Sarah Read Online Free Page B

ready to take as a breeding sow!’
    The only problem is most girls know that when Mother Shapiro overreacts like that she’s just being protective and the coast is probably all in the clear.
    Now Sarah acts like she knows the dates too, and discusses bleeding with Mother. I think about going up to Mother and telling her how many millions of times I’ve heard Sarah scream how she hates the ‘plague.’
    Mother Shapiro would invite me over to their booth to share a caramelized kiwi and walnut tart tatin when she sees me hovering nearby. Mother Shapiro asks me about how my dates are going and Sarah rolls her eyes away from me when I answer. Despite myself I try to interest Sarah in some good gossip from the World News newspaper.
    ‘Said in the paper today that Elvis was really a hermaphrodite.’
    ‘Read it already,’ Sarah says and rolls her eyes again.
    ‘Now, now…’ Mother says. ‘You two should really try to get along. You’re family, aren’t you?’
    I realize by the way Sarah’s eyes dilate that even Mother doesn’t know exactly how we’re related.
    I slide out from the booth and before I walk away, I say with a small smile in a voice loud enough so those with good ears could hear, ‘She’s my mother.’
     
     
    I hope Mother Shapiro will send for me, invite me to her trailer to snuggle under the goose-down blankets from Hungary with the two of them. Instead no one sees either one of them for weeks.
    The candles in Mother’s trailer blaze at night and Mother’s broad outline can be seen lumbering past the drawn shades. It is said Sarah was taken with severe shock upon discovering she was my mother, and in public at that. All she could do was lie in bed and moan, while Mother Shapiro tended to her and tried to ply her with food.
    Bolly tells me, ‘She’s got a freezer in there the size of a mare farm trough. I’ve been filling it for her with specials, in case a famine should hit.’
    From outside their trailer I can smell reheated Appalachian foie gras with apple crisp in ver jus with grilled tender mango, and microwaved cider-cured spit-roasted pork loin with grilled figs and sweet Vidalia onion purée. Paxton is the only one who’s set foot in there in two weeks, and that was very briefly. He brought them over a Tupperware of osetra caviar dressing, which Mother had used her second sight to know Bolly had prepared.
    ‘That place is lit in hundreds of beeswax candles,’ Paxton said gravely. ‘Your mother,’ and I distinctly heard a tone of hostility directed at me as he said those words, ‘Is at death’s doorknob.’
    When I enter The Doves I notice an audible dip in the volume, which especially alarms me after reading that stuffed quail eggs braised in fresh huckleberries with English pea ravioli and miso-butter-poached chard is the day’s special. Even a loud smash-up in the lot right outside The Doves wouldn’t cause any notice to be taken when the menu was what it is today.
    ‘Accusing someone of being your mother is a very serious thing,’ Glad says to me sternly when I run back to the caravans in tears.
    ‘Are they gonna play Davy Crockett for me?’ I ask and put my head on Glad’s lap.
    ‘Oh no.’ His hands slide through my curls. ‘It just gonna take everyone a little time to get over it, that’s all.’
    I devote myself to proving I am not the inconsiderate scoundrel everyone thinks I am. I dedicate myself to being the best lot lizard ever, so one day I can walk in to The Doves with the grandest-ever raccoon penis bone and make the place hush in awe and respect.
     
     
    ‘On account of you being a greenhorn and two curves and a cuss fight away from entering your teenhood, it’s best,’ Glad says when I ask him why he’s sending me out on only one or two dates a night.
    All my john does is ohh and aww me, diddle me some, lick me like a lolly, and have me admire or laugh at the fuchsia French-cut underwear he has on under his worn-out jeans. I never get a chance to