Read Online Rain Song by Alice J. Wisler - Free Book Online Page B

wrinkled copy in the teachers’ lounge at school.
    Iva continues. “She bought a plot to be buried in, and when she died it wasn’t hers anymore.”
    This doesn’t make sense. “What do you mean?”
    “They had no room to bury her. They had to take her body to Canada. And the car broke down so they had to carry it the rest of the way in a taxi and the bill came to over one thousand dollars.” Iva sounds as though she’s going to cry.
    Before I can think of anything to say, Iva blurts, “Do you think Ducee will get there first?”
    “I don’t think she cares about going to Canada.”
    “No, no, Nicki. Do you think she’ll get to The Meadows?”
    “No, she has nine lives, remember?”
    “I remember, Nicki.” She lets out a cough, and I’m reminded of a freight train rolling into the center of Mount Olive. “I just don’t think I could live without her, so it’s good that everyone thinks these cigarettes will kill me before she kicks the bucket.”
    “I know.”
    “Why won’t she go to the doctor?”
    Here we go again. “She doesn’t like them.”
    Iva makes a sniffling noise. “Who does? Unless you meet an eligible one.” She then laughs, deep and strong. “Oh, Nicki?”
    “Yes?”
    “Do you reckon we could tell Ducee we need to have cucumber sandwiches at the reunion?”
    “Well . . . we are in the pickle capital of the world.”
    “I think that might work. We have to have cucumbers because we grow them here. It would just be un–Mount Olivelike not to have them.” She seems satisfied, and I have this beautiful feeling rising from my marrow that seeps into my veins and makes me want to jump on one leg. This might actually be the end to this conversation. I chance it by saying, “Good-bye.”
    “Good-bye, Nicki.”
———
    Monet and Grable leave only after Monet begs to feed my fish. I give in when the ketchup-smeared puckered lips say, “Pleeeze, Niccc,” about a dozen times.
    Together we stand by the fish tank, she on a dining room chair, as I show her how to sprinkle a little food from the container onto the water’s surface.
    After she watches the fish eat, she looks at me and asks, “Niccc maaddd?”
    I’m confused. “No, Monet. I’m not mad.”
    “Nicccc maadddd?”
    It dawns on me. Last time she overfed the fish, I was angry. I’d better give her positive reinforcement for the job well done today. Smiling, I say, “You did a good job this time, Monet.”
    Monet claps her hands, loses her balance, catches herself against the sharp corner of the aquarium. I grab her elbow before she does any damage. I’m still catching my breath when she frees herself from my grasp, slides off the chair, races across the hardwood, stops midway, hops on one foot, and sails into her mother’s arms. “Niccc nooo maaddd!”
    Grable gives her a kiss, and then I kiss the wild child, too.
    Of course, moments later, after she and Grable have left my driveway for Lady Claws, the salon where Grable gets her nails done, I’m ready to raise my voice at Monet. I cannot find the most recent email message from Harrison. The attachment he sent earlier today is nowhere in my mailbox. I check, scroll here and there and wonder what happened. Then I know. Monet deleted it while I was on the phone with Iva. This is not just a theory; it is a fact. There is a ketchup stain on my keyboard. A little dollop on the right corner of the delete key.
    I sit in my fuzzy desk chair and shake my head. In my mind I can see Monet’s rosy cheeks with the wayward curls framing her face, hear her sing the Dora the Explorer song, and the robust shrills and shrieks of excitement. Has there been a happier child to walk the earth? The doctors in the white lab coats don’t know what’s wrong with her; perhaps in her defiant way she is determined not to fit into any of their array of diagnoses. What if she were somehow wiser than they, and all of her strange antics were carefully skilled methods to outsmart the lot of them?
    I