Little Blue Lies Read Free Page B

smart?”
    â€œHe is smart, Dad. Shut up.”
    â€œAnyway, yeah, like I was saying, ah, the life Junie’s leading these days, you wouldn’t recognize it. She does stuff, youwouldn’t believe it. Party stuff, guys . . . whoo the guys . . .”
    I am boiling. I hate it when I’m boiling, because I have a face that announces to the whole world I am boiling. Fuchsia, I believe is the color.
    â€œLook, he’s boilin’,” Ronny says, pointing and laughing like I’m in a glass display case.
    â€œShe does nothin’ , O,” Maxine says. “Don’t listen to this guy. Nothin’. No guys, nothin’. She works the stupid store, she walks the dumb dogs. That’s it.”
    The joy rising in my guts now, chasing the flush right out of my face, is something I should not be proud of. She should have a life. She deserves a life, and a fantastic one.
    And she should be here.
    â€œWhere did she go, Ronny?” I ask with the slight crunch of demand in my voice that is never a good idea with this man.
    â€œI told you,” he snarls, “vacation.”
    I turn to Maxine, my palms upturned to catch some help.
    â€œNo idea, O. I just got home. Why don’t you just call her?”
    Ronny laughs and points a bread stick at me, and I realize the extra awfulness of making his day like I am.
    â€œBecause I’m a dope,” I say, pulling out my phone and pressing her number.
    In a couple of seconds the room tinkles with small music. Small music and big laughter.
    The music sounds just like one of those little kids’ plinky toy pianos, playing “Hello, Dolly!” Junie’s ring tone. The laughter is Ronny.
    â€œJune’s phone,” I say, looking all around, at the counter and the floor and the Blues across the bar from me, because that’s where the sound is coming from.
    Maxine turns sideways in her chair, scowls, and reaches down into the vicinity of Ronny’s back pocket. When she produces the phone and he produces a higher volume of laughter, she biffs him right on the side of the head with the phone.
    â€œWas it you? Texting me?” I ask him.
    That sucks the mirth right out of him. “Hell, no,” he snaps. “I don’t think so.”
    â€œWhere is she?” I shout. I don’t care how angry or violent he gets now, because this is not the way it should be going. “Junie never ever goes anywhere without her phone. She doesn’t go to the bathroom without her phone. She doesn’t even shower without it.”
    â€œAnd you would know these things how?”
    â€œCome on , Ronny. I’m really getting worried here.”
    â€œDon’t get worried. You got nothing to worry about. You know why? ’Cause you got no business with my daughter anymore.”
    â€œChrist, just tell him where she is, Dad.”
    Maxine seems utterly unconcerned, which should relax me some but relaxes me none.
    â€œShe is on vacation, just like I said.”
    â€œWhere on vacation? Who with?”
    â€œListen,” Ronny says, standing up. The way a guy stands up. You need to take notice when a guy stands up that way, especially a guy like Ronny. “I have to politely point out that you are out of line. That, lest you forget, my daughter dumped you and she has a life of her own and it is none of your damn business where she goes or who she goes with. I have to politely point out that you are entitled to none of the information you are demanding, but I will tell you she left here a short while ago in the company of a man, and I point this out only because it pleases me to do so. And now I will politely point you in the direction of the exit.”
    â€œPolite my ass,” Maxine says, shoving her father back down onto his seat and walking around to my side of the bar. She takes me by the arm as we walk to the door.
    â€œSorry about that, O,” she says. “You know how he is. If I