Read Online The Girl On The Half Shell by Susan Ward - Free Book Online Page A

bathroom.”
    Rene runs into the house. I hear my bedroom door slam. The shower turns on. I go to the kitchen and I fill a glass with ice water even though I’m not thirsty, but if I don’t drink it I’ll have a headache in the morning because of the alcohol.
    I toss Jack’s keys back on the breakfast bar. I lean against it, sipping my water. The patio door opens and Jack steps into the kitchen.
    “I’m glad you’re back. I was worried about you driving in this fog.”
    He smiles, then goes to the refrigerator.
    I watch him over my ice water. I’m wearing different clothes, Jack. Don’t you even notice? And my hair is all puffed out and sprayed like a heavy metal chick.
    Jack leans an ear up toward the ceiling. “Is someone taking a shower?”
    Ours is an old house. Large, solidly built, but the plumbing groans all through the adobe.
    “Rene. She doesn’t think there will be time in the morning.”
    “Oh, that reminds me. I’m taking you to the airport at nine, only a half hour earlier than we planned. I’ve got this thing.”
    “Sure, Daddy. No problem.”
    “Are you OK, Chrissie?”
    I put down the water glass. “I’m fine.”
    “You should turn in too, baby girl.”
    He drops a kiss on my head.
    “I think I’m going to practice for a while.”
    “Well, don’t stay up too late. You have an early plane.”
    I watch Jack disappear back onto the patio. If he had asked one probing question I would have crumbled. There is so much I want to talk to Jack about. I want to tell him about Rene. I want to tell him about me. I just don’t know how to start it and Jack never tries to start it.
    In my bedroom I find Rene curled atop the covers of my bed, hair still damp, my mother’s quilt wrapped around her. I sit down beside her and I close my eyes. I’m exhausted, but not the kind of exhausted that gives way to restful sleep. If I go to sleep now, the way I feel, I will only have dreams, dark dreams, the kind that scare me.
    I tuck the blanket in around Rene, and then I make my way down the long hallway to the back of the house where the studio is. The recording studio walls are lined with gold and platinum records, but I stop at the pictures of my mother to pay homage to how beautiful she was, how elegant she appears in the photos of her during her career with the New York Philharmonic.
    My parents were such a strange couple. Opposites. I’ve never understood how they locked in place together.
    I go through the soundproofing door into the studio and I sink to my knees before my cello case. I pull free the instrument and bow, and I switch off all the lights except a single dim spotlight above my chair. I settle in the chair and go through my routine, adjusting the instrument, clearing my mind and preparing to play.
    It feels good to play. The music is soothing in its beautiful precision. It is not angry and confused like the music in the club tonight. I focus on the controlled moves of my fingers. The music is not like me. I’m angry and confused most of the time. But Bach is beautiful and precise. Slow, and then building, then pulling back. I wonder if that’s why I still play the cello even though I’m not very good at it.
    I am almost through the prelude when I sense someone is watching me. The room beyond is almost pitch black. I can’t see anyone, yet somehow I feel them, the presence of someone beyond the soundproof glass when that should be impossible to feel. I try to lose myself in the music. I can’t. I halt the bow above the strings. I stare.
    “You’re very good.”
    The voice floating in on the intercom is male, low, raspy and accented. So it isn’t my imagination. I’m not alone. I strain to pick out detail at the dimly lit console behind the soundproofing glass. I am only able to see a figure, large and casually reclined in a chair, bare feet propped on the table. Jeez, how long has he been watching me? He looks settled in.
    Why doesn’t he say something? Oh, it must be my turn to