Red - Jack Ketchum [5]
“You got any buyers for the store yet?”
“Not yet. Couple of feelers.”
“Okay, we’ll talk about that on Monday too. See what we might be able do. What the hell, right?”
“Sure. What the hell.”
And, arm over his shoulder, he steered Dean across the lawn.
~ * ~
When she got to Darlin’ her daughter had Danny Clapp’s face in both her hands and was pecking at him repeatedly on the mouth. The boy was in an agony of embarrassment as well he might be, tying to squirm away. Belle was furious.
“I told you! No more kissing! It’s…just inappropriate. Not to mention a good way to get yourself sick. I catch you at that again I’m gonna take you into the bathroom, you hear me?”
“‘Course I hear you, mama, you’re yelling in my ear!”
“You watch your mouth, little lady.”
This kissing thing. She hated it. There was something unnatural about it, she thought, something perverse.
It had started up only last year. And it wasn’t just Danny Clapp or other kids who were the target. Belle herself was, at first. She’d put a stop to that pretty quickly once she realized this was going to become some sort of thing with Darlin‘ and not some occasional show of endearment. She was not one of those mothers who avoided corporal punishment. That was just liberal foolishness — a spanking now and then could be just what the doctor ordered — though she trusted she dealt them out fairly and without any loss of control on her part.
But then this kissing behavior had shifted to Peggy. Even to Brian. Who brooked it exactly once and then, the second time, slapped her. More punishment. That time, for both of them.
Where the hell was Brian, anyway?
“Where’s your brother, Darlin‘?”
“I dunno. Where we going?”
“Into the house. You’re going to sit down and watch some TV. I think you’ve had quite enough of playing with the other kids for today. You have to learn some control, Darleen Cleek, if you‘re going to be part of this family. Control, you hear me? You can get yourself a ginger ale if you want one. I’ll call you when we’re ready to leave.”
“Aw, mama…”
She marched her into the living room, found the remote and turned on the Sims’ TV. Sally Sims was not going to mind. She sat Darlin’ in a chair in front of it and handed her the remote. Darlin’ took it from her mother with one hand and shoved the thumb of her other into her mouth.
Four years old and she was still sucking her thumb.
She’d always been oral as hell. Nursing her, Belle had been in nearly constant pain. Not like Peggy or Brian. The only worse one was the other one. The one they didn’t talk about.
“I don’t want to hear a peep out of you until I call you outside, that clear?”
“Yes, mama.” She was already flipping channels.
Her daughter was sweet but she had the attention span of a gnat.
Belle sighed and stepped out to rejoin the party.
~ * ~
Brian Cleek sat in the driveway propped against the Sims’ basketball post rolling his Spalding under the palm of his hand and drinking his lemonade and watching the three ten-year-olds devil little Jenny Diva.
Sammy and John were lanky and long-armed like him but Frankie was a fatass. In this case, being a fatass came in handy. They had her against the hedges and she didn’t have much wiggle-room.
‘C’mon,” Sammy said, “don’t be such a chickenshit.”
He pushed her back into the hedges just a little. Just enough make her aware she was more or less trapped there.
“Stop it!“ she said.
“Show it!” fatass Frankie said.
“Show what?”
Sammy pushed her a little harder. This time the bushes scratched her bare upper arms.
“Ow! Stop that!”
“Frankie’s right. Show it. C’mon.”
“What are you talking about?”
She really didn’t understand. Well, at ten, guys were way ahead of girls. For that matter at Brian’s age, thirteen, they still were. The common wisdom — at least as pronounced by his sister Peggy — was that at some point they caught up big time. But Brian had seen no evidence of that.
He finished his lemonade and set it down, got up and moved back over the macadam and dribbled awhile, watching them.
“Your bush, stupid,