Read Online Miriam's Well by Lois Ruby - Free Book Online Page B

nothing like that. He’s just a boy I met at a church conference. Brother James introduced us.”
    â€œWell, what’s he like?” I asked. I pictured a face with pink bumps just ready to burst, and thin blond hair, and watery gray eyes. The total package came to five foot three, and maybe he sniffed a lot. But Miriam didn’t realize I meant, what’s he like physically .
    â€œVery serious,” Miriam said. “Not like you.”
    â€œI can be serious.”
    â€œI’ve never seen it.”
    â€œYeah, well there’s a lot you don’t know about me.” How do I explain why I got mad all of a sudden? Maybe because I’d had a long day, and it didn’t end the way I’d expected, and now I was being asked to defend my personality, which Diana already understood so well. I was starting to fume, and sneezing about six times in a row didn’t help my disposition. “Why’ve you got all those man-eating plants around?” I moved one plant over to the window, out of whiffing distance. Jesus, two years of allergy shots. I shoved some moldy flowers into the corner behind the chair.
    â€œNo one’s keeping you here,” Miriam said, handing me a couple of tissues out of the box on her tray table. It was like something your mother would do, handing you a Kleenex when you were crying at home about being called a sissy for crying about being called a sissy at school.
    I hated the way my voice sounded after I’d had a sneezing fit. “I guess you want to get back to your magazine stuff, anyway.”
    â€œNot really,” she said, shrugging. “It’s boring here.”
    â€œBut this guy in Emporia, he’s waiting anxiously for your letter.”
    â€œI doubt it. I just didn’t have anybody else to write to.”
    She eased herself back against her pillow, with her hands behind her head and her legs crossed at the ankles. Her eyes were closed. Good thing, too, because mine were wide open as I noticed for the first time that there were definite signs of shape to this girl. For some crazy reason, her bare feet embarrassed me. Me, who’s always looking for fresh flesh.
    â€œI acted like an idiot the other night. I apologize,” she said. Her eyes were still closed.
    â€œNot exactly an idiot,” I assured her. “Moron, maybe. Imbecile, possibly; cretin comes to mind. But you definitely weren’t idiotic.”
    â€œAnyway, thanks for coming by, Adam.”
    â€œAm I leaving?”
    â€œProbably,” she said.
    Saturday night, and here I sat beside the bed of a homely, stubborn religious fanatic. There were parties going on all over the east side, CD players and car stereos blasting, food and drink for the taking, videos, go-carts, poker games, dragging Douglas. I wanted to get going, but I couldn’t take my eyes off those neat, square, faintly bluish toenails, and how the first toe gently crossed over the second, the way I used to cross my fingers as a kid to tell myself that the lie I was telling was only a white lie.
    I stayed, even though we didn’t talk at all for fifteen minutes. I’d never been quiet with anyone before.
    At home, my father had big news.
    â€œAdam, your mother and I have debated about this all day, and I’ve decided to take the case.”
    â€œWhat case?” I asked, with very little interest. My father was always taking unpopular cases, like he represented an abortion clinic bomber and, another time, a kid who went crazy and shot two teachers. He almost always won, but not before his name was dragged through about twelve miles of mud, and he never even made expenses on these hot cases. But my dad is the kind of man who can’t resist the causes no one else would dare touch. A bleeding heart, that’s what my father is.
    â€œI’m representing the church.”
    â€œOh, yeah?” I was thinking about the guy with the serious acne in Emporia, about