Read Online This Must Be the Place: A Novel by Kate Racculia - Free Book Online

things that other people didn’t.
    Which made gossiping about Arthur Rook over dinner the highlight of Oneida’s day. Anna continued by saying that Arthur had accepted her offer of a ride into town, and they had both gone into Avery’s, the convenience mart whose limited selection Ruby Falls depended on for its basic necessities. “So we meet up at the checkout in about twenty minutes, right?” Anna said. “I’ve got the usual: bread, lunch meat, veggies, toothpaste. And I’m trying not to say anything to this poor guy, who’s clearly—
clearly
—bonkers, but I’m watching all this random stuff roll by on the conveyor belt—”
    “Like what?” Oneida asked.
    Anna bugged her eyes.
    “Rubber cement. A pad of multicolored construction paper. Scissors.” She paused. “Toothpicks, I think. Tape. String. And kitty litter.”
    “It’s a good source of fiber,” Mona said.
    Sherman grumbled something into his lasagna. Oneida assumed it was a tacit condemnation of arts and crafts; it was common knowledge that Sherman and Mrs. Brodie, the art teacher at Ruby Falls High, despised each other. Rumored reasons spanned from a long-ago love affair that ended badly to a war over parking spaces in the faculty parkinglot. Oneida suspected Sherman hated Mrs. Brodie because Mrs. Brodie was a hippie, and Sherman, who kept a sawed-off shotgun under his bed, did not truck with pacifism of any sort.
    “Finally, I couldn’t help myself.” Anna dabbed at her lips with her napkin. “I tried to be kind of jokey about it, but I pretty much asked him what the hell he was doing. I think I said something like, ‘Is this some new Hollywood diet?’ because he looked a little taken aback, as though never having been formally introduced meant I wouldn’t know anything about him.
    “Anyway, he shrugs it off but I can tell I’ve made him think of something, because he runs back into the aisles for a second. And when he comes back, he has a jar of peanut butter and a box of Froot Loops.”
    “At least he’s not starving himself,” Mona said. She wound a string of molten mozzarella around her fork and slid it between her lips.
    Sherman laughed gruffly and passed his plate to Mona for a second helping. “Joker doesn’t know what he’s missing. More for us, huh?”
    “You saw him too, didn’t you, Sherm?” Anna asked. There was something almost professional about their rapport, Oneida thought. Their casual familiarity, covering for a greater intimacy, felt studied and cautious to Oneida, so the end result was that it didn’t feel casual at all. She didn’t understand how they could ever think they were fooling anyone.
    Sherman nodded and swallowed the giant lump of pasta and cheese he’d just shoved into his mouth. He propped his elbows on the table and splayed his hands, setting the scene. It was the same stance he took whenever he explained a new project in shop, meant to convey the responsibility and seriousness required to operate large machines designed to rend and tear. “It’s night, late,” Sherman began, flexing his fingers. “I forget which night: Monday; let’s say Monday. I go down to the kitchen for a snack and this joker is sitting at the table with a glass of something red in front of him.”
    “Like blood?” Mona took a sip of water. “So he’s a vampire?”
    “But here’s the thing—all the lights were off. So I don’t see the kid until I flick on the switch and suddenly he’s just there, with this glass of red junk, and he doesn’t flinch or jump or say anything. Kid just looks up at me and sort of blinks, and he looks—kid looks drunk, frankly, andI’ve seen enough drunk kids in my life to know what they look like. Glassy eyes. Kind of hollow and dead.”
    “Rude,” said a quiet voice, crackly as paper, that belonged to Bert Draper, the oldest resident of the Darby-Jones, and also the quietest and most likely to fade into the background. “Inexcusable,” she clarified, with a sharpness