A Brief History of the Flood by Jean Harfenist

Author:Jean Harfenist
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction
ISBN: 9780307424273
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published: 2007-12-18T00:00:00+00:00

Safety Off, Not a Shot Fired

Jack & Marion are celebrating

Their 22nd wedding anniversary!!!!!

But we need Help!!!!!

Saturday

7:30 on the dot!

For skinny-dipping, cha-cha-cha-ing

And Marion’s Famous Norwegian Spaghetti!

B.Y.O.B.

Just like it used to be!!!!!!!

Last year my English teacher said, “Lillian, your mother has bursts of vigor.” Well, a burst of something hit her so hard just now it launched her like a bottle rocket, up onto the back of the davenport where she’s standing with her back to me and her nose to the picture window, still wearing the yellow damask short shorts and matching midriff top she made from leftover drapery fabric on Tuesday. When she reaches sideways, I notice the tiny mound of tuna salad on her finger, and I relax, thinking she’s just up there trying to coax the crow off the valance. But then she says over her shoulder, “I’m going to throw a big party. A big, big party.”

“You don’t want a party,” I say, hoping Rastus doesn’t crap down the window again. But the foot-tall black bird hops neatly onto her finger and she spins to face me, smiling as if I’d doubted he’d obey.

“Your father’s back on the wagon,” she says. “We’ve made up. We’re starting over. It’s a clean slate for both of us.”

The look on my face would knock her to the floor if the vigor weren’t making her strong, but her chin’s high, posture’s perfect, curly blond hair is under control—hair so thick she takes the thinning shears to it.

She says, “He promised from now on he’ll only drink beer. Your father is on the wagon.”

“Are you kidding? Are you kidding? What, the beer wagon?” She believes anything anyone tells her, as if the last liar in America was hunted down and hanged the night before she was born.

“You’re no fun.” She jumps off the davenport, Rastus riding her finger. “You were my most serious baby.”

“I don’t mean to tell you how to run your life, but get a pencil. Take some notes.”

She opens the screen door, tosses Rastus into the night like her old black cape and comes back in. “Remember how I used to love to dance? Best dancer in my class. The lindy, the cha-cha.” She grabs my hands. “One, two, cha-cha-cha.” What she loves is wiggling her body around while people watch.

I jerk my hands away. “I’ll give you three good reasons not to have a party. One: You can’t get this house clean in six days. Two: If it rains for more than twenty minutes, the roof will leak, the basement will flood, the water pump—”

“Someday you’ll trip over your tongue from talking too fast.” She always says that.

“—the water pump will burn out, the toilet won’t flush and no one will notice how well you do the damned cha-cha.”

I hate the sounds of water moving—toilets flushing; hundred-proof Old Heaven Hill knocking ice cubes against the glass; water dripping off icicles, free-falling two stories to hit the frozen ground like marbles, finally seeping through the walls and trickling into the basement.

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