Where You End by Anna Pellicioli Read Free Book Online

tremble when I think of it.
    Paloma picked the right place for her mystery. There are only a handful of people wandering around inside the cathedral, and a dozen more whispering prayers in the pews. Most of the morning worshippers have made their way back to their corners of the city. Senators find the time to cut their grandkids’ pancakes while polite ladies wipe the bacon grease off their lips and the choir debates over next week’s hymns. Christian or not, we all succumb to Sunday’s tune: the promise of the morning, the sad afternoon.
    The church itself is as impressive as I remembered it. Once in a while, when we used to come to the gardens to play, I got to go inside, but I had to be really quiet. I remember holding my breath, because I thought that was the only way to be totally silent. I was not allowed to touch the water—it’s holy—and we could not be blessed in this place. We were only here to look and, maybe, think. This is a place people come to reflect. This is a place for repentance. Like I said, Paloma chose well.
    The afternoons are getting shorter, so the sun has already lit the stained glass on fire. Men, sheep, crosses, constellations—all the stories and symbols come out at once, and the cautionary tales share the light with the miracles. It’s hard to look away. I settle into a pew near a stone column and wait. I reach out my hand to touch it, and it feels cold and smooth.
    â€œCan’t keep your hands to yourself, huh?” Her voice startles me.
    Paloma, or whatever her real name is, slides next to me and smiles. She’s wearing the same clothes she was wearing at the Air and Space, white T-shirt and jeans. She must be cold. Her hair is up today, so her cheekbones stand out more. There’s something ancient about her face. I don’t mean that she looks old, more like the lines and bones haven’t softened over generations as they have with most of us. She looks like she belongs in an old photograph, like she comes from some unmistakable place. Her face is too strong to just be pretty.
    â€œHi,” I say, worried I’ve been staring too long.
    â€œHang on a second,” she says, as she lifts a huge bag onto her lap and loses half her arm in it, pulling out every item and setting it on the bench. A pack of baby wipes, a pair of sunglasses, a bunched-up scarf, a bursting wallet, broken crayons, a thousand paper napkins, keys, a rubber tiger, and a book. Maybe she babysits. The book is a poetry paperback, lots of cracks in the cover. It’s obviously been used plenty. It’s called Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair , by Pablo Neruda, translated by W. S. Merwin. She puts everything back in except for her phone and the book, which she keeps on her lap. I try to forget about last night ’s text.
    â€œHave you read him?” she says.
    I shake my head.
    â€œReally? They don’t make you read this at Sterling?”
    â€œNo.”
    The fact she knows my school still bothers me. It reminds me of her power.
    â€œWhat do you read over there? Shakespeare, Yeats, Donne, Frost, Poe, Blake, Eliot, maybe a few of the Beats if you get a teacher who’s a real rebel? No girls, I bet. Maybe Emily Dickinson.”
    I try not to let on that she’s sort of right. I remember at least three of those guys from last year, and the only poetry book I actually own is an Emily Dickinson anthology.
    â€œDon’t get me wrong,” she says. “I do like some of those guys. The realistic Yeats is heartbreaking, and no one can do sadness and space like Emily. I’m just surprised they didn’t give you at least one Neruda. He’s the easiest brown guy to include.” She says “Neruda” like she speaks Spanish.
    Paloma fiddles with her hair and ends up locking it in the same clip she started with. I notice a tattoo on the nape of her neck. It looks like a date: 6/10/11. She catches me looking and turns her