Read Online A Density of Souls by Christopher Rice - Free Book Online Page A

want to go to the hospital, so I watched her, if that’s what you mean!”
    “I didn’t mean to—”
    “She used to throw up in the bed and I had to clean it up, if that’s what you mean!”
    Monica’s voice had tripled in volume. A customer threw a startled glance in their direction.
    “I didn’t want to—” Jeremy stammered.
    “Then just what the hell are you doing here, then?” she hissed.
    Jeremy eased back down onto the stool, looking defeated, something Monica needed to see. Her hand rose to her neck. She found she would repeat this gesture often, each time Jeremy pierced some thing inside of her.
    “What’s your name?” he asked quietly.
    Monica decided to test him. “My mother named me after a moon,”
    she said flatly.
    She was prepared for any response: The cock of the head that hinted at some lunacy in her lineage, or the look of amused surprise that told her she lived outside of a big joke she didn’t get, possibly because she had never been privileged to hear the punch line in full.
    “What kind of a moon?” he asked.
    7
    T hree weeks after they attended Carolyn Traulain’s funeral, Monica bought Stephen a car. He did not yet have his driver’s license but he did have an overwhelming need to drive. Stephen wept so openly at Carolyn’s service that when he looked up through blurred eyes he realized to his horror that some mourners were paying more attention to him than Carolyn’s wig-crowned body in the open casket.
    The Jeep Grand Cherokee was delivered with a giant red ribbon on its hood to the corner of Chestnut and Third Street, where it sat for three hours as Monica waited for Stephen to emerge from the house and stumble upon it.
    Stephen first saw the Jeep as David Carter dropped by his house to pick him up for a coffee date. Stephen slid silently into the passenger seat of his teacher’s station wagon, his eyes on the Jeep. To break the silence, David asked whose car it was. Stephen answered that his nextdoor neighbor must have bought a new Jeep for his wife. When he looked up, he saw Andrew Darby’s Bronco coming down Third. As David pulled away from the corner, he watched as the Bronco slowed slightly next to the Jeep. Before David rounded the corner, he saw Greg and Meredith staring openly at the Jeep with its garish red bow.
    Stephen realized the Jeep was his.
    David bought Stephen an iced coffee. Stephen could tell he was trying to atone for what had happened the day they had discussed Lord of the Flies almost a year earlier. The teacher talked about his experience in college theatre, and gradually Stephen realized that the coffee date had a purpose: David was letting him know that he had been picked to replace Carolyn as the head of theatre. Stephen hardly listened, watching the teacher’s nervousness spell itself out in darting glances and hands that repeatedly embraced his coffee mug.
    52
    A Density of Souls
    “Carolyn was quite a person and I’m sure she was quite a director,”
    David said.
    “She was really great,” Stephen offered blandly.
    “She wasn’t someone you wanted to mess with, was she? I mean, she was really . . . Don’t tell any of the faculty I said this . . . but she didn’t put up with bullshit, did she?”
    There was a long pause. Stephen watched a harried woman rap her fingers on the counter, waiting impatiently for her cappuccino. He halfheartedly wondered if Mr. Carter was going to apologize for doing nothing the afternoon some student slapped a brand on his book bag for all the school to see.
    Instead, he said, “Well, I’m looking forward to the coming year. I think it should be really great. And wherever Carolyn is, I think she’s looking forward to it, too.”
    He smiled. Stephen glared at him. “And where is Carolyn, exactly?”
    Stephen asked.
    “I have some belief in a life after this one,” David Carter managed.
    Stephen nodded slightly. “I don’t believe in God.”
    There was another empty pause. David broke it by rising from