Arcadia Burns Read Online Free
facade.
The curtains of her mother’s apartment were open, all the windowpanes clean and shiny. A bunch of fresh flowers stood at one window. Gemma must have chosen the place because it got the most sunlight. The Petersons’ station wagon was parked right outside the door to the basement apartment, as always. If Mr. Piccirilli hadn’t drunk himself to death on cheap bourbon yet, there’d be the usual trouble.
And if she went on staring at the building like this, she wasgoing to burst into tears of sentimental nostalgia.
It was only a few steps to the front door and the apartment buzzers beside it. She hadn’t taken a key with her when she left for Italy. Now it felt as if she’d been away not four months but forty years. That, more than anything else, made her realize how definitively she had broken with everything here.
The idea of climbing those steps made her feel terrible. Her mother probably wouldn’t be home anyway. She must still have that job at Bristen’s Eatery, and the second job at the Laundromat. At night she sometimes cooked glass noodles in a Chinese restaurant two blocks away, and then took the next day off. So she might be home after all. Which only made it worse that Rosa was standing there on the sidewalk as if frozen to it, easily visible.
What would she have chosen if her mother had advised her to keep the baby? Would she have brought Nathaniel into the world? And then what? She’d still be living here, hearing Mr. Piccirilli’s snores through the floorboards at night, feeding a howling infant, trying to get by somehow or other.
She had to get away from here. Right away.
Hadn’t Gemma been right to say Rosa would be doing herself no favors by having a baby at seventeen? Didn’t she have enough trouble with herself already? But they didn’t have to talk about that. She only wanted to find out something about her father and TABULA.
It was pathetic, just standing here doing nothing. Not going in, but not going away, either. Indecision of that kind had killed Nathaniel.
The lace curtain beside the bunch of flowers moved. A draft of air?
Why didn’t the snowplow come along and run her down? That would make it all so much simpler.
Her hand, she noticed almost to her own surprise, was still clutching Aesop’s Fables inside her bag. She let go of the little book and took out her cell phone instead. She tapped in the number and stopped with her finger hovering above the CALL key. The curtain moved again. Yes, just the wind. The windows had hardly any insulation. Rosa took a deep breath and pressed CALL . Was tempted to hang up.
She saw a silhouette behind the lace, someone going from the bedroom into the kitchen.
“Hello?” Her mother sounded tired. So she had indeed been working the night shift. “Hel-lo?” More awake now, and annoyed.
Rosa’s eyes were burning. She heard Gemma breathing. A small dog appeared at the entrance to the building and barked. Her mother must be able to hear it too. Twice, like an echo—through the window and over the phone.
Rosa quickly hung up and walked away.
The dog, yapping, followed her a little way down the street and then left her alone, pleased with itself for chasing off an enemy.
HIS FACE
S HE DISCOVERED THE BRONZE panther by pure chance.
He was crouching on a hill in Central Park, his black eyes looking down on East Drive, one of the two streets running north to south through the park. From up there his view over the treetops must reach as far as the skyline of high-rise buildings on Fifth Avenue. Up there on his rock, surrounded by leafless tendrils of Virginia creeper, he seemed about to pounce.
Rosa sat down on a bench and examined the statue from a distance. Joggers and walkers passed by, and now and then one of the horse-drawn carriages driving tourists and amorous couples around the park. Icicles hung from the big cat’s jaws as if he were baring his teeth. But she could see only sadness in his dark eyes, nothing
The curtains of her mother’s apartment were open, all the windowpanes clean and shiny. A bunch of fresh flowers stood at one window. Gemma must have chosen the place because it got the most sunlight. The Petersons’ station wagon was parked right outside the door to the basement apartment, as always. If Mr. Piccirilli hadn’t drunk himself to death on cheap bourbon yet, there’d be the usual trouble.
And if she went on staring at the building like this, she wasgoing to burst into tears of sentimental nostalgia.
It was only a few steps to the front door and the apartment buzzers beside it. She hadn’t taken a key with her when she left for Italy. Now it felt as if she’d been away not four months but forty years. That, more than anything else, made her realize how definitively she had broken with everything here.
The idea of climbing those steps made her feel terrible. Her mother probably wouldn’t be home anyway. She must still have that job at Bristen’s Eatery, and the second job at the Laundromat. At night she sometimes cooked glass noodles in a Chinese restaurant two blocks away, and then took the next day off. So she might be home after all. Which only made it worse that Rosa was standing there on the sidewalk as if frozen to it, easily visible.
What would she have chosen if her mother had advised her to keep the baby? Would she have brought Nathaniel into the world? And then what? She’d still be living here, hearing Mr. Piccirilli’s snores through the floorboards at night, feeding a howling infant, trying to get by somehow or other.
She had to get away from here. Right away.
Hadn’t Gemma been right to say Rosa would be doing herself no favors by having a baby at seventeen? Didn’t she have enough trouble with herself already? But they didn’t have to talk about that. She only wanted to find out something about her father and TABULA.
It was pathetic, just standing here doing nothing. Not going in, but not going away, either. Indecision of that kind had killed Nathaniel.
The lace curtain beside the bunch of flowers moved. A draft of air?
Why didn’t the snowplow come along and run her down? That would make it all so much simpler.
Her hand, she noticed almost to her own surprise, was still clutching Aesop’s Fables inside her bag. She let go of the little book and took out her cell phone instead. She tapped in the number and stopped with her finger hovering above the CALL key. The curtain moved again. Yes, just the wind. The windows had hardly any insulation. Rosa took a deep breath and pressed CALL . Was tempted to hang up.
She saw a silhouette behind the lace, someone going from the bedroom into the kitchen.
“Hello?” Her mother sounded tired. So she had indeed been working the night shift. “Hel-lo?” More awake now, and annoyed.
Rosa’s eyes were burning. She heard Gemma breathing. A small dog appeared at the entrance to the building and barked. Her mother must be able to hear it too. Twice, like an echo—through the window and over the phone.
Rosa quickly hung up and walked away.
The dog, yapping, followed her a little way down the street and then left her alone, pleased with itself for chasing off an enemy.
HIS FACE
S HE DISCOVERED THE BRONZE panther by pure chance.
He was crouching on a hill in Central Park, his black eyes looking down on East Drive, one of the two streets running north to south through the park. From up there his view over the treetops must reach as far as the skyline of high-rise buildings on Fifth Avenue. Up there on his rock, surrounded by leafless tendrils of Virginia creeper, he seemed about to pounce.
Rosa sat down on a bench and examined the statue from a distance. Joggers and walkers passed by, and now and then one of the horse-drawn carriages driving tourists and amorous couples around the park. Icicles hung from the big cat’s jaws as if he were baring his teeth. But she could see only sadness in his dark eyes, nothing