Two-Thousand-Pound Goldfish Read Online Free Page A

stand in the middle of the floor, his teeth clamped tightly together, wondering where his sister was, what she was doing. He had the feeling she was contacting his mother, phoning her, maybe even going to see her. He struck an imaginary windowsill.
    “You ready?”
    “Yes.”
    He went out of the apartment and down the stairs behind his grandmother. She took the steps slowly, one by one, like a child.
    Warren paused on the landing. He put on his aviator sunglasses, hiding the fury in his eyes. Never before, in all the years of his mother’s absence—years in which he had missed her and longed for her and wept more tears for her than anybody—never in all those years had he even considered the possibility of finding her. If he had thought it was possible he would have been roaming the earth like a nomad.
    And now Weezie had—
    “Come on. I hear the bus,” his grandmother called up, holding the door open. “It’s coming.”
    He ran down the rest of the steps and out onto the sidewalk. His grandmother was at the curb, ready to board.
    And now, he thought, Weezie had done that. She had somehow found their mother, had talked to her, maybe at this very moment was on her way to see her.
    “How’s it going?” his grandmother asked the driver as she climbed up. She always sat behind the driver, ignoring the signs, and spent the time chatting. “My daughter Pepper’s having us to dinner. You know Pepper?” she asked as she settled herself in the side seat.
    “No’m.”
    “She rides this bus—a tall girl, light red hair?”
    “Lots of redheads on this route.”
    “I thought you might remember her because when she was living in New York she had a part in a soap opera.”
    “My wife might. She watches all them shows.”
    “I remember when Pepper got the part. I sat back and thought, Well, now I’ll have the pleasure of watching my daughter every afternoon. She’ll get married and divorced and go crazy and attempt suicide. Only guess what?”
    The driver shook his head.
    “She was on seven episodes and got killed in a car crash. Burned up. They never found the body.”
    “My, my.”
    “For a while I hoped she didn’t really get killed, just thrown clear of the wreck and was wandering around somewhere with amnesia. Only it’s been three years now, so I guess it won’t happen.”
    “Don’t look like it.”
    “I have two daughters.” She glanced sideways at Warren. “The other daughter’s a singer in—Oh, here’s our stop.” She got up and Warren followed. She went down the steps slowly. “I got bad legs,” she explained to the driver.
    “Take your time,” he answered.
    They walked the block to Pepper’s apartment while his grandmother talked about bus drivers. She liked them. No bus driver had ever—in her fifty years of riding buses—been rude to her.
    She shuffled along the sidewalk. She wore her best bedroom slippers. “And I’m not the ideal fare,” she admitted. “I don’t get on fast. Half the time I don’t have the right change. I—” She paused to ring the bell to Pepper’s apartment.
    “Come on in,” Pepper called. “I’m cooking.”
    “That’s encouraging. Usually she’s defrosting.”
    “Grandma!”
    Grandma felt her way to the sofa and put her swollen legs up on the coffee table. “You two socialize,” she said. “I’ll rest.”
    Warren went into the kitchen where Aunt Pepper was reading the instructions on a package of frozen lasagna. “Sit down,” she said with a grin, “and tell me about your latest movie.” Aunt Pepper was the only person who was really interested in his plots. “I hope there’s a good part for me.”
    “It’s about a goldfish,” he said without his usual enthusiasm.
    “What is this? Some sort of a nature study?”
    “No, it’s a two-thousand-pound goldfish. See, it got flushed into the sewer and has grown to enormous size because of a chemical in the water.”
    “I like that.”
    “You like them all.”
    “No, no, I did not