Read Online Local Girls by Alice Hoffman - Free Book Online

out.”
    â€œYeah, yeah,” Gretel said. Now she knew what people meant when they said they were in the grip of depression. She was in the grip, all right, and it was holding her tight. “Whatever.”
    â€œA total of forty-five minutes.” Every time he spoke, the skin beneath Jason’s left eye twitched. It was subtle, but if you looked closely you could see his discomfort, clear as day. “Fifty minutes tops. We’re polite, we let the old man drop some cash on us, and we’re gone.”
    They left their mother’s car parked beneath a white birch tree, and walked across the lawn. It was November, that quiet, gray time of the year when you feel like holding someone’s hand. Gretel had her own hands clasped together, like a corpse. Jason kept his hands in his pockets. The house really was huge, and maybe that was why it took so long for anyone to come to the front door.
    â€œFuck it, it’s freezing out here,” Jason said.
    â€œAshes to ashes,” Gretel said.
    â€œWill you cut it out?” Jason put his hand on the door-bell and left it there. “Everybody dies, Gret. Fact of life.”
    â€œIs that supposed to cheer me up?” Gretel asked. “Because somehow it just doesn’t.”
    It was Thea who answered the door. She always seemed vaguely distraught to come face-to-face with Gretel and Jason, as if their very existence made the world a shakier place.
    â€œRight on time,” Thea said.
    Actually, they were twenty minutes late, but who was counting? So what if the steaks were a little dry and the salad wilted? Gretel and Jason followed their father’s new wife through the front hall, toward the dining room. There were good carpets on every floor and the furniture was highly polished.
    â€œShe’s getting fat,” Gretel whispered to her brother when they stopped beside the closet to take off their coats. “Look at her.”
    Jason glanced over his shoulder, then shrugged. “She seems the same to me.”
    Females over the age of nineteen never really entered his field of vision, but when their father came to join them in the dining room, even Jason noticed that he’d gained weight. Maybe his new bulk was what made Sam too uncomfortable to hug his children or welcome them to his house, or maybe it was just his true nature to merely nod coldly, suggesting they all sit down to dinner.
    â€œWhat a tubster,” Jason whispered to Gretel. “So much for the fitness king.”
    These days, Gretel wasn’t eating much; she was too depressed for the comfort of food. She refused the steak—but when she took a bite of baked potato she was truly surprised. “There’s tons of butter on this,” she declared.
    Thea laughed. “Completely wrong. Potatoes have a natural sweetness, if you cook them right. I don’t even add margarine.”
    Gretel couldn’t help but smile. No wonder they were getting fat. She took a forkful of green beans and chewed carefully. Drenched in butter.
    â€œI think I’ll get myself a glass of water,” Gretel said, excusing herself from the table in spite of the desperate look Jason gave her. He’d just have to rise to the wretched task of chatting up Thea and their father alone. Gretel knew it was all Jason could do to complete a whole sentence in their father’s presence, and she pitied him, but frankly, she had better things to do. She went directly to the kitchen, where a row of arched windows overlooked the wide lawn and the tiered herb garden. Gretel peeked into the refrigerator and found nothing particularly suspicious—diet soda, turkey roll, vegetables, fruit. A fat-free cheesecake sat on the counter, still in its box, and beside the cake was a pitcher which held a sauce of sugar-free cherries. And yet, when Gretel opened the oven there was the unmistakably rich odor of butter. She dragged her finger in a puddle collecting on the oven door; when