Read Online Tiny Little Thing by Beatriz Williams - Free Book Online

left hand, crowned by a triumphant engagement ring and wedding band—around the back of Frank’s neck. I pull him down for a lingering kiss.
    He lifts his mouth away, bemused. “What was that for?”
    “For calling me charming.” I press the tender crease of his lips with the index finger of my right hand, the hand holding the martini.
    •   •   •
    T he vodka hits fast and hard. I step outside for a breath of the fresh stuff, and nearly stumble over Kitty, Constance’s daughter, who sits cross-legged on the terrace, staring at the wall.
    I catch her shoulder just in time. “Oh, I’m sorry, darling. Are you okay?”
    “Yes.” Her arms are crossed.
    I bend down next to her. “Why aren’t you over by the pool, with the other kids?”
    She shakes her head.
    “Would you like me to get Mommy for you?”
    She presses her lips together and shakes her head again.
    “Okay, then.” I ease myself down next to her on the stones, careful not to snag my stockings. “We’ll just sit here.”
    We stare companionably at the beach, where the seagulls seem to have found an object of dispute, some rotting marine carcass or another. The air fills with acrid squawks. Vicious things, seagulls. I wiggle my toes inside my satin shoes and wonder if I could possibly take them off. (The shoes, not the toes.)
    “What’s that smell?” says Kitty.
    I cup my hands over my mouth and puff out a breath. “It’s my martini, I think.”
    “It’s yucky.”
    “Yes. Yes, it is, isn’t it?”
    “Then why do you drink them?”
    “Oh, it’s just what grown-ups do, I guess. We do a lot of silly things. Maybe we just wish we were still kids, like you.”
    She chews on this for a moment. “Mommy drinks martinis.”
    “Does she?”
    “She drinks them in the nighttime. Then she takes her pills and sometimes she gets mad at Daddy.” She says this in the same matter-of-fact way she might describe a game of marbles with her cousins.
    “How do you know this, honey? Shouldn’t you be in bed at nighttime?”
    “Sometimes I need a glass of water.”
    I draw an invisible circle on the stone next to my foot and think of Mums and Daddy, sometimes getting along and sometimes not, lubricating the Fifth Avenue evenings with vodka and courtesy. “Well, you know. Grown-ups fight sometimes.”
    “One time they took off their clothes and Mommy kissed Daddy’s wee-wee.”
    I open my mouth and nothing comes out.
    “Nancy wouldn’t let me play with her horse.” She starts to cry.
    “Oh, honey. Is that why you’re sitting here, all by yourself?”
    Sniff. “Yes. She said I couldn’t play with it because I had germs.”
    “We all have germs. It’s okay.”
    “Do you have germs?”
    “Yes. We all do. I think Nancy just didn’t want to share her horse.”
    “That’s not very nice.”
    “No, it isn’t.” I rise on my knees and take her hand. “Let’s go over to the pool with the other kids, and I’ll tell Nancy she has to share her toys with her cousins.”
    “Okay.” She jumps up and tows me along the terrace at a skip. The afternoon sun lights her hair like a nimbus. “It’s a white horse with black dots on its bottom.”
    “An Appaloosa.”
    She swings our linked hands. “Sometimes Daddy kisses Mommy’s pagina.”
    “Her
what
?”
    Kitty chants, “Boys have penises, girls have paginas.”
    “Oh.
Va
gina, honey. With a
V
.”
    “Vagina, vagina!” she shouts, all the way to the pool, while I try to shush her. Probably not hard enough.
    •   •   •
    W hen I return to the party, fully refreshed, Pepper has just descended the stairs in splendor, her bosom not quite overflowing from an iced violet dress cut on an extremely expensive bias that ends a good four inches above her knees. She looks even more delicious than usual.
    Delicious
, that’s the word for Pepper. If I were a man, I’d want to gobble her up and lick my chops afterward. Nature’s just devious that way, giving Pepper all the sex appeal, as if