Read Online Gravesend by William Boyle - Free Book Online Page A

smoking out the house with nothing else to do, the walls already getting that yellowy look. Alessandra was stressed, really feeling the smallness of the neighborhood after running into Conway at church, almost feeling like she conjured him with the visit to Duncan’s grave.
    “What’re your plans for the day?” her father said, picking a piece of tobacco from the corner of his mouth.
    “I don’t know,” she said. “Tomorrow I’m for sure going to the city.” Thought about it. “I always hated Sundays. That Sunday feeling, you know.”
    “Hated Sundays?”
    “Just bleak or something.”
    “The Lord’s Day.”
    Alessandra didn’t want to talk to her father about God. She didn’t want to tell him what she really believed about the whole magic show, so she changed the subject. “Aunt Cecilia coming over?”
    “Maybe,” her father said. “She’s got a confirmation.”
    Alessandra wasn’t sure where to go next with the conversation, what else to talk about with her old man. The tank was empty. Weather, stories from the Daily News , the Yanks—the reserves used up.
    They sat in silence for about twenty minutes, Alessandra clicking her nails against the can she was ashing in.
    “Time is it?” she finally said, wondering if it was too early to go to the bar.
    Her old man looked at his watch. It was like he was trying to make sense of the hands and numbers. Like he’d never looked at the thing before. Never been asked the time.
    Alessandra thought, Fuck it, I’m going to the bar .
    She stood up, putting her cigarette out in the can on the coffee table, ashes sloshing around in flat soda, letting off a sharp, sour stink.
    “It’s a little after three,” her father said.
    “Thanks, Daddy, I’m going out for a little while. Couple of hours at the most.” Dreaming of a Tom Collins, an Old-Fashioned, a gimlet. Remembering all the great cocktail bars in L.A. and what she’d get there. Best she could hope for at The Wrong Number was a Bloody Mary with well vodka, probably made with some shitballs mix.
    Back at the vanity upstairs, she went into doll-up mode. She was hoping to make an impression. She wanted to hear, Alessandra Biagini, the actress ?
    She rang up dorky Stephanie, who was as good as it got. The girl was a sweetheart anyway. She was excited to go out again. Alessandra said she’d meet her on the corner. She didn’t want to deal with Mrs. Dirello in her kill-me-please housecoat and slippers again.
    After hanging up, she just stared at herself, feeling like she’d run her life far off the rails and wondering if she should just wallow in the mess at the bottom of things. Drink every day at The Wrong Number. Say to hell with work. Become one of these neighborhood ghosts, old alkies in wrinkled black clothes that just skeleton around on feet like broken shopping cart wheels. When it got real bad, she could just dig in trash bins for bottles like the old Chinese, haul them down to Waldbaum’s for drinking money, live in this house until her father died and they took it away from her and then she could go to a home, the one over on Cropsey, where she’d wear Salvation Army clothes and lose her hair and teeth in the sink. An actress? Forget it. Once maybe, in another city, another time. Just wispy bones and yellowing skin now. The old boozer that kids throw rocks at for kicks.
     
    Stephanie was waiting on the corner, an embarrassing rainbow shoulder bag—probably got it up on Eighty-Sixth Street at Deal$—slung over her back. Lipstick on her teeth. “It’s early for a drink, huh?” she said.
    “Sunday,” Alessandra said. “Standard rules don’t apply.”
    “Well, it’s good to see you again.” Stephanie went in for an awkward hug.
    Alessandra pulled away and patted her on the back. “Okay, sweetie.”
    “Maybe we can go to a movie one day?”
    “Maybe, sure.”
    They walked to The Wrong Number, the weather cold but not brutal for September, and Stephanie stayed close to Alessandra,