Rose Gold Read Online Free Page A

right-hand man of the CEO of the largest French insurance company in the world, but he was still a child of poverty, afraid of his own shadow.
    “What’s with this guy Percy?” I asked.
    That shadow passed over Jackson’s face. “Why?”
    “I don’t know,” I said. “He seems to feel like he deserves special attention.”
    “Jewelle send him,” Jackson said, avoiding my gaze. “He graduated from UCLA in business or somethin’. He’s working in her office, lookin’ for somethin’ better.”
    “Does she expect me to help him?”
    “If she did she’d tell you so.” Jackson stood up and walked past me out the door.
    I followed him into the hall and watched as he jounced down the stairs. I had seen Jackson through many phases. He had been a thief and a coward, a con man and a liar, but I had never known him to be rude through any of that.
    I might have questioned him further but LaMarque was coming up the stairs as my old friend descended.
    “I’m gonna leave, Mr. Rawlins,” the young man said.
    Reaching for my wallet, I asked, “How long your father said he’d be gone?”
    “Three weeks.”
    “He still call in?”
    “Every two or three days he call Mama and me.”
    I handed him four five-dollar bills.
    “Tell Etta to say hey to him for me.”
    “Okay, Mr. Rawlins, I will.”
    By four that afternoon all of my helpers had gone. Jesus drove the truck back to Primo’s garage in East L.A. Jackson, Percy, and LaMarque took off in separate cars and Feather was behind a closed door putting her room in order.
    Frenchie, the little yellow dog, was in there with her. We had left him in the car while moving. But as soon as we were done Feather brought him in and let him sniff around the new premises. When he got a whiff of me he looked up with a quizzical expression on his canine face. He was remembering, I believed, the days when he hated me. But that was over now and so he yipped a greeting and went on with his nasal investigations.
    The upstairs of my new home was made up of a round hall and three bedrooms: two large and one small. Feather had apportioned me the largest of the boudoirs while she claimed the smallest. The middle chamber was to be used as a library and study room.
    I told Feather that I didn’t mind taking the small room but she said, “The parent should have the biggest room and, anyway, Bonnie might move in to live with us again one day and then it would be a bedroom for two.”
    Bonnie Shay had been my girlfriend for much of Feather’s life. For a while there we had broken up and then I almost died. Now we were trying to find our way back together again. I couldn’t seem to get my emotions straight around Bonnie. I didn’t love anyone else. I didn’t want anyone else. But when we were together I felt like a citizen of a defeated nation with no right to hold my head up.
    I went downstairs to the huge living room. A latticed picture window took up most of the front wall and looked out onto Point View. Theliving room of our Genesee home was one-sixth the size and so there wasn’t nearly enough furniture to fill it. I sat on our toy sofa and wondered if there was really money on the way from Roger Frisk.
    No more than ten seconds later there came the chime of a three-toned doorbell that I’d never heard before.

5
    She was tall for her age, Asian (probably Japanese, I thought), with tawny skin and a mouth that spent more time laughing than eating. She was skinny as only a child can be and her black hair hung down past her shoulders.
    “Mr. Rawlins?” the girl said. Her bright green one-piece dress barely made it down to the middle of her bandy thighs.
    “Yes?”
    “I saw you moving in but my father said to leave you alone until you were through working.”
    “Um,” I said. “So how can I help you?”
    “Is Feather home?” She looked worried, like a tourist trying to find a toilet in a country where she didn’t speak the language.
    “Yeah,” I said, moving to the side.