Stranger Things Happen Read Free Page A

he
searches every room. When he stands on the back veranda, staring
out over the interior of the island, he imagines he sees a group of
people, down beside the far shore, waving at him. The sky begins to
fall.
    #
    Dear Araminta? Kiki? Lolita? 
Still doesn't have the right ring to it, does it? Sukie? Ludmilla?
Winifred?
    I had that same not-dream about the faculty party again. She was
there, only this time you were the one who recognized her, and I
was trying to guess her name, who she was. Was she the tall blonde
with the nice ass, or the short blonde with the short hair who kept
her mouth a little open, like she was smiling all the time? That
one looked like she knew something I wanted to know, but so did
you. Isn't that funny? I never told you who she was, and now I
can't remember. You probably knew the whole time anyway, even if
you didn't think you did. I'm pretty sure you asked me about that
little blond girl, when you were asking.
    I keep thinking about the way you looked, that first night we
slept together. I'd kissed you properly on the doorstep of your
mother's house, and then, before you went inside, you turned around
and looked at me. No one had ever looked at me like that. You
didn't need to say anything at all. I waited until your mother
turned off all the lights downstairs, and then I climbed over the
fence, and up the tree in your backyard, and into your window. You
were leaning out of the window, watching me climb, and you took off
your shirt so that I could see your breasts, I almost fell out of
the tree, and then you took off your jeans and your underwear had a
day of the week embroidered on it, Holiday? and then you took off
your underwear too. You'd bleached the hair on your head yellow,
and then streaked it with red, but the hair on your pubis was black
and soft when I touched it.
    We lay down on your bed, and when I was inside you, you gave me
that look again. It wasn't a frown, but it was almost a frown, as
if you had expected something different, or else you were trying to
get something just right. And then you smiled and sighed and
twisted under me. You lifted up smoothly and strongly as if you
were going to levitate right off the bed, and I lifted with you as
if you were carrying me and I almost got you pregnant for the first
time. We never were good about birth control, were we, Eliane?
Rosemary? And then I heard your mother out in the backyard, right
under the elm I'd just climbed, yelling "Tree? Tree?"
    I thought she must have seen me climb it. I looked out the
window and saw her directly beneath me, and she had her hands on
her hips, and the first thing I noticed were her breasts, moonlit
and plump, pushed up under her dressing gown, fuller than yours and
almost as nice. That was pretty strange, realizing that I was the
kind of guy who could have fallen in love with someone after not so
much time, really, truly, deeply in love, the forever kind, I
already knew, and still notice this middle-aged woman's tits. Your
mother's tits. That was the second thing I learned. The third thing
was that she wasn't looking back at me. "Tree?" she yelled one last
time, sounding pretty pissed.
    So, okay, I thought she was crazy. The last thing, the thing I
didn't learn, was about names. It's taken me a while to figure that
out. I'm still not sure what I didn't learn, Aina? Jewel? Kathleen?
but at least I'm willing. I mean, I'm here still, aren't I?
    Wish you were here, You know who.
    #
    At some point, later, the dead man goes down to the mailbox.
The water is particularly unwaterlike today. It has a velvety nap
to it, like hair. It raises up in almost discernable shapes. It is
still afraid of him, but it hates him, hates him, hates him. It
never liked him, never. "Fraidy cat, fraidy cat," the dead man
taunts the water.
    When he goes back to the hotel, the loolies are there. They
are watching television in the lobby. They are a lot bigger than he
remembers.
    #
    Dear Cindy, Cynthia, Cenfenilla,
There are some people