The Noah Confessions by Barbara Hall Read Free Book Online

to me when I was in the graveyard. But I figured angels didn’t need to shave.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” I asked.
    â€œMick.”
    â€œOh,” I said. “As in Jagger.”
    â€œYeah, I was named after him.”
    My eyebrows went up. “Your parents knew him or something?”
    He laughed. “My father probably thought he did when he was high. My old man died of an overdose when I was too little to know him. I live with my mom. She doesn’t talk about him much.”
    I didn’t say anything. He got to his feet and walked in my direction. He was taller than me.
    â€œWhat’s your name?” he asked.
    â€œLynne. Where do you go to school?”
    â€œUni High,” he said, nodding roughly in the direction of the high school a few streets away. A public high school. There were rumors about it. All the kids were wild. But that was the rumor about all the kids who didn’t go to private school.
    â€œHow about you?” he asked.
    â€œHillsboro.”
    â€œOh, okay,” he said, passing judgment.
    I wanted to tell him I was a scholarship kid, just to ease the tension. But it didn’t seem right to lie, standing on my mother’s grave.
    He said, “So your parents are what, rich showbiz types?”
    â€œMy father’s a lawyer. My mother’s right here,” I said, pointing to the ground.
    â€œI see. That’s who you’re talking to.”
    â€œYeah.”
    He was close to me now. We stared at each other. A weird kind of calm came over me as I looked at his face.
    â€œWhat do you have against Hillsboro girls?” I asked.
    â€œIt’s what they have against me,” he said. “Not the other way around.”
    â€œWhat were you drawing?” I asked, not knowing what else to do.
    â€œI’ll show you if you want to see.”
    I followed him to where he had been sitting. He picked up the sketchbook, flipped through a few pages, and showed it to me. It was a pretty good abstract drawing of a graveyard. The tombstones looked like teeth, all crooked and carnivorous. The limbs of the trees reached down like magical wires.
    â€œI like to look at death,” he said, “and take all the mystery out of it. My goal is to make a drawing of a graveyard and it doesn’t look any more interesting than, I don’t know, mannequins in a store.”
    â€œYou’re not there yet,” I said.
    He turned the sketchbook toward himself and laughed.
    â€œNo, I guess not.”
    I laughed, too. It was the first time I could remember actually laughing, standing so close to my mother.
    I looked at my watch.
    â€œI have to go,” I said. “I have to catch the bus. I don’t have a car.”
    He smiled. “That’s unusual for a Hillsboro girl.”
    â€œTell me about it.”
    â€œOkay,” he said. “Maybe I’ll see you here again.”
    â€œUnlikely,” I said.
    He shrugged. “Meeting you was unlikely. I figure we’re past the hurdle.”

• 4 •
    By the time I got home my dinner was cold and my father was glaring.
    â€œI was about to call the police,” he said.
    â€œNo, you weren’t.”
    â€œYes, Lynnie, I was. I called Jen’s parents and they said she wasn’t surfing. So I knew you weren’t either. Because surely you wouldn’t do anything that stupid.”
    â€œAm I branded as a troubled kid now? I skipped one day of school.”
    â€œIt worries me to see you acting this way.”
    â€œHey, the big letter was your idea.”
    He stood very still and said, “This is about the letter?”
    â€œMaybe.”
    â€œHow much have you read?”
    â€œNot much.”
    He shook his head and said, “Maybe it was a mistake.”
    â€œToo late now.”
    â€œLynnie, I only have my own judgment. I don’t have a partner to run it by.”
    â€œI went to see Mom. In the cemetery.”
    This gave him the