Read Online Love in the Present Tense by Catherine Ryan Hyde - Free Book Online Page A

sitting there. I don’t even know why I noticed it, except when I got off the bus at my street it was there again. Or maybe it was another big dark American car. Don’t get spooky, I said to myself. Pearl, don’t tell those stories to yourself.
    I got Leonard back and we went home, and I put him to bed and sat there with him, stroking back his hair and singing and telling him how we would go live someplace new. What would it be like? he wanted to know. I didn’t know myself, but he wanted to know, so I made stuff up for him. All of it was pretty and good, and I stroked back his hair and sang and told him about it until he went to sleep.
    I didn’t have to work the next day. Only for Mrs. Morales. But sometime around six in the afternoon we had to walk down to the drugstore to get her prescription filled. I thought Leonard could just come along. We stepped out of the house together. It was a pretty afternoon. The rain had stopped and the air smelled nice. Then a car pulled up behind us. It was a big dark American car. I looked over my shoulder. I didn’t see who was driving the car but I saw the man in the shotgun seat. He had his window down, looking right at me. I knew him right away. I’d been waiting to see him. Every day I stepped out of the house, every house we’d lived in since that birthday when I was thirteen, I had looked up thinking he’d be there. And now he was.
    I took Leonard hard by the arm. Usually I don’t like to yank him around, but I was scared and upset. My stomach was all cold and strange, and I felt like maybe I had to pee and couldn’t stop that if it happened. But it didn’t come to that, thank God.
    â€œCome on, Leonard,” I said.
    And he said, “Ouch. My arm.”
    I took him to the door at Doc’s place and then inside, and as I did I looked back. The car pulled up and stopped in front of the house and I knew he was going to wait for me.
    Doc looked at me. “Pearl,” he said. “What happened? What’s wrong?”
    I had thought I was being so cool about things. I said, “I’m not really sure how long Leonard will have to stay this time. It’s an emergency. Okay?”
    Then I got down on my knees and grabbed hold of him and held him tight. Really really tight. “Ow,” he said. “When are you coming back?”
    I knew then that I was scaring him, so I let go and I walked away without looking back. I didn’t want him to see my face.
    The man with the lip was waiting for me. Watching for me to come back out the door. He could see me through the window the whole time, so he was just waiting. I thought maybe I should run, but my knees felt funny and I thought he would catch me anyway.
    â€œGonna get in the car on your own?” he said.
    I thought about my dignity, and the promise I had made to myself, and I walked over to his car and got in.

    We been driving a long time now. First I thought, he is taking me to jail. Now I don’t think so. It’s getting dark and we are driving south I think. Maybe he is going to take me to jail in L.A. But I don’t really think so. I think then they would stay on the big road. The freeway. We are going way out in the middle of nowhere. It’s dark out and we’re going up high, like in the mountains, where I never been.
    Nobody has said nothing so far.
    Then the guy with the lip, he looks back at me. He has his arm over the seat and he turns around and gives me this look. His face is set hard like a mountain. I guess he needs it to be. He looks at me with so much hate.
    Something funny happens when he looks at me. I can’t probably explain it right, but it feels like I get outside me and I can still see all this, but not from inside where I always live. More like from a place over my shoulder.
    The guy who is driving has blond hair and he is nice to look at. At least on some other day he might be. I look at the rearview mirror and see his