Read Online Keeping by Sarah Masters - Free Book Online Page A

wasn’t often people found themselves still in possession of their childhood friend two decades later, was it. He ran his hand down Sally’s springy blonde hair, the nylon feel and smell still the same as ever. She stared ahead, plastic arms by her sides, fingertips touching the red-flowered material of her sleeveless summer dress. The cord handle in her back, once a crisp white ring but now an aged cream, dug into the top of his belly, and he shifted her forward so he could pull it and listen.
    A melody tinkled out of her, full of sweet, high-pitched notes, the tones soothing him. He closed his eyes and let the music wash over him, bringing with it memories of the past when Sally had been there for him with the women. She’d watched from her position against the wall as he’d done his thing and she’d played her tune, never letting him down, always saying, “Goodnight!” in her chirpy little voice at the right moment.
    “I love you, Sally.”
    “Goodnight!”
    “Yes, it’s goodnight for now, but I think I’ll be coming back to get you soon.”
    * * * *
    It was The Time. David was surprised at that, but he shouldn’t have been, not with what he knew. It was Friday and he needed to make Cheryl go home-home today. He couldn’t risk leaving her over the weekend when he went to work. And Monday might be too late. If that Oliver fella managed to speak to her or she to him…
    No, she had to go now. Sad, because he’d enjoyed bathing her, making her so clean her hair had squeaked as he’d washed it. The bleach had turned her hair a nasty color now, though—nasty because it was an orangey-yellow blonde. He didn’t like blondes.
    Another reason why Cheryl had to go.
    Sally was in place beside Cheryl’s bedroom door, a prime position so she could see it all and not miss a thing. Awake and naked, Cheryl crouched at one end of the mattress, squished into the corner. She’d bent her legs and hugged them, resting her chin on top of her knees as David had walked in. Her heels covered her private garden. He was glad about that. He didn’t want to see the horrible redness of it. The hairy, horrible redness.
    She stared at Sally as though she was a piece of shit.
    That wasn’t pleasant to see.
    “Sally is here to let you listen to her wonderful music,” David said in a voice he’d begun using with woman number two, a soft, melodious one much like Sally’s tune. He liked that they matched, working together as a team. “Smile at Sally, Cheryl.”
    Cheryl smiled, albeit a tentative one, but it was enough. At least she hadn’t disobeyed him. And maybe she liked Sally, just didn’t know how to express it.
    He glanced at Sally, trying to see her through Cheryl’s eyes. All right, she wasn’t the prettiest—what with her face being a swirl of melted plastic where she’d found herself in the fireplace after his father had thrown her there. Her eyes sagged downwards, just like his mask, and her mouth was a ragged stretch of its former self. David had rescued her, though, pulling her out of the flames and rolling her in the rug like he’d been taught when the firemen had visited the school. Her hair hadn’t caught—her blonde hair—and he realized then, with sudden clarity, that was why he didn’t bring blondes home.
    There was room for one blonde in his life, and that was Sally.
    “I want you to take some more medicine so you’ll be in that place you need to be,” he said, approaching Cheryl with a loaded syringe. “Everything will be okay soon.”
    She tried to lose herself in the wall, pushing back with her palms and fingertips splayed on it, fingers bent at the knuckles like spiders’ leg joints. He waited while she came to the realization she wasn’t getting anywhere, him patient, yet longing, to go into the bathroom and start dressing for the occasion. A few seconds passed with Cheryl whimpering, then she flopped out one arm, offering her vein to him.
    “There we are,” he said quietly. “So good.