Read Riven for Free Online Page B

Birdie, but I’m pretty sure I’ve got the guy for that. Unless you have experience. What did you say about experience?”
    “I didn’t. I don’t.”
    “But you love drama. Live theater.”
    “Well, I love movies, and I mean love ’em.”
    Nabertowitz looked crestfallen. “So, like, what, Terminator 2, Naked Gun ?”
    “Nah. I’m goin’ down the list of the best hundred ever and trying to see them all. My favorites? Of all time? The Verdict and, um, Deer Hunter. ”
    The drama teacher nodded and smiled with his mouth closed, then slapped both palms on the table and roared. “I get it! This is priceless! It’s a gag, right? Someone put you up to this! Who was it?”
    Brady shook his head. “You’ve lost me.”
    “C’mon! You come in here looking all retro—and, pardon me, but like a burnout—yet your two favorite movies just happen to be mine, too, and you expect me to believe . . . ?”
    “You pulling my chain?” Brady said.
    “No! You’re pulling mine! I love it! Okay, quiz time. Tell me your favorite picture this year.”
    “I’d have to think about it.”
    “Of course you would. Until you remember what someone told you mine was. Come on, there’s lots to choose from. Crystal and Martin have comedies out. Costner as a really bad Robin Hood. The Jodie Foster–Anthony Hopkins vehicle that’ll probably win it all.”
    “ Fried Green Tomatoes actually.”
    Nabertowitz leaped from his chair. “I love it! You’re good! Now who?”
    “Who?”
    “Who set me up? This is priceless.”
    “Listen, I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t know you or anybody who knows you, and I feel like you’re laughing at me.”
    “What’re you, serious?” Nabertowitz said, sitting back down.
    “Dog-dyin’ serious.”
    “I like that line. Now, are you swearing on a stack of Bibles no one told you that the three pictures you just mentioned include two of my all-time favorites and my favorite from this year?”
    “How many times do I have to say it?”
    The teacher finally fell silent and just stared. “All right,” he said at last, “pop quiz. Tell me what you liked best about each of those pictures.”
    Brady leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “Can’t pick just one thing about Deer Hunter. The acting was dead-on. The torture scenes were like you were right there. Everybody was good. Streep was fantastic. But, okay, favorite? Christopher Walken when he was, you know, shell-shocked.”
    In Brady’s peripheral vision, Clancy Nabertowitz sat nodding. “Where have you been all my life?”
    “The other two? I just think Newman was at his best in The Verdict. But mostly I like movies that aren’t afraid to be quiet.”
    The teacher cursed in a whisper. “You’re going to make me cry. Tell me one more time this isn’t a put-on.”
    “Ask me that again and I’ll punch you in your face.”
    Nabertowitz held up both hands. “I believe you. It’s just . . . I work with a lot of great kids. But what do they love this year? City Slickers, Addams Family, Sleeping with the Enemy, Father of the Bride. ”
    “Those were okay.”
    “But you know what I mean.”
    “’Course I do,” Brady said. “There’s good, and there’s great.”
    “What’d you say your name was again?”
    Brady told him.
    “Your last name’s an anagram of your first. How quaint. Was that on purpose?”
    “I don’t even know what that means, so I doubt it.”
    “You must audition today, Brady. Tell me you will.”
    “If you think I should. Like I said, I got no experience.”
    The teacher tossed him a script. “Speed-read. Everyone else knows what they want to try out for. And as I said, the role of Birdie is set.”
    Oldenburg
    Thomas Carey found himself relieved that Paul Pierce had not joined the swarm from the church that was busy transforming the parsonage from a hovel to a cottage. He was twenty-sixth-mile exhausted, and Grace looked the same, but it had to warm her heart as it did his to have so many