The Riverman (The Riverman Trilogy) Read Free

whisper to one another. Sometimes our moms would giggle.
    We whispered too. “Let’s trick them,” Fiona said one afternoon. “Pretend a nuclear bomb fell. And we’re melting ’cause of the radiation.”
    “What’s a new clear bomb?” I asked.
    “Just pretend you’re melting,” she said.
    We flopped onto our backs and writhed in the grass, and I remember my dad started cracking up, but Fiona’s dad said, “Don’t encourage her. She takes things too far. She thinks the world is a joke.”
    That was one of the last occasions when our parents hung out together. For reasons I didn’t know at the time, they drifted apart, but those words stuck with me for years. Even on that Sunday, as I waited for her to show up, I wondered if the world was still a joke to Fiona. Was that what her so-called birthday present was? A joke?
    Luckily the afternoon was mild and calm and there were things to distract me from such thoughts. I raked the leaves. I kicked a soccer ball against the house’s one patch of exposed foundation. I sat cross-legged on the roof of our minivan and counted the cars as they passed.
    Five more cars and she’ll be here.
    Make that seven more.
    Fifteen cars more and I go inside.
    No Fiona.

 
    M ONDAY , O CTOBER 16
     
    It was back to school the next day, and Charlie sat by me at lunch, which limited the social options. Charlie was tolerated more than liked. Kids had given up on teasing him back in fifth grade when it became obvious that you can call a guy Captain Catpoop all you want, but if he embraces the name by having it ironed onto his own T-shirt, he basically has you beat.
    As Kelly Dubois walked past, her tray supporting a mountain of chicken nuggets, Charlie asked me, “You think she does it?”
    “Does what?”
    “It.” He pounded his fists on the table like he was demanding dinner. “Ba-dush, ba-dush, ba-dush. Wokka wokka wokka.”
    I hate to admit it, but I smiled. One thing that Charlie possessed was a talent for making funny sounds, which didn’t exactly redeem his obnoxiousness, but tempered it a bit. He was eager to shock and eager to please, a combination that tugged sympathies in every direction. My sympathies, at least. Girls weren’t as conflicted.
    So when a girl-shaped shadow swooped onto the Formica, I assumed Charlie was in for rolled eyes and a diagnosis of disgusting pig . I turned to see Fiona, brown bag in hand.
    “Am I interrupting?” she asked, pulling out a chair.
    “Not at all. We were talking about Kelly Dubois and her nocturnal proclivities,” Charlie said through a nasty grin.
    It would take a lot more than that to scare Fiona away. She sat down and said, “Okay. Not sure what that means.”
    “Whatever you want it to mean,” Charlie told her as he stripped aluminum foil off of his can of soda.
    “I don’t want it to mean anything,” Fiona replied. “Why don’t you go over and ask Kelly what it means to her? I’m sure she’d be thrilled with your company. While you’re at it, you can tell her why you wrap your soda in foil.”
    Charlie shook his head. “Keeps it cold, darlin’.”
    “Something new every day.” Fiona smiled and dug deep in her sack to find a Ziploc of Oreos. She began twisting off the tops.
    “Why are you here?” Charlie asked. “Don’t you usually sit with the Wart Woman and Fishy Fay-Renee?”
    The unfortunate soul known as the Wart Woman was Kendra Tolliver, a tomboy who fielded a bumper crop of warts on the fingers of her left hand. Some kids claimed that if she touched you, warts would sprout at the point of contact. Some kids even believed it.
    As for Fishy Fay-Renee, that was Fay-Renee Donleavy. She had braces and wore turtleneck sweaters. I have no idea why she had two first names. I have no idea why she was considered fishy . She probably ordered a fish sandwich once in the lunch line or something stupid like that.
    Fiona sighed as she peeled the cream from one Oreo and placed it on the cream of another. “I will