Down Don't Bother Me (9780062362209) Read Free

impressive.”
    â€œI call it unnerving.”
    â€œThat too. She was talking earlier about her career. That’s the word she used, too. ‘Career.’ Said she might want to be a lawyer.”
    â€œOh, hell’s bells.”
    Peggy put her hand on my shoulder. “Environmental law, at least.”
    â€œSmall consolation.”
    â€œI think we’re at the point where small consolations are all we can hope for, Slim. Still, she’s something else.”
    â€œShe is,” I said, “but she’s had to grow up fast. Too fast, probably. And she’s had a lot put on her, and a lot of questions I can’t answer.”
    â€œIt’s a tough age,” Peggy said. She frowned a little at her thoughts. “And like to get tougher. I have some vague memories of those years, and let me tell you, it can be a hard time for a young woman who wants to turn herself into something.”
    â€œI do what I can.”
    â€œDarlin’, no offense, but that’s a little like turning a bull loose in the hatchery.”
    â€œSo you’ve settled on honesty for tonight.”
    â€œI try to be honest every night, Slim. Or at least good.”
    â€œOr very bad.”
    â€œDepends on the night, sugar,” she said. She lost herself again in her thoughts, then looked back up at me. “I don’t suppose I can get you to be serious for a moment?”
    â€œWell, since you went out of your way to put some icing on it.”
    â€œI mean it. I got something to tell you.”
    â€œOkay, I’ll be serious, too. Try to, anyway. What’s the story?”
    Before she could tell me, though, the door opened and Anci reappeared.
    She said, “My memory is we had a date.”
    â€œReality TV and YouTube videos,” I explained to Peggy.
    â€œLooks like it’s time to get back inside,” she said, collecting the cats who’d trailed outside after Anci and leaving it lie.
    I ’ll be honest, leaving it lie wasn’t really my thing. Never has been. When I die, they’ll probably chisel it on my headstone: Slim: Wouldn’t Leave It Lie .
    Long time ago, I’d married a hippie woman for love. And love her I did, and she loved me. Or so I believed. For a long time it was good, and I thought we’d beat the weary world and its cynical ways. I worked my kip at the Knight Hawk or wherever would have me. She practiced Reiki or sold magical stones or whatever was hitting the new age markets that year. In the end, she gave me both good and bad. The good was Anci. The bad was heartache. We’d been going along okay as a family until, one morning, just like that, she announced that she’d dissolved our marriage in a dream. She was done and ready to move on. More to the point, she’dtaken up with another guy, one who spoke her language or understood more fully the language of runes or the whispers of the earth or whatever it was. At first, I figured he was some kind of Svengali, maybe, that he’d put her under some kind of a spell, but you always want to let the ones you love off the hook or create an excuse for their badness. In the end, I had to face it: she was gone, and gone of her own will. She packed up our only car, and she and her new fella struck for the golden West and whatever spiritual quest awaited them.
    Situation like that, you want to spend some time—five or six years, maybe—staring at a wall and hoping an airplane lands on your bed. But when you’ve got a kid, you can’t do that. All of a sudden, there’s slack to pick up. Miles of slack. You’ve got to do all the cooking and cleaning and helping with homework. You’ve got to hold her hand and tell her everything’s going to be all right, that her mother didn’t leave because of her, and you have to keep telling her until she believes it. You wish there was someone around to tell you the same things, but there almost never is. I guess