The Surf Guru by Doug Dorst Read Free Book Online Page B

had her car keys already in her hand when a better solution struck her. After all, Roger wouldn’t be any worse off if she met him at the hospital later.
    â€œTake your father to the hospital,” she said to April. “I have work to do.” When the stunned faces turned to her, she felt the warm, buzzy lightness that comes with decisions you can never unmake. Blood streamed through Roger’s hands and speckled his sweatshirt and jeans. His eyes on Kacy were calm and lucid, which Kacy thought was remarkable, considering the pain he had to be in. “I warned you,” she said. He shook his head slowly, said nothing, and hiked up the sloping lawn toward the garage, stopping halfway to pick up a crumpled party napkin off the grass and clamp it to his face. From inside the house, Kenny let loose a piercing, frightened wail that Kacy knew would be heard for blocks, and then the screen door slapped open, and Kenny ran outside and launched himself at Roger’s leg, clinging, crying. Kacy watched as Roger knelt and spoke softly to him, wiping one bloody hand dry on his jeans before running it through the boy’s hair.
    Kacy looked at April, at her chunky legs and acne-pitted cheeks and the little half-moon of scalp that interrupted her hairline, and she saw the only thing she could save. “Change of plans,” she said. She took the key to the car off her ring and handed it to Skillet. “You drive him, William,” she said. “April, you’re coming with me in the minivan.”
    Skillet stood still, the car key resting in his open palm. The key was the same silver color as the piece of metal he’d seen fit to stick through his face. He looked stupefied. Kacy wondered if he was on something.
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    â€œWe should be with Dad,” April said in the van. “This is fucked. This is so fucked .”
    â€œThere’s something I want you to see,” Kacy said, “some people I want you to meet.” She imagined the Dinaburg girl, a pale East Coast beauty, slim and beautiful in a Vera Wang dress, with a torrent of tight, dark, beautiful curls. “And let’s clean up the language.”
    The tires squealed as Kacy turned onto South Congress, narrowly beating a red light. April, with the filthy bucket hat clenched in one hand, started running her other hand through her hair, front to back, front to back, front to back, in a perfect, metronomic rhythm. Her eyes were far away. “Don’t worry, honey,” Kacy said as they drove across the bridge. “Everything’s going to be all right. You’ll see.”
    They arrived at the Four Seasons at 5:21. Kacy left the van with a valet and hurried into the earth-toned lobby, pulling April along with her. Between two lemon trees in terra-cotta pots, a sign with Dinaburg-Fleischner Wedding in white plastic letters pointed guests to the east wing. They went downstairs, where Kacy knew they’d find the dressing rooms for the wedding parties. She heard Dinaburg’s voice raised high with good cheer and, with a tug on April’s arm, followed it to a half-open door. Dinaburg, wearing a white yarmulke, stood with his back to them, a glass of red wine in his hand. He looked good in his tuxedo, she thought; his shoulders sloped more than she liked, but his butt had a cute little curve to it—not like Roger’s sheer-drop wall of an ass. She caught a glimpse of a long white dress in the far corner of the room. The bride was surrounded by people—one of whom, Kacy guessed, was Dinaburg’s snarly bitch of a wife—but she could tell that the girl was a tiny thing, with porcelain skin and a button nose and thin wrists and the dark curls that Kacy had imagined.
    She pulled her daughter close, about to whisper, See the bride? Doesn’t she look beautiful? But when she turned to look at April’s full-moon face up close, she stopped herself. She saw patches of hair missing from both of