Read Online Our Town by Kevin Jack McEnroe - Free Book Online Page B

rate was slow. Content. She breathed now only through her nose. In and out only through her nose.
    Dale stared—disdainful—awhile, scratching the stubble on his neck and breathing, also, solely through his nose. His doing so, though, was because he was angry. His doing so, though, was because he wanted to control his breath. He realized his doing so, though, was because he’d lost control, and he wanted control, and he would do whatever it would take to regain it. He stopped breathing and opened his mouth and spoke.
    “Dorothy?” She didn’t move. “Dorothy?” Louder. He grabbed her ankle and shook her leg.
    She opened her eyes and turned toward him and smiled, before closing them and pulling her leg away and getting comfortable and attempting to regain her rest.
    “Hi, honey,” she replied, eyes still quiet, as though he’d caught her catnapping before an oh-so-important soiree.
    “What are you doing in here? Why the hell are you in the bathtub?”
    “What do you mean?” She nuzzled. Butchie was on her and he nuzzled, too. “I’m sleeping.”
    “I can see that you’re sleeping. Why are you sleeping in here?”
    “I wasn’t cozy in bed.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “You kept hogging all the covers.”
    She curled back into herself and looked quite comfortable. Dale left and went back to bed. The next day, Dale went out for a pack of cigarettes. And Dorothy was rather suddenly, in her eyes, all alone.

I ATE THE FROG FIRST
    D orothy met Seth about a year ago when she decided she wanted a pool. She’d gotten a good settlement from the divorce—it was decided that she’d take the kids; he could have a weekend a month, if he wanted—and they’d sell the houses and split the money. And with that money she bought herself a ranch in Reseda, with a few acres of barren, dry land—she’d, of course, find that out later, trusting her young, handsome real estate agent when he described the lot as “plush, revitalized, and a gardener’s delight! With some work, you can truly express your vision! With some work, this place will truly be yours!” And she thought his face was just so honest. Just look at him, she thought. He couldn’t tell a lie. But, in light of all that, Dorothy was getting by, attempting to enjoy her newfangled independence. Not yet forced to work, and with some money in the bank, she thought a pool might be good for the children. Might keep them out of her hair. When the pool men came for their consultation, though—Tranquility Pools, a father/son pool team she’d found in the yellow pages—she decided it unwise to spend so much money, given that she wasn’t such a fan of the water herself. Water’s no good for hair. Frays your ends. So she said sorry for the trouble to the father, and sent him on his way, but slipped her number, penned on the inside of a deli matchbook, into the back pocket of the son’s black dungarees. She knew he wasyoung, but she thought she was young, too, still. Even though her hair had started thinning, and she’d therefore started wearing wigs—she loved wigs!—she was still young, right? Thirty-one was still young. She was still pretty. So Seth called her back later that week, and since then they’d pretty much gone steady.
    *    *    *
    Dylan aligned and prepared his kill shot, far removed from his target. He hid behind a green-brown shrub. He kneeled in the dirt with his right hand on a splintered skateboard, and he rolled it backward, then forward. Forward, then backward. Backward then forward, again. Eight years old, he wore a ratty T-shirt and holey briefs. The top of a sport water bottle, with its long plastic straw, sheathed—a knight—between the underwear’s elastic and his freckled right leg. He counted upward in his head. He started at one and only planned to three, but got there and didn’t fire—too soon—so he continued counting. When he reached fifty-three he wondered if she’d ever start riding. “How long does it take to