The False Friend Read Online Free Page B

neighborhood of nostalgic Nanas and PawPaws behind.
    With the advent of Medicare and Social Security benefits, FOR SALE signs began appearing on front lawns. Aging hips and knees cashed out and traded stairs for single-floor plans in senior communities, or apartments in elevator buildings. In other places such migrations spurred rebirth, but even Jensenville University’s new hires preferred to commute from towns less terminally postindustrial. Family homes were acquired by management companies for student rental, the real estate equivalent of inviting tent caterpillars into trees. Furniture appeared in front yards, and lawns became overgrown. Paint jobs peeled and faded. Three Christmases ago, Celia had returned home to the burnt shell of Randy Blocker’s place, the result of a post-party tryst between a couch and a tenant’s lit blunt. As recently as last December, its blackened carcass had remained half standing, scabbed over with ivy and graffiti. Only now, as Warren turned onto their block, did Celia notice a FOR SALE sign finally posted in the middle of the razed lot where, if she remembered correctly, the Blockers’ downstairs bathroom had once been.
    “The neighborhood’s looking up,” she almost joked and then didn’t, thinking of the white-noise machine her mother had received last Christmas under the pretense of masking her father’s nonexistent snores at two A.M ., and not the hoots of drunken students. Celia and Jeremy took turns urging their parents to sell, but Warren was too house-proud to admit that his home improvements had been outpaced by the neighborhood’s decline. When blasting stereos had nullified the pleasuresof outdoor relaxation, he’d had the patio converted into an attached sunroom. Next came a seven-foot-tall privacy fence to shield the new sunroom from the sight of the barbecue pit that had replaced Mrs. Henley’s flower garden. Celia had come to accept that only her father’s death would spur change: her mother wouldn’t want to live in the house without him, and he would never agree to live anywhere else.
    “Are you tired, Celie?” Noreen asked the moment they had pulled into the driveway. “I was thinking we could go to the Chinese steakhouse for dinner.”
    “Cee Cee doesn’t want to go there,” Warren said. “It’s overpriced and the staff isn’t even Chinese. She’s a Chicago girl! That sort of thing doesn’t impress her.”
    “I could always cook,” her mother offered. “I thought it might be nice to celebrate Celie’s arrival, but we could just as easily do that tomorrow or the next day, once she’s had some time to rest.”
    “I’m not tired,” Celia said. Not since college had she visited home for more than a three-day weekend, and never without Huck.
    “Well then, let’s go out,” Noreen reasoned. “We could go to Maximo’s. Maxi always gets a kick out of seeing Celie, and they’ve still got that great fruit de mer appetizer with the octopus and the squid.”
    “Nor, why do you always insist on taking our daughter somewhere she got fired from as a waitress when she was seventeen?”
    “She didn’t get fired! Maxi just realized that she’d be better in the office—”
    “Maximo’s would be fine, Mom.”
    Celia opened her door and walked to the back of the car, hoping her father would pop the trunk, but instead he got out and used the key. She tried to beat him to the suitcase, then pretended not to hear his groan as he lifted it.
    “Warren, you really should let Celie do that,” her mother clucked. “Remember your back.”
    Warren shook his head. “Cee Cee took the effort to come all the way here. The least I can do is help her with her luggage.” The two women hung back while he wrangled the bag onto the sidewalk and wheeled it to the front door.
    Celia followed her mother up the drive, then looked across the street. The house opposite had once been a famously easy mark for Girl Scout cookies and Multiple Sclerosis Read-a-Thon