Read Online If a Stranger Approaches You: Stories by Laura Kasischke - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Laura Kasischke
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dangling pearls swinging in their slow arcs.
“Please what?” Tony asked.
“Please don’t make this so much harder than it has to be.”
“I just need to say a couple of things, that’s all,” he said.
“Parents are going to start pulling in here to get their girls,” Melody said. “This isn’t a good time to say them. Maybe next week we can. …”
“No,” Tony said, and pushed his fingers more deeply into her hair. “Next week you won’t want to either.”
Melody inhaled and was about to say something—perhaps say it softly, perhaps make some kind of offer—when the fucking doorbell rang.
He let his hand drop. He sneered. “I’ll get it,” he said.
It was the fat one.
“The girls are around back,” Tony said pleasantly enough, and then he shut the door.
“You could have invited her in,” Melody said when he got back into the kitchen. She was latching the dishwasher with one hand and the other hand had found its way to her hip. In the few seconds since he’d left, everything had changed.
“Why would I have invited her in?” Tony asked.
“Because she’s the mother of one of our daughter’s friends.”
“Well,” Tony said, heart pounding hard at the tone of her voice, “excuse the hell out of me.”
Melody flushed. He could even see the blood splashed on her chest, just above her breasts. When the dishwasher was safely locked behind her, she clipped past him out the kitchen door, headed, apparently, for the dining room table where the girls’ hot-dogs were still half-eaten and moldering on their Barbie Birthday plates. But before she crossed the threshold, Tony grabbed her arm, hard, without realizing how hard until he saw the look on her face, the quick surprised flash of pain.
“ Don’t touch me, ” she hissed.
But he couldn’t help it. He yanked the arm harder, and Melody stumbled into him. What looked like tears started up in her eyes, but they might just have been stinging from the pain, or dilated in the bright kitchen light, or narrowed to glare at him. She pulled away, but when he just held on tighter she whimpered a little and went limp.
“I want to talk,” he said, close to her face.
There was a smell females had when they were scared, and she had it. Some kind of adrenaline. He’d smelled it on Melody before—beside him at the doctor’s office when they’d been told that she was pregnant, once when they were broadsided by a sportscar at an intersection downtown. He’d smelled it before that on his mother on a plane during turbulence, on Amy Malone beside him on the roller coaster at Cedar Point. And he’d smelled it on his sister when he tried to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the Vandermulen’s back lawn the night after her high school graduation when, one minute, she’d been drinking a beer on the sloped roof of the Vandermulen’s house with her boyfriend Mick, and the next she was lying on that lawn.
Tony himself had been drinking a beer, staring at the sky. Someone had car doors open and a stereo blasting “Stairway to Heaven” into the twilight while a low plane’s red eye blinked slowly across their suburb. He was so stoned that the guy he was joking around with on the patio seemed to be speaking to him without moving his mouth when he said, “Your sister’s on the roof, man,” and Tony Harmon said, “Cool,” and when he looked up he could see that his sister was rowing her arms in the air.
Wow, he’d thought, his sister was going to fly, she was going to fucking fly right off the roof. Cool.
“Talk,” Melody said. “Just hurry up and talk.”
“I’ll take my time,” he said.
And then the doorbell rang again, so loud this time he dropped her arm without intending to, and Melody hurried away from him toward the door. One of the dining room chairs was knocked over on its side when she bumped into it, and it fell with a dull empty sound onto the carpet, hardly a sound at all.
It wasn’t a tackle, exactly, just one
“Please what?” Tony asked.
“Please don’t make this so much harder than it has to be.”
“I just need to say a couple of things, that’s all,” he said.
“Parents are going to start pulling in here to get their girls,” Melody said. “This isn’t a good time to say them. Maybe next week we can. …”
“No,” Tony said, and pushed his fingers more deeply into her hair. “Next week you won’t want to either.”
Melody inhaled and was about to say something—perhaps say it softly, perhaps make some kind of offer—when the fucking doorbell rang.
He let his hand drop. He sneered. “I’ll get it,” he said.
It was the fat one.
“The girls are around back,” Tony said pleasantly enough, and then he shut the door.
“You could have invited her in,” Melody said when he got back into the kitchen. She was latching the dishwasher with one hand and the other hand had found its way to her hip. In the few seconds since he’d left, everything had changed.
“Why would I have invited her in?” Tony asked.
“Because she’s the mother of one of our daughter’s friends.”
“Well,” Tony said, heart pounding hard at the tone of her voice, “excuse the hell out of me.”
Melody flushed. He could even see the blood splashed on her chest, just above her breasts. When the dishwasher was safely locked behind her, she clipped past him out the kitchen door, headed, apparently, for the dining room table where the girls’ hot-dogs were still half-eaten and moldering on their Barbie Birthday plates. But before she crossed the threshold, Tony grabbed her arm, hard, without realizing how hard until he saw the look on her face, the quick surprised flash of pain.
“ Don’t touch me, ” she hissed.
But he couldn’t help it. He yanked the arm harder, and Melody stumbled into him. What looked like tears started up in her eyes, but they might just have been stinging from the pain, or dilated in the bright kitchen light, or narrowed to glare at him. She pulled away, but when he just held on tighter she whimpered a little and went limp.
“I want to talk,” he said, close to her face.
There was a smell females had when they were scared, and she had it. Some kind of adrenaline. He’d smelled it on Melody before—beside him at the doctor’s office when they’d been told that she was pregnant, once when they were broadsided by a sportscar at an intersection downtown. He’d smelled it before that on his mother on a plane during turbulence, on Amy Malone beside him on the roller coaster at Cedar Point. And he’d smelled it on his sister when he tried to give her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on the Vandermulen’s back lawn the night after her high school graduation when, one minute, she’d been drinking a beer on the sloped roof of the Vandermulen’s house with her boyfriend Mick, and the next she was lying on that lawn.
Tony himself had been drinking a beer, staring at the sky. Someone had car doors open and a stereo blasting “Stairway to Heaven” into the twilight while a low plane’s red eye blinked slowly across their suburb. He was so stoned that the guy he was joking around with on the patio seemed to be speaking to him without moving his mouth when he said, “Your sister’s on the roof, man,” and Tony Harmon said, “Cool,” and when he looked up he could see that his sister was rowing her arms in the air.
Wow, he’d thought, his sister was going to fly, she was going to fucking fly right off the roof. Cool.
“Talk,” Melody said. “Just hurry up and talk.”
“I’ll take my time,” he said.
And then the doorbell rang again, so loud this time he dropped her arm without intending to, and Melody hurried away from him toward the door. One of the dining room chairs was knocked over on its side when she bumped into it, and it fell with a dull empty sound onto the carpet, hardly a sound at all.
It wasn’t a tackle, exactly, just one
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