltshaker and looked back. “Have you been with anyone since John died?”
    Camila shook her head and sipped. “Do you want to hear why I drink this silly thing or not?”
    “Shoot.”
    “I lived in Paris for a year and I’d stay up all night in cafés, reading the French philosophers and psychoanalysts—Derrida, Lacan. I wanted