Sister Golden Hair: A Novel by Darcey Steinke

Author:Darcey Steinke
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9781935639954
Publisher: Tin House Books
Published: 2014-09-22T00:00:00+00:00

On the last Thursday of the month, after Dad got paid, he took us out to Pizza Hut. We all agreed that Pizza Hut pizza was terrible, a distant relative to pizza, as if pizza had been murdered and come back to life as a pizza zombie. But over the years the greasy ground sausage and sweet tomato sauce washed down with a huge pitcher of root beer had become, if not delicious, then at least addictive. As we ate, Phillip told us how during the fire drill a kid named Dougy had peed himself and that a girl in his class had gotten caught with a lollipop in her cubby.

Our waitress, an older lady with an unusual shade of orange hair, asked how we were doing, and we all nodded fine. My mom had not yet mentioned Julie, though I could tell by a sudden change in the air that she was about to. I wanted to head her off. I’d made a mental list of conversation subjects: (1) What did she think of Jimmy Carter? (2) What did she think of the fire hydrants painted like minutemen for the bicentennial? (3) Would she reconsider our request for a CB radio?

But before I could ask my questions she started up about Julie, saying that Julie had told her the Pizza Hut owner was a sleazebag.

I looked over at the middle-aged man with the mustache who was taking checks at the cash register. He looked friendly enough, though his shirt was unbuttoned a few too many buttons so I could see his sprouting chest hair.

I took a long drink of my root beer and imagined the sweet liquid floating over the seaweedy tentacles of my taste buds.

“And how would she know?” Dad asked.

At first, Dad was glad Mom had a friend. He’d explained to me how impossible it had been for my mom to make friends as a minister’s wife. And besides, he’d continued, using the same tone he used to speak about patients at the psych center, since they’d moved around so much in the last few years she’d had no time to befriend anybody.

Now, though, my mother’s constant talking about Julie was wearing him down. She wasn’t just telling you things about her, but also implying she was divine.

“Julie knows everybody in this town.”

She began reciting the details of Julie’s story, which were as familiar to me now as the stations of the cross: after she’d gotten her break in LA, the brilliant comedian had taken her aside on the movie set and told her he would help her make it in the big time. If only she hadn’t gotten pregnant, if only . . .

My father wiped his mouth with the paper napkin, took out his wallet, opened it, and pulled out two ten-dollar bills.

“I think I’ll walk home.”

“You’re going to walk home?”

“That’s what I said.”

He slipped out of the booth and moved toward the door.

“I want to go with him,” I said.

“I won’t have you walking down the side of the highway,” my mother said tightly.

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