Falling in Place Read Online Free Page B

father doesn’t want to be nagged at, John Joel. Forget it,” Louise said.
    “Yeah,” Mary said. “He wants you to be quiet. Go climb a tree and dribble spit. We want you out of here.”
    “That’s enough,” Mary’s father said.
    Under one arm, Mary’s mother, Louise, was carrying a Styrofoam cooler filled with hot dogs and Tab and a bottle of Chablis, the pretzels and potato chips piled on the lid so they wouldn’t get wet. She held her five-year-old’s hand. He pulled on her arm, wanting to pull her, it seemed, to the center of the earth. John, their father, carried a shopping bag with some charcoal, lighter fluid, a radio, a pack of True cigarettes, the late edition of the
New York Times
and a towel.
    They were at the park for a cookout. Nobody had wanted to come, except Brandt, the baby. He was hoping that the three-legged dog would be there. The dog could do everything: It could run, swim, fetch sticks. Brandt was half interested in sighting the dog, half interested in seeing if he could pull his mother over.
    “Say anything you want to your brother about his ugly face, but lay off about his weight. Understand?” John said to Mary.
    Peter Frampton, on her T-shirt, was looking straight ahead. She nodded yes.
    “What about here?” Louise said. “That’s a nice grove back from the road.”
    “Closer to the water,” John said.
    “Daddy-” John Joel said.
    “Are you going to start complaining again when I just told you to be quiet?” Louise said.
    “What is it?” John said.
    “Daddy, how many feminists does it take to screw in a light bulb?”
    “That’s not what he was going to say,” Mary said. “He was going to nag.”
    “I don’t give a shit about feminists,” John said. “I don’t send my secretary for coffee, I go get it myself. Today I walked down the hall to the machine, and it was being repaired. I didn’t say anything. I looked disappointed for a second, I suppose. The person repairing it was a woman. ‘Oh, just send your
girl
down in about five minutes,’ she said. Very sarcastic.”
    “Four,” John Joel said.
    The baby screamed, so he didn’t get to say his joke. The baby screamed because his mother had let go of his hand, making him stumble to regain his balance. He knew that if he screamed his father would start screaming at his mother. He had tried to pull her over, and she was stronger: She had almost gotten him to go down.
    John didn’t say anything. He kept walking. He slapped the back of his neck to kill a mosquito.
    “Daddy, it takes four,” John Joel said.
    “Why does it take four?” John said.
    “One to do it and three to write books about it.”
    “You think that’s funny? You should work with women today,” John said. “You will. You’ll get your chance.”
    “I think that one thing women don’t like is having men generalize about all women,” Louise said.
    “Women don’t like anything.”
    “Not even nice soapy dishwater and darning tiny little booties?”
    “Where’d you learn the snappy comebacks? Exercise class?”
    “Pay no attention to me,” Louise said. “Women go crazy during their periods.”
    “At least you’re not so crazy you’re pregnant.”
    “I impregnated myself the other three times,” Louise said, “but now I’ve learned my lesson. I won’t do that again all by myself.”
    “Dad, look! Is that a snake? Is that a crushed snake?”
    “Look at the shape of it. Does that look like a snake to you?”
    It was a squashed frog, with a wasp hovering over it. A bee joined the wasp. The frog had been recently squashed.
    “Don’t just stand there, John Joel. Come on,” Louise said.
    “He’s too fat to walk anymore,” Mary said.
    “I got through to you very well when I spoke to you a minute ago, didn’t I?”
    Mary lifted a strand of hair from behind her ear, stroked it and twisted it around her finger. She wished she had hair that hung in long waves and curls like Peter Frampton’s girlfriend’s. She had just seen