It Looks Like This Read Online Free

looks and feels right before a rain.
    Dad is in a bad mood.
    He’s kind of quiet through dinner and scowls most of the time. It isn’t only because of the rain but the rain doesn’t help.
    The first real crack of thunder comes right before dinner.
    Another couple come a few minutes later.
    Charlie runs into the bathroom after the second crack. He always does that during a thunderstorm. He goes into the bathroom, sort of slinking in with his tail down, and crawls into the bathtub and sits there, shivering.
    He’s a beagle. Dad says beagles are really expressive dogs, like they get excited really easily but also get scared pretty easily too. It’s true.
    Plus Charlie’s still young, just under two years old, so he hasn’t grown out of being scared of the thunder yet.
    Before Toby and I get up to clear the plates, we can hear the rain coming down in what seems like one big endless wave, beating against the roof and the door and the windows and just pouring.
    It is almost completely dark even though there should have still been about an hour of sunlight left.
    I always know how much sunlight is left in the day because I check the weather every morning, and then again when I get home.
    Part of the reason is because I’m interested in weather and part is because I’m interested in astronomy. Mom got me a star chart a year ago for my birthday, and it shows me what stars I’ll be able to see each night and when.
    It’s a bit different each night because of the tilt of the earth and how close the earth is to the sun on any given day.
    So that’s how I know there’s still supposed to be an hour left of sunlight.
    Dad is in a bad mood because of work.
    When he got home today, he said that he would have to go to New York in a couple months, to the main office.
    He said, They’re having another goddamn sales conference.
    He wasn’t saying it to anyone, really, just saying it out loud.
    Mom said, Please don’t say that word, Walton.
    She sounded kind of cross and I think that put Dad in an even worse mood.
    Dad really hates sales conferences. They only happen a couple times a year, but he complains about them every time.
    He says he has to sit around in boring meetings all day listening to editors talk about all the new books they’re going to publish a year from now. Except Dad’s company only publishes textbooks, so the presentations are really dull and repetitive.
    But mostly it’s because he hates going to New York City.
    He says the hotels his company finds for him are always damp and musty and the streets are always crowded and the people are always pushy and they smell like fish.
    I don’t really get how an entire city of people can all smell like fish, but he says it’s just a bunch of different bad smells that are always in the air and the people who live there absorb it and in the end it smells like fish.
    I’ve never been to New York City.
    So Dad is already in a bad mood because of the conference and the rain and Mom, so then after dinner he sits down and starts watching a baseball game.
    It’s the Milwaukee Brewers against the St. Louis Cardinals.
    He kept saying after we moved that he was going to have to learn to be a Nationals fan. He started watching their games at first, but then after a couple weeks he went back to the Brewers.
    In the middle of the game, the TV makes a loud popping noise and then everything goes dark.
    For a second all I can see is the streetlight coming in through the windows and all I can hear is the rain beating against the house.
    Then Dad says, God —
    He cuts himself off, though, either because of Mom or because the lights come back on right then.
    He looks at us, at Mom and me and Toby, and then turns to the TV.
    It’s just a blue screen now.
    He picks up the remote and flips through a few channels, but all the channels are like that, just solid blue.
    Dad sighs and leans back on the couch. He looks at me.
    He says, Mike, you thinking of taking up anything at school?
    I