When the Saints Read Online Free Page A

clean, then,” I lie.
    “I had to rip off all the tiles to get at the pipes.”
    “And you still didn’t manage to fix the pipes.”
    “You’re welcome to leave any time. Thought you’d left this morning when I woke up.”
    “You didn’t seem disappointed that I hadn’t.”
    “Well, anyway. Wipe the floor up when you’re done.”
    “What? A fancy place like this doesn’t have housekeeping service?”
    “The door’s through the kitchen.”
    “You home for supper?”
    “And lock up when you leave. I like my television.”
    I hang up and look out the window at a few scraggly trees I don’t know the name of. The leaves brushing up against the window are polka-dotted with brown holes and it reminds me of seeing Ma’s dress all chewed up in the closet.
    Ran out of town.
    I sit on the bed staring at my bare thighs and wonder what’s happening in Blood Rain. That’s the reserve I was living on for a while before I wore out my welcome. I was staying with this guy, Jared, but it didn’t work out between us. It wasn’t my fault, but they weren’t very nice to me when they had that big meeting. A medicine woman there told me I have a soul like a feather and if I don’t attach myself to something I’ll be floating forever. She said I needed to hang off a cliff or nearly drown to get some weight and when I told her no thanks, she said fine, float forever then. See if I care.
    She was probably hoping I’d kill myself by accident. It wouldn’t be the first time a stranger tried to put one over on me. I was in a taxicab once headed to a casino and the driver said, “Oh, you’re headed to the casino? You might not believe this, but I’m a psychic. If you promise to give me half of what you win, I’ll tell you where to put your money down.” I know, I know, it sounded like horseshit, but I can’t ignore anyone who claims to see the future. Like, if, instead of her floating feather crap, that medicine woman had told me I would someday be impaled by a flying candy cane, I swear I’d have been looking over my shoulder every Christmas. It all goes back to the big flood. A girl even younger than me ran all over school telling everyone to tie a boat to a tree and smoke ‘em if you got ‘em. It wasn’t even supposed to rain that night, and the next day half the town was standing on their rooftops.
    So I said to the cabbie, “All right, fine,” and he said, “Twenty-six.” I went in and put down every cent I had on the number twenty-six, and I couldn’t believe it, I won six hundred dollars. Iran whooping back out to the parking lot, handed over his share, and he laughed his ass off at me, said he had nothing to lose either way so he just pulled a number out of his ass. He said, “If you’d lost, I’d have known it as soon as I saw your face. I’d have just taken off and left you standing here.” Then he snorted. “Dumb bitch. If I had the power to see winning numbers, why the hell would I be driving this cab?” I stuck my face right up to his and said, “Buddy, if you hadn’t played your little trick, I wouldn’t have three hundred dollars in my pocket, so how about you take your half and go buy a whore to listen to this crap?”
    I take another quick glance at the trees before I stand up. As I’m pulling my clothes back on, I think about how Ma had her yellow dress on all the time because she liked the way it smelled like lemons and so did I. But maybe it just seemed like it smelled like lemons because it was so yellow.
    W EST COMES HOME AT A QUARTER AFTER MIDNIGHT. I had planned to greet him lounging naked on the sofa like Cleopatra, but he catches me while I’m rummaging around in his fridge with the cat under my arm, a piece of toast in the other hand and a smoke dangling from my lips.
    “I brought you a bouquet of beers,” he says.
    I kick the fridge door shut and drop the cat. “It must be our anniversary.”
    “People are talking.”
    “That’s nothing new.”
    “Everybody wants to