Strangers to Temptation by Scott Gould

Author:Scott Gould [Gould, Scott]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
ISBN: 9781938235313
Publisher: Hub City Press
Published: 2017-05-08T16:00:00+00:00

LATER, ON THE ride out of the swamp and back to town, I thought I had discovered a rare fact about the other half and how they live. One of their members can knock you off your feet and the cartoon on the TV is still more interesting. My mother didn’t seem to care I was on the floor. The only thing she said in the living room was, “Is she in your class?” The appearance of Darlene quieted her little sister, probably, I assumed, because Tasha had been on the receiving end of Darlene’s elbows in the past. Nobody apologized or helped me up. Truman tried to lick my face through the floorboards. On the ride home, my mother did ask me to consider how to act at school the next day. “That girl—what is her name?—is probably embarrassed that you saw the inside of her house. From what I could tell, she has a great deal of pride.” My mother sounded like she was a fan of Darlene’s. I wasn’t completely sure how pride was synonymous with a cheap shot from an elbow. Maybe that was another tactic the other half employed to keep my kind off balance. “Just be a little gentle with her,” she said.

But Darlene was not gentle with me the next morning. She pinned me between two sets of green lockers just off the science hall. She was a good half a foot taller than I was—and I was tall for my age. She leaned into me and I smelled the inside of her house on her breath. “You shouldn’t have come there,” she said. Darlene’s face was round and copper-colored, her dark eyes set back under her forehead. The arm she used to pin me in the space between the lockers was covered with dark hair. The thing I remember most is that her teeth were white and almost perfect, as if she’d had braces. She ought to try smiling more, I thought. “I don’t want anyone knowing where I live. I don’t want anyone knowing anything about me. You understand?” I started to answer but before anything came out of my mouth, I saw Darlene wince like a little electric shock had just run through her. Her eyes narrowed and she bit down on her jaw. She kept the one arm across my chest, but she reached around her with the other and I could tell she wasn’t thinking straight when she scratched her rear end. Then, she remembered what she was doing and pulled her hand away. “Dammit,” she said, releasing the pressure on my chest and walking off.

I had two classes with Darlene McKenzie that day and I watched her closely, watched her from the corner of my eyes so she wouldn’t know. She never sat completely still, squirming and weaving in her desk the same way her little sister had on the couch that afternoon. That same wince flashed across her eyes. By the end of social studies, I was pretty convinced Darlene McKenzie had worms.

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