The Long and Faraway Gone by Lou Berney Read Free Book Online Page A

needlepoint until your fingers cramped. Whatever kept your boat afloat.
    â€œListen, Juli.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI’m gonna check out that party. Just for a few minutes. That one that guy was talking about.”
    Julianna looking alarmed was like a cartoon character looking alarmed. Da-­doing!
    â€œThat skeezy guy at the balloon race?”
    â€œShut up. Just for fifteen minutes. Okay? I really just need to get out of here for a minute.”
    Julianna was winding Pink Panther’s tail around and around her finger. “It’s getting dark, Genni.”
    â€œDon’t be such a scaredy-­cat. There’s like a million ­people here.”
    â€œA million skeezy ­people.”
    True. As soon as the sun went down, the families abandoned the midway and packs of rowdy young guys started funneling in, packs of slutty girls. Southside trash.
    â€œThat’s why I want you to stay right in this spot,” Genevieve said. “Okay? Just for like fifteen minutes.”
    Julianna looked away. She shrugged and nodded.
    Genevieve felt guilty, a little. But she’d be back in fifteen minutes, before it was even dark dark. The carny trailers were close by, just behind the midway. And Genevieve would make it up to Julianna. She’d take her to the mall tomorrow. Or to Fun Skate. Or both. And you’d think that a day at the fair and a stuffed Pink Panther would count for something, right?
    Genevieve just wanted to forget about drugs and her mother and life for a minute. That’s all. She just wanted to laugh and flirt and feel the heat coming off a dirty, sexy hippie when he looked at her. If he offered her drugs, she would say no. It was as simple as that.
    She stood, dug around in the pocket of her jeans, found her last crumpled ten-­dollar bill. She dropped it in Julianna’s lap. “I don’t know how you could possibly eat anything else, Miss Piggy, but have at it.”
    â€œOkay,” Julianna said, but still wouldn’t look at her. God.
    Genevieve told herself that her sister was twelve years old, she wasn’t a baby. It wasn’t even dark dark yet, there were millions of ­people around, and Genevieve would only be gone fifteen minutes.
    Everything was going to be fine.
    She squatted down and gave Julianna a quick hug. “I’ll be back in a flash,” she said. “And we’ll get out of Dodge.”

 
Julianna
    CHAPTER 3
    October 2012
    O ne of Julianna’s only vivid memories, from that time so long ago, was the psychic. October of 1986, the living room of the little house on SW Twenty-­seventh, just off Olie. The psychic wore a gauzy black dress that swirled around her when she walked and a silver ring on every finger, even her thumbs. This was before anyone wore rings on their thumbs, anyone in Oklahoma City at least, and the psychic had also dyed her long hair a shade of deep, unnatural black, so black it was almost purple. You could tell that the psychic thought she made a striking and dramatic impression, but she didn’t, not really. Her upper arms were pimply, her gray roots showed. She owned a shop called Moon Breeze, on a run-­down stretch of Classen Boulevard, that sold New Age crystals and feathered dream catchers.
    â€œYes, yes,” the psychic had said. She sat on the sofa with her eyes closed, rocking back and forth. “I see, I see.”
    â€œWhat do you see?” Carol whispered, leaning closer. Carol lived next door and had arranged for the psychic. She’d always been friendly enough with their mother, but after what happened, Carol had made it her mission to be their mother’s best friend. Carol had landed her dream job.
    â€œI see her,” the psychic said. “She’s alive.”
    â€œGenevieve’s alive!” Carol said.
    â€œI smell the ocean. I see her. She’s smiling.”
    Julianna remembered that their mother had remained expressionless, her face