The Wife's Tale by Lori Lansens Read Free Book Online Page B

scholarship would be delayed, or dashed altogether.
    “My dad’s having a bad time with his colitis,” Mary said, as if to answer some unasked question.
    “Want a ride home?” Gooch offered.
    “Six-thirty,” she responded, “by the time I get done counting my cash.”
    That evening, when Mary’s shift was over, Gooch was waiting for her in the parking lot. She felt curiously calm striding out
     to the tan Plymouth Duster where he sat smiling shyly. She was intent on the evening air, the curious warmth of the late fall
     night. She had brushed her teeth in the staff bathroom but hardly glanced at her reflection in the mirror. She hadn’t fretted
     over what she might say. She hadn’t worried that she had never been kissed. She knew what was to come as if it were a memory,
     not a projection.
    Gooch and Mary were bound
mystically
, or so it seemed. Even if she would eventually understand that she was the only person in Gooch’s life, including himself,
     who did not hold him responsible for what had happened, or feel somehow betrayed by the consequence of his injury, she’d been
     right about Jimmy Gooch that first day she looked into his eyes. He was not the cocky star athlete to whom things came easily,
     but a big, battered boy who needed a safe place to hide.
    They drove to the lake in comfortable silence, to a clearing among the trees, a refuge to which Jimmy Gooch had plainly driven
     before. He knew just where to turn so the branches wouldn’t scratch his door. They climbed out of the Duster, Gooch on his
     crutches, and leaned against the warm grille, a breath apart, watching moonlight stroke the water, lifting their eyes to the
     stars. Mary tried to recall the constellations from eighth-grade astronomy. The Big Dipper. The Little Dipper. Polaris—the
     North Star.
    Gooch turned to her after a long time and said, “No one but Pete’s even come by the house.”
    “I heard you didn’t want to see anyone.”
    “I don’t,” he shot, then laughed. “I didn’t. At least, I thought I didn’t. No one I know.”
    “You know me. We had our lockers side by side.”
    “We did?” Gooch asked, cocking his head.
    Mary’s cheeks burned. “Never mind.”
    “I’m kidding, Mary,” he said. “I remember you.”
    “I thought, because I look different now…”
    “Where are you going after this?”
    “Home?”
    “No, I mean after graduation. Where are you going?”
    “I thought I might work for a year and save some money. There’s this school of fashion and design in Toronto but that’s pretty
     far. My parents kind of need me right now. My dad’s having a hard time.”
    “Colitis.” Gooch nodded, watching the stars.
    “I heard you were going to Boston,” Mary said.
    He gestured to his leg. “Not now. Not to play.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    Gooch shrugged. “I’m not. It’s a relief.” He sighed, loudly enough to scatter wildlife. “It’s all a big relief.” But he didn’t
     look relieved.
    Mary waited as Gooch took another deep breath and, in his exhalation, told her the true story of his life: his alcoholic parents,
     his father’s violent rages, his mother’s penchant for scenes, the tragedy of his older sister’s drug addiction, his paralyzing
     fear that he could not measure up. People expected so much from a giant boy.
    Mary’s eyes never left his handsome face as he spoke, lingering over the asides: describing his passion for writing, his love
     affair with the U.S.A., his impatience with complainers, his preference for Chinese over Italian, his goal of reading the
     classics, his embarrassment that his clothes had to be custom-made. He paused, puzzling over her pretty face. She thought
     he might kiss her, and was unprepared when he said, “Your turn.”
    Although she might have told Gooch her own life story, confided about her sickly, disappointed parents, her intense loneliness,
     her hunger. And though she might have confessed her love affair with the parasites, and