Boys in Gilded Cages Read Online Free Page B

a
swamp creature and used a Kleenex to wipe her brow affectionately.
“Oh, Marcia! Your Cuban blood hasn’t taken a hold of you yet.”
    She envied the looks of even her mother, in
a slim-fitted pantsuit, on her way to sell houses worth half their
old house in Florida. She was able to make fast friends in this
town but she was a bit icy. Beautiful, but with a scowl that was
probably alluring twenty years ago.
    When they arrived at school, the rush of
well-groomed kids walking toward the main entrance made Marcia want
to vomit. She should have worn more makeup and she should have worn
a blouse that her tits would poke out of while making her gut fade
into her hip-huggers. I don’t think such a blouse exists. Marcia
got out of the SUV lightly as she could, almost tip-toeing, she
don’t know why. Maybe she thought no one would notice her that way.
Her mother obviously did.
    She’d carry that look of disgust with her to
dinner. Her plate had exactly 6 ounces of pork, a cup and a half of
green beans, and conspicuously missing was Texas toast. Her mother
and father had twice as much meat on their plates, and half as many
greens.
    You’d think that this quietly-insulting
ritual would make Marcia go to sleep at night with a mouthful of
half-chewed Ding Dongs, washed down with her dad’s bourbon and her
own tears, but eventually you grow accustomed to it. It gets
comfortable, actually. You rely on the fact that you’re
aesthetically disgusting, embellish it in your own mind, imagine
yourself as an obese swamp creature, wear it like a Girl Scout
badge. Saves a lot of social effort.
    At dinner they’d ask how school is going,
not really expecting an answer. Marcia’s mom would perk up briefly
when she’d ask her about boys while dad groaned. Her dad would
suggest She bring food over for the neighbor, an old shut in who
was related to Marcia’s awful history teacher, Mrs. Danforth. By
now, she learned to have dinner conversations with her head down
because it is impossible to see a bowing person’s eyes roll.
    “ Have you ever seen Mrs.
Danforth?” Marcia was eager to change the subject.
    “ Yes, she’s a very nice
lady.”
    “ No, I mean, have you
looked at her?”
    “ Not really, I don’t know.
Why, Marcia?”
    “ She doesn’t have any
eyebrows.”
    “ What?”
    “ No eyebrows. I think she
might wear a wig too. Very pale.”
    “ Yes, I heard she might
have cancer or something. It’s not nice to scrutinize an old
woman’s looks.”
    This is how their weeks would go at home,
and then they go back to church, with the two slutty gringos and
old ladies with frosty hair and a bunch of people in sweat
pants.
    It was the same. They go into the sanctuary
and sit far apart from each other, parallel to the magenta
stained-glass windows and they listen to Queen Frostyhair speak to
them like little cute-but-singed stuffed animals, as if obligated
by a child to acknowledge us as real humans. Sunday, Wednesday, all
the same, a sermon she didn’t listen to.
    

    TELLING TIME

     
    
“ Sam,” Jenny called him
from the other side of their bed. He barely heard her.
    “ Yeah, Honey,” he
slurred.
    “ Are you asleep?” She
asked timidly, through the black of the room.
    “ Not yet,” he
lied.
    “ Let’s talk.”
    “ Okay.”
    “ What should I know before
she comes? You’ve barely mentioned it. I feel like this is a bigger
deal than you’re letting on.” There was an uncharacteristic quiver
in her voice. The drunkenness of semi-sleep, she must have figured,
would be the best time to ask, relying on the weak defenses of the
bleary. And on the eve of a visit from his mom, she must have
thought, or hoped, he’d be eager to cry on a shoulder. Weird
timing, but he could tell he wasn’t sleeping until it was settled.
So he huffed and sat up.
    “ You know about as much
about her as I do,” he said. This was untrue.
    “ Yeah,” she said, unsure
of how many more questions would still be appropriate at this