Читать книгу Cumberland - Megan Gannon - Страница 17

Ten

Tuesday, July 9, 1974

29 days

Perfect for us the myth of Castor and Pollux, but which of us is the immortal? Which of us the boxer Pollux, which the horse-tamer Castor? Only once before, my hand under a peach-fuzzed muzzle, the fly-twitching flank, skin laid thinly over muscle. Mother holding me up to bottomless eyes, the smell of hot-animal hay, flat-fingered careful, wedge of an apple. What she said: He likes you. So me the mortal, saddled with flesh. She the everlasting fighter halving her life with me, but up against what enemy? Perhaps the pestilence Pandora let loose: Guilt, gone eyeless, grey lump of flesh. Lead-winged, it goes nowhere, sees nowhere to go. Or Accusation, scaled faceless finger pointing. Or is it, somehow, secretly sleeping, the serpent-curled, toothless, moon-eyed Envy. Hardly. Silly Izzy. Easier to envy a fish flap-flapping on a dock.

I haven’t used much of Izzy’s birthday money over the years, so even after I buy the canvas, acrylics, brushes, and lima-bean-shaped painter palette from Millard’s hardware store, most of the dollar bills from Grand and crisp twenties the Carson brothers have given us every year are still tucked inside her savings envelope.

I’m crossing onto Main Street when Everett rides up, his hair uncombed, his red t-shirt wrinkled and faded. He doesn’t say anything, just takes the paper bag from my hand and rides slowly along beside me. The two of us walking next to each other for all the world to see—the air feels thin in my lungs.

“Where’d you come from?” I ask, shifting the canvas to my other side so it’s not between us.

“Home. We’re on a corner, so my window overlooks Main Street. I saw you as soon as you walked past the library.”

“Oh.” He was watching out his window, watching for a reason—watching for me? He didn’t even brush his hair.

“So, I knew you read books about artists, but I didn’t know you painted.”

“I don’t… um, tell a lot of people.”

He nods, his eyes glowing, and I can’t look away.

“So are you going to be busy today? Painting?”

“Oh, these are for later. I’m not busy.”