Kiss Read Free Page B

much the opposite of classic beauty that she made you see her own brand of beauty in her blazing youth.
    She stood up behind the counter, though it was hardly noticeable, and said, “Can I help you?” There was a lilt to her voice, maybe a midwestern drawl.
    “I’m looking for Kearny Williams,” Carver said.
    Birdie’s smile kept splitting her features, causing the flesh at the corners of her eyes to crinkle in a parody of crow’s feet. People like her never really appeared old; they simply faded and reminded other people that time was passing. “Uh-hm, we got a Mr. Williams here. You a relative?”
    “Friend of a friend. My name’s Fred Carver. Tell Mr. Williams I knew Sam Cusanelli.”
    Birdie’s blue eyes widened and her sadness absorbed her smile. “Shame about Mr. Cusanelli,” she said. “He was a nice man. I’d say that about most any of the residents, I guess, but it really was true of Mr. Cusanelli. How well did you know him?”
    “Very well, when he was younger.”
    She was smiling again, waiting for Carver to say more. He didn’t.
    “I see,” she said. A man and a woman wearing white uniforms bustled past, discussing something earnestly, oblivious of where they were. The man mumbled, “. . . a drop in the white cell count,” and the woman nodded thoughtfully. The old woman in the chair lolled her head and tried to lift a hand to wave but was ignored.
    Birdie said, “Well, I s’pose it’s okay.” She pointed; her thin arm was freckled and dusted with reddish down. “Go on through that door and down the hall, then turn left and you’ll come to Mr. Williams’s room. I’m sure he’s there; he’s most always there.” She consulted a chart on a clipboard. “Room number’s one.”
    “Easy to remember,” Carver said.
    “Not for Mr. Williams sometimes.”
    Carver said thanks and left her to return to her magazine. It had to do with heavy-metal rock stars. There was a glossy cover illustration of an insanely grinning thirtyish man dressed as an English schoolboy and aiming his elaborate guitar like a rifle. Birdie seemed enthralled by the magazine’s contents. Her lips moved soundlessly as she read.
    A teenager with an MTV mind as a receptionist in an old-folks’ home. Well, why not? The place needed a fresh bloom in the midst of all the faded petals.
    As Carver made his way cautiously over the slick tiled floor toward the wide door Birdie had pointed out, the door swung toward him and a heavyset woman wearing a uniform like the receptionist’s wheeled a very old man in a chrome wheelchair into the lobby. Like the woman in the rocking chair, he was held firmly in place by a knotted sheet around his midsection. His head wobbled and a gleaming thread of saliva dangled from his chin, catching the light. Carver quickly looked away; here was the future for each generation’s survivors. It was something nobody of any age liked to think about, but it was there like cold, black reality on every life’s horizon.
    He pushed open the swinging door with the tip of his cane and went through. Walked down the hall as Birdie had directed and made a left turn. He had to limp only a few feet before he came to a pastel blue door with a gold numeral 1 painted on it. Again using the cane, he knocked.
    “. . . on in,” called a voice from the other side.
    Carver rotated the knob and entered a small, sunny room furnished with a bed, a limed oak dresser, and a tiny color TV that was tuned soundlessly to a morning game show. A pretty blond woman on the screen spun an oversized roulette wheel, closed her eyes, and crossed the fingers of both hands. In front of the TV was a brown vinyl chair in which sat a broad, muscular man with wide, squared features. Moving with a difficulty and stiffness that revealed his advanced age, he stood up and turned to face Carver. He had a sacklike stomach paunch, and his throat was scarred and withered from a recent operation. His thick gray hair was precisely and severely