Read After the Rain for Free Online Page B

thought. He squinted and saw it was a little double-bladed ax.
    “Girls, girls.” Gordy tried acting big and easy and gracious. Coming forward, the peacemaker.
    “Girls! ” hissed the redhead. “You see any fucking girls around here?”
    “Mom!” The little girl made a face.
    Gordy swallowed and said, mollifying: “Ladies.”
    “I’ll settle for the ladies room, ” said the redhead, raising her eyebrows.
    “Ah, that door past the pinball machine.”
    Ace eyed Gordy, who raised a reassuring hand. “No problem, I cleaned it this morning.”
    Ace nodded and turned his attention to the kid, who was around six or seven, in beat-up tennies, shorts, a yellow T-shirt with North Shore printed across the chest. She was angular like her mom, with the same freckles and the same thick, burnt-crimson hair, but longer, pulled back in a ponytail. Dejected, she plopped down on a chair at the table and folded her arms across her chest.
    The dark-haired one lit a cigarette. The kid waved her hand in disgust, got up, stalked across the empty bar, past where Ace stoodand brooded at the pinball machine in the corner. She went up on tiptoes and studied the glassed-in bumpers and lights. Touched the flippers on the side.
    Aware of Ace watching her, she asked, “What kind of video game is this?”
    Ace was impressed. Cool kid. Staying focused through all this bullshit. He smiled. “Well, it ain’t a video game. This is what you call a machine. Got no computer in it. There’s springs and pulleys and stuff like that.”
    The girl made a face. “Springs?”
    “Yeah, you put in a quarter, pull that knob, and these five ball bear—”
    “ Kit! ”
    The dark-haired one hurled it with a sharp huff to her voice, almost like a snort, like when a doe warns a fawn.
    The girl smiled tightly and stepped away.
    “Not supposed to talk to strangers, huh? That’s good. Tell my own kids like that,” Ace said with a nod, leaning back.
    The mom came out of the john. Her hands busy around her waist in a reflex, tucking in an imaginary shirt. The dark-haired one got up and approached her. “Well,” she said.
    “There was a theater in town, maybe you two could take in a show.” Eyes darting. Still some mad in her voice, dismissive.
    “While we’re taking in a show, where are you going to be?”
    “Here maybe. I’ll hang out for a while. I need some time to think about things.”
    “Things.”
    “Us. You and me. I need some time to think about us,” said the redhead.
    To Ace the words were barbed. Like big muskie lures swishing in the air. Whatever they had going had burst through normal restraints.
    “You bitch,” said the dark-haired one. “I took time off work. Iwalked out on Debbie to play nursemaid to you. Now you’re sliding back into it.” She shook her finger in the redhead’s face. “Hang out here, huh? And drink, right?” She stuck a finger in the redhead’s face. “You’re the one who has to get drunk to tolerate sex with a man, remember.”
    The redhead slapped the hand away. A crisp focused slap that cracked like a whip and brought Ace forward on the balls of his feet.
    “No, please,” the kid cried.
    The dark-haired one seized the redhead by the arm and yanked her toward the door. The redhead resisted, they began to shove each other. The kid screamed, got between them and both women tried to move her out of the way. Tug-of-war.
    The kid came away wincing with red Indian burns on her arm.
    The dark-haired one was coiled to hit back but Ace was up and moving, amazingly light on his feet for a man with a bellyful of hot hangover gravel. Going in, he noticed that the old guy at the bar had put down his beer bottle and stood, hands loose at his sides, watching in a certain way.
    “Hey, take it outside,” Gordy yelled.
    “Mom. C’mon, let’s go,” yelled the kid, grabbing at her mother’s arm.
    “Not now, okay? Just, not now,” the redhead said. Then, in an eruption of nerves, she shoved her daughter away.