Bright Shards of Someplace Else Read Free

all true; Grace had done just that. Her mother had thought, in her addled state, that the newly drawn-up will was a petition for freeing the whales from Sea World.
    But Grace and Susan had been feuding so long that everything could be framed as a justifiable retaliation. Their bad blood predated everything. Susan stole her boyfriends, turned relatives against her, tried to get her involuntarily committed. Grace had come back with restraining orders, countersuits, and most recently had hired a private investigator to find dirt. She was disappointed with Greg’s find.He was no better an investigator than he was a lover, apparently. Still, the private Catholic girls’ school Susan worked at might be troubled by the Girl Scout thing. She stirred her drink and began rehearsing, under her breath, what she might say on Susan’s voicemail. “St. Victoria’s might be interested to learn that their 2000 Administrator of the Year awardee hasn’t always been so upstanding …” Ugh. Thin gruel. It would take more than that to rattle Sue.
    The boy was—remarkably—still on the phone when Grace returned. He was scribbling on her bill and his expression was that of Renaissance cherub. He beamed and chuckled into the receiver. She could hear a woman’s warm voice trilling a laugh. “I’m so glad we had this talk,” the boy said, convincingly earnest, chewing on the pen cap. His lacy eyelashes quivered, and he rubbed the underside of his nose with his index finger, playing his nostrils like a fiddle. “Bye now.” He set the phone on its charger so softly it didn’t make a click, then pulled up his empty juice box and did a staccato slurp on the straw.
    â€œWell? How’d it go?”
    â€œI got the charges off the bill. And I redid your contract so you now have unlimited minutes and it’ll cost less than what you were already paying.”
    â€œReally?” Grace figured the boy was lying or simply confused. No way could the boy have done what he’d said.
    â€œReally. And it wasn’t even hard. It was boring. Kid stuff.” He sneezed into his sleeve. “The representative started talking to me about her life and her kids and junk. Her name’s Tracy and she said my call made her day.” He squeezed the juice bladder in his fist. “You can call the automated system and check if you don’t believe me. It’s okay if you don’t believe me. Most people don’t. I won’t be mad.”
    Grace studied the boy. She wanted him to see that she wasn’t just another skeptical, unimaginative adult. She was different.
    She
felt
different, alright. Her cup seemed to have lightened to the point that it was floating off her hand, pulling her arm up with it. Why did she suddenly care what the kid thought?
    â€œI believe you,” she began, lurching toward the phone with her cup held above both of them. “But I’m going to check anyhow.” She pressed redial and hit the menu buttons while the boy watched like a master observing a fumbling apprentice; he whispered “just hit zero” when she accidentally got to the wrong part of the menu and had to start over to get to her billing statement. A sensual and robotic voice reported in perfect deadpan that the boy had done it. Zero on her balance and forty dollars per month.
    â€œWow, kid … color me impressed.” She was now sitting next to him on the couch, the phone between them on the cushion. He had grabbed his video game again and his thumbs twitched on the buttons with what seemed to her a virtuosity. She had been really dreading making that call, and now it was all taken care of, just like that. This small relief was like a shot of clean oxygen in a deep cave. “Andy,” she began. “Would you like to make another call?”
    â€œOnly if it’s tougher.”
    â€œIt’s tougher. I owe some money. A few thousand, in fact. I need you