Читать книгу The Leftovers - Том Перротта - Страница 12

JILL AND AIMEE HEADED OUT right after dinner, cheerfully informing Kevin that they didn’t know where they were going, what they were doing, who they would be with, or when they might be home.

“Late,” was all Jill could tell him.

“Yeah,” agreed Aimee. “Don’t wait up.”

“It’s a school night,” Kevin reminded them, not bothering to add, as he sometimes did, that it was odd how going nowhere and doing nothing could take up so much time. The joke just didn’t seem that funny anymore. “Why don’t you try to stay sober for once? See what it’s like to wake up in the morning with a clear head.”

The girls nodded earnestly, assuring him that they had every intention of heeding this excellent advice.

“And be careful,” he continued. “There are a lot of freaks out there.”

Aimee grunted knowingly, as if to say that no one needed to tell her about freaks. She was wearing kneesocks and a short cheerleader skirt—light blue, not the maroon and gold of Mapleton High—and had deployed her usual unsubtle arsenal of cosmetics.

“We’ll be careful,” she promised.

Jill rolled her eyes, unimpressed by her friend’s good-girl act.

“You’re the biggest freak of all,” she told Aimee. Then, to Kevin, she added, “She’s the one people need to watch out for.”

Aimee protested, but it was hard to take her seriously, given that she looked less like an innocent schoolgirl than a stripper halfheartedly pretending to be one. Jill gave the opposite impression—a scrawny child playing dress-up—in her cuffed jeans and the oversized suede coat she’d borrowed from her mother’s closet. Kevin experienced the usual mixed feelings seeing them together: a vague sadness for his daughter, who was so clearly the sidekick in this duo, but also a kind of relief rooted in the thought—or at least the hope—that her unprepossessing appearance might function as a form of protective camouflage out in the world.