Thumbsucker by Walter Kirn Read Free Book Online

the premium. He forbade us to wear Levi’s or brush with Crest or relieve our headaches with Excedrin.
    Mike sipped coffee and scanned the front page as Audrey checked my glands. I couldn’t help comparing his looks to Johnson’s. Mike had the same cleft chin, a straighter nose, and his cheekbones were, if anything, more prominent, but unfortunately he hadn’t learned the trick of skipping shaving to let his stubble grow out. Touches like that were what made Johnson a star.
    “They’re inflamed,” Audrey lied. “No school for you today.”
    Joel shot me a jealous look and sulked. He hated school as much as I did and only attended because of sports, it seemed. He played them all, with an ease and natural grace that pointed to great achievements down the line, maybe even greater than Mike’s had been.
    “I think what Justin needs is
air
,” Mike said. “He’s been indoors for two days running now.”
    Audrey gave Mike a cutting look; this was an old argument between them. According to Mike, fresh air cured everything, while Audrey maintained that rest was the best medicine. All of my parents’ other disagreements, from where to go on vacation to whom to vote for, seemed to me to be versions of this one. Reagan, because he rode horses, had been the outside candidate; Carter, a scientist, the indoor man.
    The debate about how to make me better continued as Mike got up from the table and put his coat on. I opened the bottle of codeine, held it high, and poured, but all that came out was a paltry thread of syrup.
    “By the way,” Audrey said, “I’ll be busy all day today, so maybe you could get a bucket of chicken.”
    Mike bent down to tie his shoes. “I see a pattern here. Have you stopped cooking?”
    “Twice is not a pattern,” Audrey said. “Fried chicken or pizza again, it’s up to you.”
    Mike snapped on his rubbers and straightened up.“There’s another divorce on the way. The Andersons. Anna’s run off to Chicago with some gigolo.”
    “The man is an accomplished sculptor, Mike. What does that have to do with anything?”
    “Staying together takes sacrifice. It’s work. Certain people seem to be forgetting that.”

    On the drive to St. Paul we discussed the Johnson essay.
    “I want to work in the word ‘gamine,’ ” said Audrey. It was snowing and we were driving behind a sand truck whose amber warning light strobed her face and hair and made her look like an actress in a suspense film.
    “I prefer ‘petite.’ ”
    “Petite’s a commonplace.”
    “Miniature?”
    “Too technical. Too awkward.”
    “Wee?” I said. “Pint-size? Trim?”
    “You’re just confusing me.”
    Confusing her was the essence of my plan. Last night, I’d let myself picture Audrey’s dream date in greater detail than before, and I was terrified. I could see the blue tropical cocktails on the bar as Johnson led Audrey across the nightclub’s dance floor through a crowd of partying celebrities: Burt Reynolds kissing a teenage fashion model, Joey Heatherton hugging an NFL receiver.
    “We’re taking the wrong approach,” she said. “Insteadof getting hung up on language, Justin, imagine you’ve never seen me. We’ve never met. You round a corner and there I am, in front of you. And what strikes you first is …?”
    The exercise was difficult. I tilted my head to change my perspective and tried to see Audrey anew, as a stranger. Her skin, I noticed, was darker than I realized, as though she had a trace of Indian blood, as well as surprisingly moist and shiny. Pores loomed. Freckles. Blackheads. Oily spots. In school I’d been taught that the skin is an organ—a kind of stretched-out liver or kidney—but only now did this idea make sense to me.
    “Talk,” Audrey said. “Describe. Immortalize.”
    I was thinking of fancy words for Audrey’s skin tone when I noticed the tendons in her hands, fanned like the wire ribs of an umbrella. Her fingers were beautiful, too. Like the idealized fingers on