Lake Overturn Read Online Free

“Chicken Coop . . . Chicken Coop . . . Chicken Coop . . . ” A few of the children made clucking noises.
    Coop’s face reddened, and he laughed a desperate laugh. He could handle this as long as it didn’t get so loud.
    L INA DROVE DOWN the smooth, black, winding road between the saplings, around the bend by the golf course, then up over the ridge, from which she could see Lake Overlook shimmering under the white sun. Why did Mr. Hall have to say that? Before, it had just been a kind of game. Kid stuff. She had played along; no big deal. Then he had said it: We are people who need to kiss. That made it desperate, like they were addicts of some kind. Lina pulled her crucifix out by its chain to kiss it—as she always did when she felt tears rise—but to do so now, with lips still hot from a married man’s kiss, would be sacrilege. She dropped it back into her collar.
    Now that she thought of it, her lips felt roughed up, as if they were torn in a hundred places, as if she could press a napkin to them and leave a lipstick-kiss of blood. When she touched her mouth with her hand, though, it came away dry.
    She reached the fork in the road where she had to make the decision and, as usual, took the detour to drive by Carl and Janet’s house—the Van Bekes’. She had always done this—kept her face forward as she glanced up the line of poplars past the fountain to the big white house with yellow trim—when Jay lived there, and ever since. It was a magnet to her. Today, Jay’s car wasn’t there.
    Lina pulled into her spot at the same time as Connie. The two exchanged tired smiles, and Connie put her hands to her hair, which had loosened a little from its bun. “How are you, Lina?”
    “I’m good. You?”
    “Fine. Were you cleaning today?” Connie flinched, as if her own question embarrassed her.
    “Yeah, all day, south of town. You know, I can’t just stand up anymore if I’m kneeling on the floor. I have to make a little game plan.” She patted her thighs and laughed.
    Connie laughed too, lifelessly. Lina felt sorry for her. So stiff. Lina’s uncle Mario would have said she had a pedo atraptado , a trapped fart. “Well, the boys will be home soon,” Connie said as she climbed the stairs to her trailer.
    “Do you want to send Gene over for dinner? You seem tired.”
    “Oh, that’s so nice, Lina, but his grandfolks are coming over tonight.”
    “Any time,” said Lina.
    They had been neighbors for over ten years, and their boys were best friends, but still Connie always kept her distance. In the past, Lina had suspected that this was because she cleaned houses (but Connie herself was a nursing-home aide) or because she was a Mexican (but Connie had had Mexicans from her own church over for dinner). Now Lina knew that it was because she was Catholic. But today there had been something different in Connie’s eye . . . could she tell that Lina had been kissed?
    Gene and Enrique walked along the cinder-block wall of the fabric store, through the hole in the chain-link fence, and into the trailer park.
    “C’mon, it’ll be fun. We’ll get to work with Mr. Peterson. He’s nice, right?”
    Gene was silent, his brow knotted.
    “We can do something on flowers if you want.”
    “I’m done with flowers,” Gene said.
    “Well, then, anything. Anything you want. I’ll be your assistant. We’ll do experiments. I’ll write the paper all alone, if you want. You can do drawings, and I’ll do the presentation. We’ll win, I promise.”
    Since entering junior high only two weeks earlier, Enrique had been wondering what he would do to keep from falling between the cracks. He was too short and chubby for sports, and until high school there would be no school play in which to act. His mom couldn’t afford art lessons or piano or gymnastics, so he never asked, and being first altar boy was something to be hidden rather than flaunted. He did have a good singing voice. Once he sang the Doxology a cappella at Mass,