Read Online The Song Is You by Megan Abbott - Free Book Online Page A

meter he’d imagined in his head as he’d trotted up all those stairs. It didn’t sound like himself at all. It sounded like the Hop only his wife could generate, spontaneously, like a disease.
    “Maybe Jerry wants to see me,” he said. Then, struck by his own petulance, he turned nastier. “Maybe I’m not here to take out the trash.” As soon as he said it, he regretted it. This wasn’t how he wanted to be, not in front of them, not now.
    Still, he kept going, battering forward. He moved past Jerry, ln a pair of striped pajamas that Midge must have bought—they were just the kind of smooth, shiny thing Midge was always buying.
    He pushed through the familiar space, the warm brown room with its wooden turntable and low lights and piles of books, long, tall bottle of scotch and shiny tumblers. And the new pair of acid-yellow
    cushions Midge must have purchased to brighten up the place, a garish splash that hurt his eyes, mustard on prime rib.
    It was only then that he got a good view of his wife, her arms tugging on the door frame to the bedroom, both hands, one above the other, gripping the edge. And she in a long robe with matching nightgown, black and filmy, like a high-class hooker.
    And it was also then that he saw she looked different. Her hair pinned up so tight, like a schoolmarm, a jarring disjuncture with the costume and the mascaraed eyes.
    He looked closer, and something clapped loudly in him and unfurled for miles, falling and falling faster still.
    “You cut off all your hair, Midge,” he murmured, his voice broken, broken to bits. “What happened to all your beautiful hair,” he said, fumbling across the room toward her, shin hitting the coffee table.
    Then, right there, despite her shocked face, he couldn’t stop his fingers from diving into the bright white-blonde curls, curls like spun satin under his nails, in the pockets of flesh between his fingers. Christ, how drunk was he?
    “Stop, stop. You ruin … you ruin … ” she stammered, a hand on his chest and then a hard shove.
    “All your beautiful hair,” he said, repeating himself helplessly, noticing, with a tremble, the stray platinum strand on his fingertip.
    Looking back at him, she said, finally, “You ruin everything beautiful.”
    Hop’s hands fell to his sides. “But, baby…”
    She pulled her robe together and straightened. “You lost, don’t you see?” she said, shaking her head, voice spiky. “You lost everything.”
    “Oh,” Jerry said suddenly, and both were reminded that he was there.
    Midge and Hop turned and looked at him, waiting for him to say more. But that was all he said.
    When he first met Midge, he thought she was the loveliest thing in the world, her heart-shaped face, pointy chin tilted, bow lips, just like a porcelain doll. But when you touched her skin, she was neither cold nor hard hut all nerve endings, hot and yielding, tensile and charged—two hands around her midriff (you felt you could wrap them around twice) and her back arched tight, and she’d shudder and ripple and undulate like some kind of wired animal. It was a kick, let me tell you. Who knew the price would be so high? Oh, Midge, I was your chump.
    “Operator.”
    “Yeah, doll. Can you give me the number for, um, Adair, Frannie? A-D-A-I-R.”
    “I have Adair, R, 812 Laveta Terrace.
    “Good enough.”
    He didn’t bother to call. It would slow him down. Out of the booth on Hollywood Boulevard and back into the car. Now no longer just drunk, but drunk and cracked open by his wife’s dainty high heel.
    It wasn’t a long drive, which, even in his condition, he could tell was unfortunate because it didn’t give him enough time to think about what he was doing. He just knew that after that bang-up with Midge he couldn’t stomach going home.
    When he approached the bungalow, he felt the weight of his own bad behavior, but it didn’t stop him.
    He walked up to the door and knocked.
    A moment later, a light went on and he could see