The Truth About Delilah Blue by Tish Cohen Read Free Book Online Page A

cement.
    So now the only other means of funding even a church basement art class was filling out an application—and actually getting hired—at someplace like Mel’s Drive-in or Book Soup or anyplace else that would require regular attendance and would take her further and further away from her mother opening up that most excellent issue of Vanity Fair . Lila now realized she’d made a grave mistake quitting her modeling gig. She realized she had little choice but to put on a repentant face, go to Lichty’s studio, and hope like hell he’d let her get naked in his class again.
    She squared her body and examined her upper arms. What had Lichty called them? Scanty. Unbalanced. Disappointingto future lovers. She balled her right fist and flexed her bicep. The elongated muscle leaped into action, forming a hardened knoll that was only somewhat reassuring. She dropped her arm to her side.
    There was a scuffle in the yard, followed by a high-pitched wail, then silence. There, not three feet from her window, stood a large coyote, sandy gray tail tipped with black. One enormous, feathery ear stood erect, the other drooped at half-mast, having been chewed up in a long ago brawl. The gold eyes didn’t blink. While coyotes were rampant in the hills, this particular canine, notorious for his mangled ear, had simply become known to the locals as Slash.
    Mythology portrayed coyotes as either heroic—with heart and even a sense of humor—or clever, impulsive, and greedy. Slash lived up to the latter by finding a way into even the most carefully bungeed and locked trash cans. If you tried to beat him by putting your trash out the morning of pickup, it was as if he knew it was Thursday, waiting in the bracken to dart out, not when your front door slammed shut and you might still hear the outdoor tussle, but once you turned on the shower, climbed in, and lathered yourself up with soap.
    Cunning to the core.
    As if mocking her, the wild dog stared back and shook the bloodied limbs of the headless hare he held between his teeth. She reached for her discarded boot on the floor behind her and hurled it through the open window. “Out of here! Go!”
    The animal blinked at her calmly, then loped away into the bushes.
    “Lila? What’s all that screaming?”
    “Nothing.” She threw on a tank top and shorts and padded to her father’s doorway, watched him smooth his hair in the mirror, then lick his thumb and use the saliva to paste his locks to one side. Seven-thirty A . M . and the man was all decked out in a gray suit, Egyptian cotton shirt, suspenders. The flesh under his eyes looked puffy and sore.
    She yawned into her hand. “Did the dog keep you up too?”
    “Only half the night. The other half it was the heat.”
    “I heard you snoring sometime around two, Mister.”
    He thrust his chin upward and fussed with his collar. “I’ve half a mind to steal it.”
    “Steal what?”
    “The Basenji. Deserves a better home than living out back in a half-buried rain barrel. The breed originated in the Congo. Was used by the Pygmies as a hunting dog. It’s not suited to living outside in the winter. Even in Southern California. The nights can be quite cold. Gen used to have one.”
    She squinted. “Since when do you know about Pygmy hunting dogs and who is Gen?”
    “There’s quite a bit you don’t know about your old dad.”
    “Like what? He was a warrior in the rain forest in a past life?”
    “Like he did a project on the breed in his last year of high school because his extraordinarily attractive science teacher was a breeder and he thought it would impress her.”
    “Ah. Well then. On the basis of pubescent efforts toward love that was ultimately doomed, your Basenji facts are allowed.”
    “It’s one of the only dog breeds known to have no bark.”
    “Why bother when you have far more annoying sounds at your disposal?”
    “They can only mate during one thirty-day period each year because—”
    “No.” She covered