Wait Until Twilight by Sang Pak Read Free Book Online

food comes, and I eat slowly and methodically, taking big bites out of the sandwich and stuffing my mouth full of fries. Mrs. Baker nibbles on her salad.
    “You were hungry!” she says. I nod my head. “Do you have a girlfriend?” she asks me, but I’m watching the other table. The black guy has walked off and come back with a flower. The white guy looks around and grabs it and throws it down. They look around and shake hands.
    “I don’t have one,” I say with a mouthful of food.
    “Why not?”
    I shrug my shoulders and just keep eating, but I can feel my face redden, and the more I try to make it stop the hotter it gets.
    “Where’s your partner?” I ask.
    “Kathy had a previous appointment. Do you think she’s pretty?”
    “No…I mean, I didn’t think about it. She’s gotta eat lunch, too, right?”
    “I think she’s very pretty,” says Mrs. Baker.
    I continue eating with my eyes lowered until I’m finished. “Thanks for lunch…Betty,” I say.
    “My pleasure. Next time maybe I’ll make something for you.” We walk out into the parking lot, and the sun is really shining down hard. But it isn’t super hot like it will get soon when summer comes around. I get in her big red SUV and put on my seat belt. It feels good to be full.
    “Whaddya thinkin’ about?” she asks.
    “Nothin’,” I say.
    She drives me home and parks in the driveway. “Aren’t you going to invite me in for a cup of coffee?” she asks me. It’s the same kind of stuff she would ask my mom, getting her to do things she really didn’t want to do. My mom was a lot more patient than me, though.
    “Mrs. Baker. Don’t talk to me like I’m my mom. I’m not my mom.”
    “I didn’t mean it that way…”
    “You didn’t mean it that way, but that’s the way it is, isn’t it?” I say. “Try laying off a little.” I go inside the house and wait for her to back out and go back to her place. I’m sure I hurt her feelings, and I don’t like it. But I knew I had to nip her attempts at replacing my mom with me in the bud right there. I get in the Tempo and head on out. I take the back roads, just wanting to kill some time, breathe in the countryair. I think about those chocolates, and I get this sick feeling as I go out over the bridge past the swamp, and after a couple of turns I find myself back in Underwood. I’m an idiot for coming back, but I can’t help myself. It’s this sick curiosity in my guts that brings me back here. That’s the only way I can explain it to myself—sick curiosity. I park along the street in front of Mrs. Greenan’s house. Looking at that gray house, I can’t help but wonder what the hell it’s like to live in there. I get out, walk up the way, and knock on the screen door, but no one’s there. I peek through the windows, one of which is now all duct-taped up, but the drapes are closed. If they’d just repaint and take better care of the place, maybe it wouldn’t look so damn sinister. At least the weather is fine. I don’t feel like going back home just yet, so I take out my American history textbook from my car and sit on her front porch steps, where the rotted gray wood shows through all the white peeling paint. I’m on the chapter about slavery and the impact it had on the Civil War. It’s hard to imagine there was a time like that in America. A car comes on by, but it’s not Mrs. Greenan. A couple more cars pass while I’m reading. One of them, a white Dodge Charger with blue stripes along the side, slows down, so I get up, thinking it’s going to stop. There’s some bearded man behind the wheel looking at me through the window. I can’t get a good look at his face, but before he speeds past I can see he’s wearing a greasy-looking blue baseball cap. Standing there on her porch steps, I wonder for a moment if I’m doing something suspicious or even illegal, but I can’t think of anything, so I sit back down. It’s back to my studies.
    I must have dozed off because my