Delusion by Peter Abrahams

Author:Peter Abrahams [Abrahams, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Published: 2011-03-12T22:00:00+00:00

“What are you doing?” Nell said. She stepped in front of Norah.

Norah kept moving, bumped right into her.

“Now comes a mother-daughter fistfight?” Norah said.

Even the idea should have been unimaginable. Nell stepped aside.

Norah passed by without further contact.

“Where are you going?” Nell called after her.

Already on the stairs, Norah said, “I’m not spending another night in this house.”

A minute later, Nell heard the Miata starting up. What could she do? Norah was nineteen, an adult. Her family was walking out on her, one at a time. Nell was left alone in her daughter’s room—alone and shaking—with the stuffed animals on the shelves, and the monkeys, swaying very slightly on the trapeze.

Plus all of Norah’s high school books. It took her just a few moments to find Hamlet. She leafed through the pages, and soon came to: Seems, madam! Nay, it is; I know not “seems.”

’Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother.

In the margin, Norah had written in red—tidy penmanship, the letters fat and somehow cheerful-looking: What’s up with Hamlet’s mom?

And below that, in some other student’s spikier hand: She’s a whore.

C H A P T E R 26

Night: a warm night with soft sounds in the air. Pirate, with his excellent hearing, didn’t miss any of them—a woman’s laugh, ice cubes in a glass, a passing plane, the kind that flew very high, on the way to Paris or Rio or some other place Pirate had never seen and had no desire to. He pressed record on Lee Ann’s digital recorder, said, “Twice as much as before,” and “she asses,” and listened to the sound of his voice. Then he tried gazing down at the bus stop, hoping the Indian woman would show up, wearing something skimpy. She did not. No buses came. He got restless and went for a walk, ending up at the Red Rooster.

“Kahlúa,” he said. “Rocks.”

“Coming right up,” said the waitress, a waitress he didn’t know, not pretty, no tits, barely registering on his consciousness. Despite his wealth—he was rich!—and freedom, he wasn’t in the best mood, which didn’t make sense. He found himself thinking of what he’d be doing at this hour up at Central State: lying on his bunk, most likely, fingering the gold tassel, at peace. Pirate glanced at the empty stage.

Music was what he needed.

“When’s the band start?” he said to the waitress when she brought his drink.

“No band tonight,” she said. “It’s Tuesday.”

“How come?”

“No band on Tuesdays.”

224

PETER ABRAHAMS

His mood got a little worse. “Make it a double,” he said.

She glanced at his glass, looked confused; no reason for that, and it pissed him off more. “Turn this one into a double?” she said. “I don’t think we can do that.”

“What can you do?”

“I could bring you another one,” the waitress said.

“A double?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“I want,” Pirate said.

He drank the single and the double. He stopped feeling pissed off, but the restlessness remained. Pirate went into the bathroom, splashed cold water on his face. There he was in the mirror: with the patch and now the earring, really looking like a pirate.

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