Odnośniki
- Indeks
- Alan Dean Foster Commonwealth 04 Voyage To The City of the Dead
- Blackwater 2 Vance's Rules
- Alessandro Manzoni La storia della Colonna Infame
- Tim Green Exact Revenge (com v4.0)
- Iginio Ugo Tarchetti Fosca
- Napoleonbonapar
- Charles R Cross Room Full of Mirrors A Biography of Jimi Hendrix (pdf)
- Hoff Benjamin Te Prosiaczka
- Daniel Coyle the little book of talent 52 tips for improving your skills
- Elizabeth Lane Drums of Darkness (pdf)
- zanotowane.pl
- doc.pisz.pl
- pdf.pisz.pl
- effulla.pev.pl
Jana wanted to be in the water. She wanted the weight of
the water wrapped around her like a blanket. She put her
feet in and wiggled her toes.
Soon Mars was next to her, his elbows over the edge of
the pool. His dark hair was soaked through, and water ran
down his face in tiny rivers.
I wanted you to know this is here, Mars said. That it s
an option. Aren t you coming in?
Don t know. Jana pushed her feet out into the water until
her toes appeared above the surface. Looks wet.
There are swimsuits in the girls locker room.
I don t think so. The last time I wore someone else s
clothes & well, shoes, anyway & I mean, I might drown.
I ll save you if you do.
Are there towels in the locker room?
Yes, Mars said.
Are they plaid and pleated?
Normal, regular dead people towels, Mars assured her.
Swim in your underwear, Webster. I won t watch, I promise.
I ll wait at the bottom of the pool.
But you have to come up for air, she said.
Turn the lights off, then. The pool s the best thing they ve
got in this place.
The water was warmer now than when she d first put her
feet in. It was Mars, she decided. His body temperature
had warmed the pool while he swam, while he loitered next
to her, kicking aimlessly behind him to keep the weight off
his elbows on the pool s edge. The water was definitely
warmer. And it was deep. Jana wanted it that way. She
wanted to be covered up entirely in water.
I guess I d better hurry, Jana said.
Chapter Eighteen
MICHAEL SHUDDERED.
A chill climbed up his spine every time he listened to the
voice mail. It was Jana s voice. There was no mistaking it.
And the call was from her cell phone.
Michael. It s me.
Marilyn Webster was his concern now and that gave him
the creeps, as well. She smelled strongly of stale wine and
had breathed with her mouth open through the entire
funeral. She d practically ruined his best dress shirt with
makeup and tears.
I can t be alone, Jana s mother said. She had one
elbow stuck in the air with her hand bent behind her neck,
trying to start the zipper on the back of her black dress.
Turn around, he said.
She nearly fell onto the bed when she did. Michael
unzipped her dress. Somehow she managed to pull her
dress over her head without falling down. The material lifted
her hair and it didn t quite fall back into place.
Jana s mother sat on the edge of the bed and kicked
away her shoes.
Stay with me, Michael.
No. She would be asleep in two seconds. She d taken a
handful of pills on their way to the bedroom. Michael had
seen it all before. Jana s mother reached for pills as often
as a smoker reached for cigarettes. She was a walking
pharmacy, when she could walk at all. And that was on top
of the wine.
Be a good girl, Michael said. Go to bed.
Good girl, Marilyn said, mimicking him.
That s right, go to sleep now.
She lay back on the bed, her eyes closed. Michael
opened the drawer of her bedside stand, took something
from the back that Jana had never known was there, and
slipped it into the side pocket of his suit jacket.
He looked at Marilyn carefully before leaving the room.
She had been a model when she was young. A
supermodel. At sixteen, she d made the covers of
magazines. She d dated NFL football players and movie
stars. She did TV commercials for shampoo. Michael didn t
see it when he looked at her. She just looked thin.
Jana was twice as pretty as her mother. Everyone knew
that but Jana. She d been the perfect girl for him to be seen
with.
I m still here. I m always here.
But, he thought, pretty didn t matter anymore.
Standing on the porch, holding up his hand for Nathan
and Sherry to wait to say anything, Michael called the lady
and Sherry to wait to say anything, Michael called the lady
next door. She took care of Jana s mother when Jana
wasn t there.
Fine, he said when she asked how he was. But Marilyn
isn t. Can you come over after a while and check on things?
Spend the night if you want to. There s plenty of food in the
fridge. And the money is where it usually is if you need to
buy anything.
Call me.
Did he dare?
* * *
Jana considered her options. She didn t have all day.
She left her shoes and socks on the wooden bench in the
girls locker room and looked through the swimsuits that
were stacked in rows on an open shelf. They were bright
red one-piece suits with wide shoulder straps. She held
one up. The bottom half was huge compared to the top.
When the whole thing got wet, the bottom would bag to her
knees.
Jana struggled to work the buttons on her skirt through
the double-sewn buttonholes. She took off her skirt and
blouse.
She couldn t wear her bra into the pool. It wouldn t be dry
in time for fifth period. Same thing if she put her blouse on
without her bra and got into the pool. And she couldn t wear
the school s famous granny panties into the pool either.
They d weigh five pounds wet and be around her ankles in
no time.
Jana ran out of options.
She took off everything, bra and panties too. She placed
Michael s class ring inside her shoe on the bench. Jana
wrapped herself in one of the towels from the rack by the
door and slipped out of the locker room. She d seen where
Mars had turned on the pool lights. She walked quickly to
the switches and flipped them, one after the other, until the
lights inside the pool went out.
Jana heard a motor whir. She d accidentally turned on
the pumps that sucked water from the drain at the bottom of
the pool and sent it through jet sprays to agitate the surface
of the water for the high dives. Jana wasn t sure what it
was, but she could hear the water moving. It sounded
something like a whirlpool.
The spill of light from the locker rooms was enough to get
into the pool by. Three or four feet from this end of the pool,
she would be in darkness. She d be safe.
Jana couldn t see Mars, but he was in there somewhere.
She used the exit ladder to climb backwards into the pool,
removing the towel as her knees submerged. She tossed
the towel on the concrete, and with a quick push
backwards, Jana was in the water altogether.
It was wonderful. The water was as warm as a bath. If
they d let her sleep here, she would.
Jana dog-paddled with her head above water to the
edge of the light, then she dropped under the surface with
her legs stretched tight, her feet together. Chlorine stung [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]