Beethoven in Paradise Read Online Free

to imagine.
    â€œYou know,” Wylene said, “they say Beethoven used to saw the legs off his pianos so he could feel the vibrations of his music through the floor.”

    Just then a car drove by, horn honking, music blaring from the open windows.
    Wylene grunted as she pushed herself up off the couch. “That Riley Owens don’t know the meaning of the words ‘peace and quiet.’” She pushed the front door shut on her way into the kitchen.
    â€œWant a ham biscuit?” she called to Martin.
    â€œSure.” Wylene made the best biscuits of anybody he knew, including his mother. If Wylene ever got up the nerve to come to a Paradise potluck supper, his mother would lose her title as the best biscuit maker in the county. Until that happened, which would be about two weeks from never, Martin was the only one who knew Wylene’s hidden talent.
    She set a plate of ham biscuits on the coffee table and dropped back down on the couch, fanning herself with a freckled hand.
    â€œWhy you reckon I’m so sad all the time?” she asked suddenly.
    Martin took a bite and thought carefully about that unexpected question.
    â€œI mean, I got my health,” she continued. “I got a nice home, a nice job.”
    Martin nodded and chewed. He couldn’t argue with the health and home part, but he wasn’t so sure about the nice job part. Eight hours a day, five days a week, inspecting handkerchiefs, throwing the bad ones into the discard bin and sending the good ones on down the conveyor belt and
into the folding machine, didn’t sound like much of a job to him, but he was glad Wylene liked it.
    â€œYou know what I like most about you, Martin?” she asked.
    Martin’s mind raced, searching for possible answers. Before he could find one, she continued.
    â€œI like that you’re so comfortable being you.”
    Now that was something he never would’ve thought of. “I guess I ain’t got much choice in the matter,” he said. “I mean, who else am I gonna be?”
    â€œNo.” Wylene waved her hand at him impatiently. “I don’t mean you could be somebody else. I just mean you never want to be somebody else.”
    â€œWho else would I want to be?”
    â€œOh, never mind,” Wylene snapped. She picked at a thread on the cushion of the couch. Her parakeet chirped and scattered seed onto the floor.
    â€œDern it, Pudgie, I just swept in here.” She went to the kitchen and came back with a broom.
    Martin was still thinking about what she had said. “Sometimes I wish I could pitch like TJ.,” he said. “Or flirt with girls like Riley.”
    â€œBut you never want to be T.J. or Riley.” Wylene swept birdseed out the front door.
    â€œI’d have to be some kind of idiot to want that,” Martin said. “Riley’s about as nice as a possum with rabies, and TJ.’s nice but he ain’t too lucky—he got Riley for a brother. Who in the world would want to be them?”

    â€œLots of people, probably.”
    â€œAw, come on, Wylene. Are you kidding me?”
    â€œWell, think about it,” she said. “They got the only double-wide in Paradise. Their mamma looks like a fashion model just stepped off the cover of a magazine, bringing all them boyfriends home every night like life is just a party.”
    â€œYou want to be her?”
    Wylene shrugged. “Maybe.”
    Martin shook his head. He was sure he was never going to figure Wylene out. “Okay, I reckon there is somebody I’d like to be,” he said.
    Wylene stared at him with wide eyes. “Who?” she asked.
    Martin grinned. “Ludwig van Beethoven, that’s who.”
    Wylene laughed. “Well, the Moonlight Sonata sure would sound funny on a harmonica. You got to get you a real instrument if you’re ever going to be Beethoven. When are you going to ask your parents about that piano I told you about?