Taking It Read Online Free Page A

and I had been in the same ballet class about a hundred years ago.
    Maureen is pretty but she doesn’t care about her looks, lets her eyebrows grow in so they meet, making her look serious all the time, like some kind of thinking animal. And it makes her look pretty anyway, the way a raccoon is pretty.
    â€œI’ll tell you what really happened,” Maureen was saying.
    She paused so I could ask, but I had trouble reading my lines for a second.
    â€œLincoln did it.” She said this like it was a major revelation. She added, “I’m not supposed to let Lincoln into the house.”
    I had to feel compassion for Maureen. She didn’t think about things—she experienced them. If she was depressed, she got sick. If she laughed too much, she peed.
    â€œPoor Lincoln,” I said. “Chained up in the backyard all the time.” I heard my own voice, and reassured myself. I couldn’t be a total mess if I could make conversation.
    â€œAre you sure you’re all right?” asked Maureen.
    I peeked out the living room window. “The pool man’s here,” I said. “I can see his truck.”
    â€œI bet he has a tattoo, somewhere where you can’t see it,” said Maureen.
    â€œHe does not,” I said, laughing. Maureen and I had both agreed we loathed tattoos on men.
    â€œBut you don’t know for sure,” she said.
    I wanted to tell her that I didn’t know anything for sure.
    As always, Lincoln was excited to see me, and barked, and yelped, the animal trying to make words but not able to, having a snout and not a mouth. He was a big, dark dog on a frayed leather leash. A choke collar looped around his neck, a glittering chain.
    Lincoln licked my hands, making them all hot and sticky. Lincoln’s leash had worn all the grass from that part of the garden, and he bounded around on the bare dirt.
    Maureen’s family had chosen Lincoln at the animal shelter. He was nervous around strangers and had a strong dislike—even a fear—of anyone in uniform. He was perhaps the only dog in the world to actually flee into a distant room when the mailman approached.
    I was fond of Lincoln, but I’m not crazy about dog spit. I let myself out through the side gate and washed my fingers off on a faucet beside the Boston ferns.
    The blue pool truck was parked right behind the Mustang. I tried to like the white, sporty thing, but it was not a car I would have chosen myself. It was hard to park, and I felt a little guilty about wanting a car that didn’t use so much gas.
    I opened the front door and called out, asking if anyone was home. Maybe my mother was here, I thought. She had taken the day off so we could spend some time together. She might be pacing up and down, chewing her fingernails.
    Maybe Dad had come home early, thinking that he had to talk to me, find out what was wrong with me, make an appointment for me to talk to someone in family counseling. I couldn’t face him, not the way I felt now.
    There was no one there. I listened hard and there was only the sound of the pool man whistling a tune to himself.
    My fingers were cold, the way they get if I smoke too much. I took out the hoops and went to put in the gold posts. I don’t like to swim wearing big earrings—they tend to drag in the water. I had trouble finding the holes in both lobes.

6
    The pool man comes twice a week. He wears those shirts you buy that already look old, thick cotton with three buttons you leave undone if you want to show off your tan.
    The pool man was crouching beside the water, one of those men with blond hair and muscles. He was losing his hair a little. Some men get bald and they look bony and too big for everything, like they’re running out of hair because there is so much skin to cover.
    But this guy always looked like a tennis instructor, one of those guys with white teeth who show you how to put a little backspin on the ball and you say,