Read Online All Saints by K.D. Miller - Free Book Online Page A

me.” She looked back up at Emily. “We’d been making love, right? That morning. That’s what Marples walked in on. So I’m still wet from Rick when we’re standing out on the sidewalk with our stuff in garbage bags. And I’m crying and asking him what we’re going to do now. Well Cass, he says. We both knew it wasn’t going to last, didn’t we? And I don’t get it. I’m going, What? That what wasn’t going to last? Living here, you mean? So that’s when he tells me. There’s somebody else. There’s been somebody else for weeks. Some chick he’s been balling the whole time. Right under my nose. While we were all in that house together. And now he’s going to go stay with her. So I’m on my own. And then he picks up the bags that have his stuff in them and he walks away from me. And I just stand there on the sidewalk. Watching him—Shit. Oh, shit.”
    Emily searched her purse for a Kleenex. Cass’s tears shocked her. But so did the way they made her feel oddly vindicated.
    â€œSorry,” Cass said, wiping her eyes. “That fucker doesn’t deserve this.”
    Emily arranged her face into a mask of concern. Hoped what she was really thinking didn’t show. Score one for Uncle Tom. And so much for click.
    â€œI just want to know one thing.” Cass’s nose is red, her face splotchy and old. Won’t be able to sell to the under-forties for long , Emily could imagine Dave saying. “What I want to know is, did you and Dave know? About Rick cheating on me, I mean. When we all lived together. Did you know? You can tell me. I won’t be mad. Just tell me.”
    Emily hesitated. What good would it do to tell Cass the truth now, after all this time? Besides. Garth Marples was alive. And so were those fragments on those yellowing sheets of paper in her three-ring binder. She wanted to end this conversation. Get home. Get writing.
    â€œNo,” she said at last, looking down into her cup. “We didn’t know. She wished her hair was still long. She could feel the blood rising in her cheeks. She hoped Cass would think it was just the hot tea.
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    As soon as she got home that day, Emily would start writing a story called Barney . It would be about a man building a room in his basement. Building it up on a platform for the damp, and painting it military green as a joke. A joke between him and his old war buddy. Who has no place to go. Who’s living at the God damned Y. With a roommate who smells. And all because his wife threw him out. Wives. Jesus. His own is up in the kitchen. Cooking her mad into his supper. He can smell it. He’ll taste it soon. Well, he’s got his own mad. And he can hammer it, he can. Loud. Nail by nail. Barney is his friend. Friend. Can’t the woman get that into her head?
    The story would grow into a novel that would become a bestseller and win several prizes. Dave would read about the first of them in the paper and call to congratulate her. She would hang up when she heard his voice. Then she would cry.
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    The pillow is grey. This is how grey smells, Em thinks inside the cave she has made out of her coat. Grey smells of sweat. Hair oil. Dust. Old cloth. Feathers from long-dead chickens. Maybe all possible smells go into making up the smell of grey, the way all possible colours go into making up the colour grey. The voices on the other side of the door are grey too.
    â€œCass, what’s she doing in there? She’s not supposed to be—”
    â€œRick, just leave her alone. Just—”
    â€œEm? Look, I’m sorry you’re upset, but you’re going to have to—”
    â€œRick! Bugger off!”
    Her mind has become a wandering thing. Like that dog she walked. All that summer. Up at the lake. When they rented that cottage. When she was—what? Eight? Nine. Black cocker spaniel. Barney. Long fluffy ears hanging down.
    â€œEm?