The Wave by Walter Mosley Read Free Book Online Page A

to him.”
    Lonnigan’s was a throwback to the coffee shops of L.A. in the eighties. It was red and glass with a roof shaped like an artist’s palette set on a tilt. There was a long chrome counter and booths in the windows. Nella and Angelique were sitting at a large booth with the handsome, wild-maned young man when my mother and I arrived.
    On the ride over, she’d sat silent. That silence was the mark of her anger. Her hands were in her lap, and every now and then she’d take in a deep breath through her nose. She was wearing a simple gray button-up dress that came down to around her shins.
    She walked with a quick step to the door of the restaurant and then steadily toward the booth.
    But when she got close enough to get a good look at GT, she fell backward into me.
    “Oh my God.”
    GT stood up, all smiles and welcome.
    “Hey, Sprout,” he said in just the tone my father had used every morning. “How’s the little Sprouts?”
    “Artie?”
    My head felt like it was going to break open. If he could fool my mother, too, then maybe my newfound half brother really was my father. I mean, if enough people believed it, why couldn’t it be true?
    “How have you been, Madeline?” GT asked.
    He reached for her hands, but she pulled away.
    “You’re not Artie,” she said.
    Relief flowed through me.
    “You can’t be,” my mother continued. “But how do you know all of those things you’ve been telling my children?”
    “Come and sit, Maddie,” he said. “Let’s talk about it. Let’s talk.”
    The craziness had subsided again. He moved differently. His tone was reasonable. I noticed that the T-shirt was tucked into his pants.
    We all sat.
    “Mom, this is Nella,” I said. “She’s my friend from the pottery studio.”
    “Pleased to meet you,” my mother said without even a glance at my new girlfriend. “Now, answer me, young man. How did you know the name Bobby Bliss?”
    GT laced his fingers together and leaned forward. He smiled and shook his head slightly.
    “So it’s true, Mother?” Angelique said. “You did cheat on Daddy.”
    “Be quiet for a minute, honey,” our mother said, the way she used to when we were small children. She kept her gaze on GT’s face. “You can’t be Artie, you know.”
    “Why do you say that, Maddie?”
    “Because Artie had a scar below his right eye. He got it roughhousing with another boy when they were only nine.”
    All right! Finally some proof, I thought.
    “I already told Airy,” GT said, “that I’m not exactly Arthur Porter but the memory of him made flesh.”
    “Then what about the scar?” I asked.
    “The memory doesn’t include physical pain,” he said, and then he looked at my mother. “Only the pain of the heart and mind remain.”
    “Are you his son?” my mother asked.
    “In one way,” GT said. “I have learned from his mistakes. And, of course, I’ve entered the Wave.”
    “How dare you tell my children about these things?” my mother asked the now strangely mature youth. “You have no right.”
    “‘When I think of you,’” GT said, obviously quoting from something, “‘my breasts surge against my clothes, my feet get restless and the touch of my plain cotton skirt takes on an intimacy that the most ardent lover could never know—’”
    “Stop it,” my mother said. “Artie never knew Bobby Bliss’s name. How could you? I mean, you’re no more than twenty. Bobby went away before you were born.”
    GT’s smile faded then. His fingers unlaced, and he looked down at his hands.
    “I hired a detective,” he said, then he shuddered. “He followed you”—another shudder—“and took pictures. It was after you told me about being in love with another man, Sprout.”
    “No,” she said.
    My sister was crying softly as Nella shook her head in disbelief.
    “You see, Errol,” GT said, “I confronted your mother when I began to suspect. She told me that she was in love with another man, but she wouldn’t say who it