Read Online The Kings and Queens of Roam: A Novel by Daniel Wallace - Free Book Online
Authors: Daniel Wallace
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cart down the sidewalk, the one they borrowed from the big grocery store that had closed its doors years ago. Rachel insisted on pushing it, as heavy and unwieldy as it was, while Helen walked ahead with long, aggressive strides, as if she were challenging you to try and stop her. Townsfolk at their windows gawking, shaking their heads, sighing, thegirls , again . Helen didn’t care what they thought. She knew how they felt, but it fed her determination to do it, every Monday, at ten, until what she and Rachel were selling was all gone.
Tied to one side of the cart with rubber ropes was a card table with a fake alligator-skin top, which they unfolded and placed just before the stop sign. Rachel and Helen sat in two old wooden chairs behind the table, and Helen had a cigar box— PUNCH CIGARS, HANDMADE IN SPANISH HONDURAS , the box said—that served as her cash register.
What were the girls selling? Everything. They were selling everything they had, one thing at a time. Helen had it all worked out, what they were selling and when—the order, as it were, in which they would be dismantling their lives.
They’d started with their parents’ things. Their parents had the most, so they were still selling them, ten years after their deaths. All their clothes, every coat and every dress, every pair of trousers. They had almost sold every sweater (there were many sweaters, since Mother and Father both wore sweaters of various weights and warmth deployment all year long, cold-blooded creatures that they were). Every sock, hat, tie, and belt—everything but their underwear, which Helen had thrown away in the days just after they were buried, unable to stand the idea of her dead parents’ underwear in the house. All of their things: books, pens, cuff links, hairbrushes, and boxes and photos of old friends, all of it available for purchase on the corner of Twelfth and McCallister.
After this, they would begin to eat away at the rest of it, all those things belonging to the house itself, and then what was Rachel’s, and then—Helen would probably stop there. And with all the money she’d earned she’d buy some new things for herself.
They had a ways to go. There weren’t a lot of people in town left to buy things, and those who remained couldn’t bring themselves to approach the girls. But sometimes Jonas came by to flirt,and that was nice. He never bought anything unless Helen made him, though, promising with her smile the recompense he never stopped wanting.
There was a sturdy magnolia growing there. It had a nice strong branch jutting out over the sidewalk, and it was here Rachel hung the clothes. A dress of her mother’s, a pair of slacks belonging to her dad. Then a coat—his jacket—the herringbone he wore almost every day, still saturated in pipe smoke, a bit threadbare. It was a wonder he wasn’t wearing it when he died. Rachel pressed her face against it and took a deep breath. She pressed the palms of her hands against the tattered and—she smiled—ticklish wool blend. She stuck her hand in the pocket.
“Look,” she said, holding up her fingers. They were speckled with tobacco flecks. “Everything is here except for him.”
Helen took Rachel by the wrist and brought Rachel’s hand close to her face and smelled it and, as though she were testing some food that may have been too hot, or poisonous, tentatively stuck out her tongue and captured a small brown remnant of Mr. McCallister. This dust, proof he’d once had a place among the living, transported her back into the old world, one of youth and love and possibility, the big world, before it had become so small and dead.
“Let’s keep this jacket,” Rachel said.
But Helen shook the jacket out, watching the brown flakes scatter and fall.
“Everything must go,” she said. She hung the jacket on the tree. “It’s for the best.”
“But, Helen,” Rachel said. “These things are all we have left of them. Once they’re
Tied to one side of the cart with rubber ropes was a card table with a fake alligator-skin top, which they unfolded and placed just before the stop sign. Rachel and Helen sat in two old wooden chairs behind the table, and Helen had a cigar box— PUNCH CIGARS, HANDMADE IN SPANISH HONDURAS , the box said—that served as her cash register.
What were the girls selling? Everything. They were selling everything they had, one thing at a time. Helen had it all worked out, what they were selling and when—the order, as it were, in which they would be dismantling their lives.
They’d started with their parents’ things. Their parents had the most, so they were still selling them, ten years after their deaths. All their clothes, every coat and every dress, every pair of trousers. They had almost sold every sweater (there were many sweaters, since Mother and Father both wore sweaters of various weights and warmth deployment all year long, cold-blooded creatures that they were). Every sock, hat, tie, and belt—everything but their underwear, which Helen had thrown away in the days just after they were buried, unable to stand the idea of her dead parents’ underwear in the house. All of their things: books, pens, cuff links, hairbrushes, and boxes and photos of old friends, all of it available for purchase on the corner of Twelfth and McCallister.
After this, they would begin to eat away at the rest of it, all those things belonging to the house itself, and then what was Rachel’s, and then—Helen would probably stop there. And with all the money she’d earned she’d buy some new things for herself.
They had a ways to go. There weren’t a lot of people in town left to buy things, and those who remained couldn’t bring themselves to approach the girls. But sometimes Jonas came by to flirt,and that was nice. He never bought anything unless Helen made him, though, promising with her smile the recompense he never stopped wanting.
There was a sturdy magnolia growing there. It had a nice strong branch jutting out over the sidewalk, and it was here Rachel hung the clothes. A dress of her mother’s, a pair of slacks belonging to her dad. Then a coat—his jacket—the herringbone he wore almost every day, still saturated in pipe smoke, a bit threadbare. It was a wonder he wasn’t wearing it when he died. Rachel pressed her face against it and took a deep breath. She pressed the palms of her hands against the tattered and—she smiled—ticklish wool blend. She stuck her hand in the pocket.
“Look,” she said, holding up her fingers. They were speckled with tobacco flecks. “Everything is here except for him.”
Helen took Rachel by the wrist and brought Rachel’s hand close to her face and smelled it and, as though she were testing some food that may have been too hot, or poisonous, tentatively stuck out her tongue and captured a small brown remnant of Mr. McCallister. This dust, proof he’d once had a place among the living, transported her back into the old world, one of youth and love and possibility, the big world, before it had become so small and dead.
“Let’s keep this jacket,” Rachel said.
But Helen shook the jacket out, watching the brown flakes scatter and fall.
“Everything must go,” she said. She hung the jacket on the tree. “It’s for the best.”
“But, Helen,” Rachel said. “These things are all we have left of them. Once they’re
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