Read Online Perfect Reader by Maggie Pouncey - Free Book Online Page B

kidding?” her father had said. “This dog has the soul of a poet. This dog understands the vicissitudes of the human condition.”
    “Boy, is he happy to be home,” said Mrs. J. She sagged with shopping bags. Flora stood quickly to help and the dog ran into the house, tail wagging, in search.
    “So good to see you,” Flora said, taking two bags and kissing Mrs. J. on the cheek. She smelled of breath mints. The plumpness of her skin was peach-soft. She was in her sixties, around the same age as Flora’s father, but had always seemed both younger and older than he—less worn, but of another generation. Only the hair around her temples had truly grayed, and her small roundness gave her an air of permanence, of invulnerability. “You haven’t aged in however many years since I saw you last,” Flora told her. “Really, Mrs. J., your DNA ought to be studied.”
    “Almost two years now,” Mrs. J. said. “You look just the same, too, Flora. Just as you did as a little girl. Your dad always said that.”
    “I’m not sure it’s a compliment at this point.”
    “Oh, it’s a compliment. You’re still too young to know it, but it’s a compliment.”
    Mrs. J., short for Jankowitz, had cleaned house for Flora’s family, or for her father, for two decades, since they first moved to Darwin. She’d been there, through it all, straightening up. They held the doors open for each other and dumped their bags by the fridge. Flora cleared her dinner dishes to the sink. It was suddenly embarrassing to be eating breakfast at night.
    “What’s all this?” she asked of the bags.
    “Some food for Larks. A few little things for you. I made beef stew. I remembered how much you loved my beef stew back when I used to babysit. Remember that? I put it in a few containers—you can freeze them. Have them as you like.”
    Flora’s eyes stung; her throat stabbed. Kindness took its toll on the body. She nodded, and they silently loaded the containers into the freezer.
    “And noodles. I got a few packages—it’s good with these egg noodles.”
    Mrs. J. had bought three big bags of dog food, which she carried one by one over to the pantry closet. Larks had returned, expectant, and stood watching his food as it moved across the room.
    “You’ve done too much,” Flora said.
    Mrs. J. stopped and stared at her. “Please, Flora,” she said.
    “He gets one scoop in the morning, and a scoop and half a can of wet food at night,” she went on. “Do you want me to write it down for you?”
    “No, no,” Flora said, but she did anyway.
    “I guess I should be getting back,” Mrs. J. said. “Told Mr. J. I’d be back in a flash. But I’ll be stopping by. To see you, Flora, and Larks.”
    In all the years, Flora had never met Mr. J., though she’d seen pictures and knew he existed. The family theory had been that he’d struck upon some undeserved good luck when Mrs. J. agreed to have him, though Flora couldn’t now remember why.
    Flora walked her outside. The sky was quilted with star cover. “You’re the best,” she said, and she bent to embrace this almost grandmother, this woman she’d once known so well.
    “Flora—your father. He was so good to me. So good. They don’t make men like him anymore. I hate to say it, but they don’t.”
    Flora tucked her hands into the sleeves of her sweatshirt and hugged her arms around herself.
    “That girlfriend of his,” Mrs. J. continued. “That Cynthia. I have to tell you, I don’t care for her. From the beginning, I didn’t trust her. I didn’t like it when she was alone in the house. I felt she was after something, from him, from your dad. Can’t say what it was—his money, maybe, the house?”
    “My dad seems an unlikely target for a gold digger,” Flora said. “A bronze digger, maybe.”
    “I’m telling you, Flora, I don’t care for her at all.”
    It was one thing for Flora to dislike her father’s girlfriend. But Mrs. J.? Was Cynthia actually unlikable? “I just