AllFreeNovel
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I set the rag down on the counter with sudden decision. “I have something for you.” I walk out to where my jacket is hanging and reach into the inside pocket.
“Hey, come sit down,” Barron calls.
“In a second,” I say, walking quickly back to the kitchen.
“Look,” I say to Maura, holding out my hand to show her the onyx charm. “I know what you said about a worker’s wife and being—”
“Very thoughtful of you,” she says. The stone shines under the recessed lights like a spilled droplet of tar. “Just like your brother. You don’t understand favors, just exchanges.”
“Get a needle and sew it into your bra,” I tell her. “Promise?”
“Charming.” She tilts her head. “You look like him, you know. My husband.”
“I guess,” I say. “We’re brothers.”
“You’re handsome with all that messy black hair. And your crooked smile.” They’re compliments, but she doesn’t sound complimentary. “Do you practice smiling like that?”
Sometimes in intense situations I can’t help grinning a little. “My smile’s naturally crooked.”
“You’re not as charming as you think you are,” she says, walking up to me, so close that her breath is warm and sour on my face. I take a step back, and my legs bang against the edge of her counter. “You’re not as charming as him.”
“Okay,” I say. “Just promise me that you’ll wear it.”
“Why?” she asks. “What kind of amulet is so important?”
I glance at the doorway. I can hear the television in the other room, some game show Grandad likes.
“A memory charm,” I say softly. “It’s better than it looks. Say that you’ll wear it.”
“Okay.”
I try a smile, as non-crooked as I can make it. “We nonworkers have got to stick together.”
“What do you mean?” She narrows her eyes. “Do you think I’m stupid? You’re one of them. I remember that.”
I shake my head, but don’t know what to say. Maybe it’s better if I wait for the charm to show her the truth before I try to argue with her over things that don’t matter anyway.
* * *
“Grandad’s passed out,” Barron says when I walk into the living room. “Looks like you’re going to have to stay over. I don’t think I’m going anywhere either.” He yawns.
“I can drive him,” I say. I feel suffocated by all the things I can’t say, about all the things I suspect my brothers of doing. I want to get home and start packing.
“What did you tell Mom?” he asks. He’s drinking black coffee from one of Maura’s good cups, the kind with a saucer. “It’s taking him a while to calm her down.”
“Just that she knows something she’s not telling me,” I say.
“Come on, if we had a dollar for everything Mom never told us, we’d have a million bucks.”
“I’d have a lot more money than you would.” I sit down on the couch. I can’t just leave without at least trying to warn him. “Can I ask you something?”
Barron turns toward me. “Sure. Shoot.”
“Do you remember when we were kids and we went to the beach down by Carney? There were toads in the scrub brush. You caught a really tiny one that jumped out of your hands. I squeezed mine until it puked up its guts. I thought it was dead, but then when we left it alone for a moment, it disappeared. Like it sucked in its guts and hopped away. Do you remember that?”
“Yeah,” Barron says, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Why?”
“How about when you and Philip got all those Playboy magazines out of the Dumpster and you cut out all the breasts and covered a lamp shade with them. And then it caught on fire and you gave me five dollars to lie to Mom and Dad about it?
