Read Online One More Step by Sheree Fitch - Free Book Online Page B

package out of his hands.
    â€œ
La cigarette cause le cancer
.” I read.
    He laughed, but he only took one puff before he threw it away.
    By the time we got the driveway shoveled, the snow had turned to an icy rain, the kind that numbs your face and turns it orange.
    Mom came out all spruced up in her snowsuit and funky hat. She had make-up on. The wrinkles under her eyes were gone and those eyes seemed brighter blue than usual. When we started driving, Mom put on the radio.
    â€œBethlehem was peaceful this Christmas,” said the announcer. This made Mom start sniveling. Then she switched the channel partway through the next item. It was about Christmas at a hospice for AIDS victims.
    â€œIt’s Christmas Day. I don’t want to think about this today. Where’s the music?”
    That’s Mom. Get rid of what doesn’t make you feel good.
If it adds keep it in, if it subtracts take it out
. It’s sort of her mathematical theory of life she explained to me once. Yeah? More like the process of elimination. Like what she’s always done with those other wanna-be Dads.
    We drove slowly along the icy roads. It gave me time to play the videotape of one of those dudes in my head.
    Candidate Numero Uno for Stepfather and Possible Husband was Winslow Thor-burn the Third.
    The Turd. That’s what Chris and I calledhim. It’s all downhill from the moment you’re born with a name like that.
    Winslow was as stuffed up and puffed up as his name. He was a professor type. Well, he was a professor. A professor of bugs. What’s it called? I forget. A bugologist or something. Anyhow, he looked like a bug. A cockroach. His eyebrow hair stuck out like antennae. His eyes were bulgy. I imagined them popping out if he were to ever get surprised. But he never did. Half the time, the guy was in a fog as thick as a cocoon.
    Well, there was that one time, the first time we met him. That surprised him all right. Mom announced she had a date.
    â€œNow boys,” she said. “Troy is going to baby-sit. My date is coming at seven. When the doorbell rings, I’ll get it and then I’ll bring him up to introduce you. I want you to be on your best behavior.”
    When Dr. Winslow Thorburn the Turd rang the bell, we settled ourselves on the ledge above the stairs. As they walked up, we counted. “One, two, three!” Then we jumpedon his back. The two of us. Well, we were only four and eight after all. We knocked him flat against the steps. His glasses flew off his nose.
    â€œBoys! My god. Winslow, are you all right?” my mother gasped.
    â€œSure,” he coughed and sputtered. “Just knocked the wind out of me.”
    My mother was fuming. Troy, who had only turned his back on us for a second, was trying not to laugh.
    What gets me to this day was that the poor sucker kept coming back for more. We never ambushed him again but we learned, during the two years he hung around, to do other things that got on his nerves. Like squish any bug we could find. Like eating bacon with our fingers and not using a napkin. We just licked the grease off, finger by finger.
    â€œHonestly,” he said one morning at breakfast, “can’t you two be more civilized?”
    â€œThis from a man who prefers the spruce bud worm to humans?” snapped my mother. “And whoever heard of eating bacon with aknife and fork, anyhow? Some food
is
finger food, Winslow.”
    The Turd stopped coming around after that. Chris and I saw him once, riding a bike in the park. “Julian!” he shouted from across the street. “Chris!”
    We ambled over.
    â€œHow are you?” he asked.
    â€œFine, thank you,” we said in unison.
    â€œAnd your mother?”
    Just in case he had any ideas about calling her up, I spoke right up.
    â€œShe’s got a new bo—,” Chris elbowed me in the ribs.
    â€œJob,” I continued.
    â€œReally?”
    â€œUm, yeah, she’s a