The Sea of Light Read Online Free

bad real estate, phony ID’s. But exposure to genuine quality unnerves him. “Hear anything about the other kid, Hedenmeyer? Now he was a big animal, that boy would’ve dark-horsed it at the Trials. They say nowadays he can blink okay as long as they don’t unplug him. If you ask me it’s a crime they kept him alive in the first place. They removed a lot of that kid, just to keep him going on some fucking machine.” At the water fountain he drinks, splashing his chin and shirt front, talking all the time. “But the girl pulled through okay, didn’t she? Or is that what we’re waiting to find out?”
    “We?”
    “Well excuse me ! Look, Bren, I’d have given my left molar for Kenny Hedenmeyer. Shit, I’d have given my jaw bone for either one of them. But if I’d done that I’d be in a different division, and I wouldn’t be able to talk the ears off these fucking delinquents I’ve got swimming for me here. Anyway, let me know how it goes.”
    “I will.”
    “Do that, girl. Let me know.”
    He storms down the hall, pounds on doors to annoy people. Out of one flies a paper airplane, aimed perfectly at the bald spot on his head.
    *
    I duck through an exit, sit on the landing that smells unused, faintly damp with leftover summer and sweat. An image of Boz mouthing silent yelps against the living room window as I drive away rises up inside so that, for a moment, I want to say it out loud: May I stop now, please? But there’s this interview. I head down a flight.
    Bob Lewison’s door is open, the walls trophy-cluttered, Lewison himself sunk deep into some text propped amid the mess on his desk. Everything in the room is askew. Not like the neat and orderly lines of an obsessive-compulsive’s office. Everything’s a little too large for the space—unlike Lewison, who is slight and rail-thin. An economy model, McMullen calls him, snickering. An economy model of man, old Bob.
    They’ve never really liked each other.
    “You look tired, Bren.”
    “Thanks. That’s the nicest thing I’ve heard all day.”
    “Rough summer?”
    “Something like that.”
    He closes the book, pats it like a shoulder. “Tell me about it. My cross-country squad’s in leg casts. Last month I missed an alimony payment. My kids aren’t talking to me. And MasterCard wants five thousand bucks. That’s the good news.”
    Our hands meet across the desk, squeeze. I mumble the thing I always mumble with him: Poor Bob. Ah, business as usual, he tells me, what about you? and then I’m stuck. Hoisted on my own petard of lying secrecy— privacy, Kay called it, but that was a euphemism.
    It’s been a hell of a time, I say vaguely. Family business.
    “Anything I can do? Just let me know.”
    But I shake my head. Then grin the weary, wary grin that lets him off whatever hook is always swinging there between us, the grin Kay told me was handsome and bright and full of warning.
    “You know, you’re a good-looking woman. You’re good-looking even when you’re tired.” It’s shy, kind. Ancient discomfort, a mix of regret and panic, makes me pull my hand away. Say something diplomatic now. For all the boys and men in my life—well-meaning, virile, clumsy—whom I could not and would not love. Spilled beer suds, graceless dancing. Kisses and caresses that, after a while, I no longer even attempted. He’s trapped there in the too-long silence. Again I set him free of the hook, saying, Well, that is definitely the nicest thing I’ve heard all day.
    Bob lands with alacrity. On his feet, and smiling.
    “Since I’m scoring so many points, then, would you mind me making a suggestion?”
    “Go ahead.”
    “Before this girl shows up, gag McMullen and shove him in a closet somewhere.”
    “Does everyone know?”
    “Pete’s been intercepting your mail for weeks. But I’m rooting for you. And another thing.”
    “What, Bob?”
    “Get some rest,” he says, so gently it’s a surprise. “Get some rest, quit driving yourself. None of this