Read Online Big Stone Gap by Adriana Trigiani - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Adriana Trigiani
Ads: Link
event tonight? The crowd was behind Jack Mac asking Sue to marry him; they kissed passionately, and it looked all sewn up to me. Am I so deprived of physical intimacy that I did not see this? How unobservant am I? Or am I living in some other universe, one I have created out of my own strange perceptions? I look away, out the window and into my yard, and what I see there is not the Potters’ oak tree that grows over the fence but a flash of Jack MacChesney in his underwear, and how strong and bearlike he was, all man, from shoulder to foot. I shake my head to erase the picture. It goes.
“I want to have sex with you tonight.” There. I just said it right out. Honestly. Clearly. Directly. Well done.
Theodore puts down his fork (another bad sign). Then he looks at me.
“You’re beautiful and desirable. But it wouldn’t work. We love each other; we are not in love with each other. If we had sex tonight, sooner or later we wouldn’t be friends. I don’t want to lose that. Would you?”
Around my fork I have twirled a mountain of spaghetti so large it is the size of a tennis ball.
I say to Theodore: “I wouldn’t.” But why can’t I have both? The lover
and
the best friend. Isn’t that the point? I know what I want. I’ve had many years to think about it. When I first saw Theodore at the Drama auditions years ago, my heart skipped a beat. “Kindred spirit” doesn’t begin to describe our connection.
I unravel the tennis ball of noodles. It makes a square on the plate, like the frame of an open window. In the square, I imagine a cartoon, primitive and bright. A buck-toothed gorilla is being chased by an angry mouse with a giant mallet. The mouse climbs up the gorilla and clunks him on the head repeatedly. The gorilla’s eyes cross, and stars shoot out of his head. The image makes me smile, so I won’t cry.
CHAPTER THREE
Fleeta is serious about quitting. I can tell because she has cleaned up the shelf behind the register. Her lifetime supply of Coke and peanuts is gone. Her bifocals are safe in their case. Her paperwork is stacked neatly in two piles. In one stack, her professional wrestling schedules. Fleeta and Portly go to wrestling matches in Kingsport and Knoxville every chance they get. Pictures of the great wrestling stars Haystack Calhoun, Atomic Drop, Johnny Weaver, and the frightening Pile Driver are in protective clear-plastic sleeves. The wrestlers’ thick, clublike bodies are greased in oil. Their heads are smaller than their squat, muscular bodies; they look like apples on top of buildings. In the other stack, Fleeta’s recipes. When business is slow, Fleeta rewrites her recipe-card file; she’s had this project under way for about five years. In Fleeta’s block print:
MAMAW SKEEN’S POSSUM
Skin your possum. Place in a large pot and boil till tender. Add salt and pepper to taste. Make gravy with broth and add 4 tablespoons flour and 1 ⁄ 2 cup of milk. Cook until thick. Save a foot to sop gravy!
I wonder what they do with the other three feet. I flip through the cards; many of Fleeta’s specialties are included: divinity candy, a confection of whipped sugar that looks like clouds (she brings it in every Christmas), lemon squares, cheese straws, peanut butter balls, and my favorite, rhubarb pie.
“I’m putting my recipes together for my granddaughter, for when she gets murried,” Fleeta says as she stands behind me. “You ever ate possum?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, you’re missing out. It’s the best, most tenderest meat of all.”
Fleeta grabs her smokes and motions for me to meet her in the back office for lunch. She locks the front door and flips the RING BELL sign.
Fleeta sits on a folding chair, smoking. She pours a small cellophane sack of salted peanuts into her glass bottle of Coca-Cola, stops up the top with her thumb, shakes it, and when it’s fizzy chugs it back. I’m going to miss our lunches.
“Fleeta, do you really have to quit on
“I want to have sex with you tonight.” There. I just said it right out. Honestly. Clearly. Directly. Well done.
Theodore puts down his fork (another bad sign). Then he looks at me.
“You’re beautiful and desirable. But it wouldn’t work. We love each other; we are not in love with each other. If we had sex tonight, sooner or later we wouldn’t be friends. I don’t want to lose that. Would you?”
Around my fork I have twirled a mountain of spaghetti so large it is the size of a tennis ball.
I say to Theodore: “I wouldn’t.” But why can’t I have both? The lover
and
the best friend. Isn’t that the point? I know what I want. I’ve had many years to think about it. When I first saw Theodore at the Drama auditions years ago, my heart skipped a beat. “Kindred spirit” doesn’t begin to describe our connection.
I unravel the tennis ball of noodles. It makes a square on the plate, like the frame of an open window. In the square, I imagine a cartoon, primitive and bright. A buck-toothed gorilla is being chased by an angry mouse with a giant mallet. The mouse climbs up the gorilla and clunks him on the head repeatedly. The gorilla’s eyes cross, and stars shoot out of his head. The image makes me smile, so I won’t cry.
CHAPTER THREE
Fleeta is serious about quitting. I can tell because she has cleaned up the shelf behind the register. Her lifetime supply of Coke and peanuts is gone. Her bifocals are safe in their case. Her paperwork is stacked neatly in two piles. In one stack, her professional wrestling schedules. Fleeta and Portly go to wrestling matches in Kingsport and Knoxville every chance they get. Pictures of the great wrestling stars Haystack Calhoun, Atomic Drop, Johnny Weaver, and the frightening Pile Driver are in protective clear-plastic sleeves. The wrestlers’ thick, clublike bodies are greased in oil. Their heads are smaller than their squat, muscular bodies; they look like apples on top of buildings. In the other stack, Fleeta’s recipes. When business is slow, Fleeta rewrites her recipe-card file; she’s had this project under way for about five years. In Fleeta’s block print:
MAMAW SKEEN’S POSSUM
Skin your possum. Place in a large pot and boil till tender. Add salt and pepper to taste. Make gravy with broth and add 4 tablespoons flour and 1 ⁄ 2 cup of milk. Cook until thick. Save a foot to sop gravy!
I wonder what they do with the other three feet. I flip through the cards; many of Fleeta’s specialties are included: divinity candy, a confection of whipped sugar that looks like clouds (she brings it in every Christmas), lemon squares, cheese straws, peanut butter balls, and my favorite, rhubarb pie.
“I’m putting my recipes together for my granddaughter, for when she gets murried,” Fleeta says as she stands behind me. “You ever ate possum?”
“Not that I know of.”
“Well, you’re missing out. It’s the best, most tenderest meat of all.”
Fleeta grabs her smokes and motions for me to meet her in the back office for lunch. She locks the front door and flips the RING BELL sign.
Fleeta sits on a folding chair, smoking. She pours a small cellophane sack of salted peanuts into her glass bottle of Coca-Cola, stops up the top with her thumb, shakes it, and when it’s fizzy chugs it back. I’m going to miss our lunches.
“Fleeta, do you really have to quit on
Similar Books
