Read Online Sunset City by Melissa Ginsburg - Free Book Online Page B

come?”
    â€œI guess so,” I said.
    â€œGood. It’s at the Episcopal church on Alabama. Three o’clock.”
    â€œOkay.”
    â€œI’m glad. Lord have mercy if her other friends show up. I can’t imagine what they’ll be wearing.”
    â€œWhat they’ll be wearing?” I said. “You’re afraid the other porn stars will embarrass you.”
    Her face crumpled and she made an involuntary sound, the beginning of a sob. I watched her regain control, and she stared at me, smooth and full of rage.
    â€œI don’t deserve this,” she said. “Not any of it.” Her voice was icy.
    â€œNeither did she,” I said.
    We watched one another for a long moment. Her hands shook, I noticed. I was shaking, too. Finally she turned away, to face the pool and the privacy fence beyond.
    â€œI’m going,” I said to her rigid back.
    â€œWait,” she said, turning. “One more thing, please.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI know you saw her, you spoke to her.”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œDid she say anything about me?”
    â€œNot really,” I said.
    â€œWhat does that mean, not really?”
    â€œShe asked what you wanted,” I said. “That’s pretty much it.”
    I could have told her about Danielle refusing the money, but I didn’t want to get into it. I walked around the house and letmyself in to get my purse. I drove and got lost in the curvy River Oaks streets, then headed west on Memorial, past the park and the Loop, through subdivisions. I kept driving, hoping to dislodge the film of sorrow and anger that clung to me, clutched at my heels, my hair. Hoping to get away from the difficult world. I drove until I didn’t feel anything anymore. I drove and drove, the radio silent, the windows open to the soft wet air.
    The air had a sound as I moved my car through it. I listened and thought of physics, the behavior of sound in outer space. It must be different, faster or quieter, maybe. If sound had no atmosphere to travel through, did it arrive more quickly or did it simply die? Maybe the emptiness trapped it so it couldn’t go anywhere, forever stuck at its source. I couldn’t remember how it worked, though I’d surely learned it in school. The question was like a koan, except that it was science; I had simply forgotten the answer.
    This one night—it was maybe junior year—Danielle and I took some pills, I don’t remember what, and cruised around. I’m surprised we didn’t wreck. We were on the east side, near the ship channel, a part of town I never went to. Danielle turned on a side street near a big refinery and we parked facing it, watching the flames atop the towers. It looked like a miniature city, futuristic and menacing. Its smoke lit white in the sky before fading into general smog.
    â€œIt’s cool, isn’t it?” Danielle said. We walked over the weed-cracked asphalt and tar seams still soft from the day. We stretched out on the hood of her car, leaning against the windshield, smoking a joint. We’d left the radio on. Contaminants laced the air.
    â€œToo bad it smells so weird,” I said.
    â€œMy uncle used to bring me out this way, to the Ninfa’s on Navigation. We’d get dinner the nights Sally worked late.”
    â€œI didn’t know you had an uncle.”
    â€œSally’s brother. He moved to Colorado. I used to go to his house in the afternoons. He picked me up from school my sixth grade year, it was right after my dad left. They knew us there, at the restaurant. I always got the kids’ meal. Fajitas and a queso puff.”
    â€œI love queso puffs,” I said. “I could eat one right now.” I was high.
    â€œI think Sally paid him to take care of me. She was always at work. He didn’t have a job.”
    She sounded strange, like her words came from far off.
    â€œYou keep in touch with him?” I said.
    â€œHe