Read Online Love Invents Us by Amy Bloom - Free Book Online

Stone poured. Mrs. Hilltold a couple of funny stories about the kids in her Sunday school class, all of them now at least Mr. Stone’s age, and Mr. Stone slapped his leg and laughed.
    I walked him to the door, and he said my name and straightened my shirt collar. I lifted my shoulders to meet his fingers, and he dropped the little bit of shirt he’d been holding. Mrs. Hill said of course he should come by again, and he said of course he would hope to come again, without imposing on her hospitality, it would be a pleasure.
    I closed the door behind him. She was already sighing and sucking her teeth, getting warmed up for something.
    “That’s your Mr. Stone.”
    “Yeah. Do you want some dinner? Turkey tetrazzini? You’ve got that three-bean salad from the weekend.”
    “All right. In a minute. Come in here, Elizabeth. Are you going to make me shout all night?”
    “No, ma’am,” I said, sighing at least as loudly as she had.
    The ottoman was still warm, even damp, from when Mr. Stone sat on it and told her he loved me.
    “He sure does like you. And you like him.”
    “He’s okay. He’s a good teacher. He’s interested in poetry.”
    “Who is she that looketh forth as the morning / fair as the moon / clear as the sun / and terrible as an army with banners?
Like that?” Mrs. Hill said.
    I didn’t answer, just walked into the kitchen while she was reciting.
    “You’re in the room, you’re out of the room, I know what I know. Were you eavesdropping?”
    “I don’t care what you know and I don’t care what you said. I’m starting dinner.”
    “Could I trouble you for a glass of water?”
    I gave her the water and cooked and washed up while she ate, which took forever. I wiped up the bean salad goop and the turkey shreds and wiped down the counters.
    “I’m going.”
    “Be good. Be careful. You are going to thank me someday.”
    I slammed the door.
    Mr. Stone stopped waiting for me in the parking lot. When I went to his office, there were always other kids in it, kids who could hardly read, kids waiting to show him their papers or ask for advice or just sit around with him. I ate lunch behind the field house until school ended, and watched the little kids at recess, and saw which girls sat by themselves near the monkey bars or the back steps. Mrs. Hill gave me the rosebud cup and saucer to cheer me up.
    My mother established accounts with our four favorite food places and never made another meal. I didn’t tell her I’d learned to cook. She offered to send me anywhere for the summer—to sail in the Caribbean, to slop pigs and make jewelry in Vermont, to study architecture in Venice. I got a job at the Great Neck Public Library and boxed old magazines and stole old books. Mr. Stone didn’t call me.
    In the fall I was in high school. In the middle of October I walked over to the junior high to visit Mr. Stone. I brought Tony DiMusio, who went with me everywhere for two months, until we exhausted ourselves dry-humping and made the mistake of having a conversation. I wanted to bump into Danny or Benjie in town and remind them of what a great babysitter I was, but I never saw them, although I looked inthe comic book store and near the parks. Rachel got skinny again and we fell out over Eddie Sachs, who was supposed to be her boyfriend but asked me over to his basement when she was in Bermuda with her parents. I said yes and he told her what we did and she told me she would never forgive me even though it was only one time. When they passed me in the halls, they put their arms around each other and their hands in each other’s pockets and looked through me.
    I studied a little, went on hamburger, cottage cheese, and hot water diets so my ribs would show under my leotards, and stole money from my mother. I bought pot from Eddie Sachs’ brother and smoked it under the football bleachers. It made me sleepy and compliant, and I stopped when I woke up in the dusk with my head on a rock and someone’s hand