Wild Stars Seeking Midnight Suns Read Online Free Page B

didn’t like to hear any romantic love songs, or even see romantic people together now. Thought women were dumb to believe in such things. Thought every man was a liar. But still, she lied too. Everyone is a liar, sometimes. But some are dangerous. You’re supposed to have sense enough to recognize which is which as often as possible. Then you can build your life better.
    Futila always answered, “I ain’t never gonna give him no divorce so he can go off with them bitches and they get what’s s’posed to be mine!!” One close old friend, from the drugstore days, said, “Well, they gettin it anyway, so evidently it ain’t yours. You ain’t got no education and you ain’t got him. Let him go! Let that man go so you can be free to find you some happiness. You killin yourself and every year that passes, you don’t look as good as you did yesterday. Leave while you have a chance! God is good, chile! He made the heart be able to love more than once or twice or even three times.”
    But Futila held to her thoughts. “I’ll never give him no divorce. I’ll never give him that satisfaction! He ain’t never gonna get rid of me!” And so she built her prison, and was locking her own self in!
    Dante never really got to know his wife, but his sureness of her constant, constant presence had changed any passion he could have had for her long ago. You can smother love, chile. Besides, she never showed him much. Her thoughts were all about him, and so were his. That interested him, but there is more to life, even to him.
    He loved “strange, new pieces” of sex. Let me tell you, I bet he had a strange piece at home in his wife he never got to.
    Now, in what he thought of as his fruitful life, his drab living lay out in front of him full of sex moments and boredom, just like his past. Except for his children. His life wasn’t as good as Futila thought it was. What he was, was a lonely man looking for love all in one place: between his legs. He thought he was having fun, and maybe he was, but any fool can have some fun; why not have some sense, too.
    At the same time, Futila didn’t know her husband. The love Futila thought she felt for Dante long ago, was fed by wanting someone she thought others wanted. Then, in time, jealousy, jeopardy, the dread of loss, and her pride in him instead of in herself, became her life and a symbol of her love. And all that time, Time was going by. I could be wrong, but I don’t think so. And I have to try to think because I am poor. Thinking is free! and it can work!
    Finally one day, tired of hearing the same complaints from Futila, one of her friends told her, “Hell, Futila, you ain’t gonna get what you want from Dante either. You ain’t nothin but a spy; you ain’t no wife, and you ain’t much woman either. You ain’t free from your own fears! Don’t nobody know what’s going to happen in their life, but don’t just stand there and cry about life! do something about it!”
    About that time Willa came home to visit and introduce her parents to her new husband, a doctor of anthropology with a minor in geology. He was very attentive to Willa. Futila was jealous. When they were alone, Futila told her sister, “He may be a doctor and everything, but he still ain’t nothin but a man!”
    Willa smiled, saying, “He can’t help that. I’m glad there are men on this earth, Futila. But they are not all the same, just like women are not all the same. It was up to me to choose carefully which one I want to deal with and love. He asked me to marry him and I was free to ask, seek, pay attention to everything about him I could. To learn, as much as possible, what kind of life we might have together. I was interested in his faults first, after I grew to love him, because I wanted to know if I could live with them. I decided I could.”
    Futila laughed a short, ugly laugh. “That don’t mean it’s gonna turn out right!”
    “No.” Willa shook her head. “You’re right. That is up to