A Ticket to Ride Read Online Free PDF

Fitzgerald” and knew it word for word. When “Spanish Moss” came around, Fawn began to hum and then to sing properly, her throat loosing notes so low and so mournful I thought I might cry on the spot. When she’d finished, Raymond clapped his right hand lightly against the steering wheel. Generally I was too shy to sing in front of other people, but Fawn’s voice swept me up and carried me along with it. And as soon as I opened my mouth, I knew it was going to be okay. She wouldn’t make fun of me and neither would Raymond, because I sounded great. Together, Fawn and I sounded better than great. For the rest of the ride home we listened to the Jesus Christ Superstar sound track, pulling into the drive just as “I Don’t Know How to Love Him” was hitting its stride. Instead of turning the truck off, Raymond sat patiently and let us belt out “I never thought I’d come to this, what’s it all about?” to the darkened cab. He seemed to get a kick out of watching us sing, out of seeing us having a good time. It was the best day Raymond and I had had together, no contest, and I wondered if he knew too that it was all Fawn’s doing.
    The next day Raymond went back to work, and Fawn and I were left in the house to figure each other out. Raymond was part of a contracted crew that mostly did roadwork for the state of Illinois. He wrangled school bus–colored earthmovers and backhoes, trenchers and dozers, ripping up concrete or laying asphalt on Interstate 80. Sometimes he simply raked down the median on a big John Deere bar-cutter mower.
    “He really works outside all day?” Fawn asked me incredulously. We were painting our toenails for the second time that morning, our feet perched on the side of the coffee table, cotton balls between our splayed toes.
    “I think he likes being outside,” I said, daubing at my nearly invisible pinky nail with the wet brush and flubbing it. “He says he wouldn’t want to have to be at a desk wearing a suit and tie.”
    “Men look great in suits. Middle-aged men, anyway.” Fawn looked at my handiwork and grimaced. “I’d better save you from yourself,” she said. Taking up the polish remover and a Q-tip, she held my foot in her lap and went around the nails with a light but precise stroke, all of my swerving outside the lines disappearing. “Raymond’s pretty good-looking, don’t you think?” Fawn mused. “He could probably be a model or something. One of those guys in the Sears catalog wearing a flannel shirt and holding a shovel. Lumberjack guy.”
    I nodded, laughing. Raymond was handsome, I had to agree, but I had never tried to imagine him doing anything other than what he did, being anyone other than my uncle Raymond—though who that was exactly remained pretty murky territory.
    “Do you ever look at the underwear sections in those catalogs? Men’s underwear is so stupid. There’s that little flipty-do crotch thing that they’re supposed to put their peckers through. Whose bright idea was that?”
    “Raymond could be an underwear model,” I suggested.
    “Perfect,” Fawn said, blowing on my now-finished toes. “We could go raid his dresser and find an outfit for him.”
    I hesitated. It wasn’t even noon on our first day alone, and already Fawn was suggesting a level of trespass that hadn’t occurred to me in the seven months I’d lived with Raymond. “Do you think that’s a good idea?” I said quickly. “I’m sure he wouldn’t want us going in his room.”
    “Chicken.” Fawn huffed and pushed her bangs out of hereyes. “Well, we have to do something. I’m bored out of my brain .” She slumped on the couch, letting her eyes rove critically around the room, from the cracked veneer of the coffee table to the filmy, burbling aquarium. Finally she settled on me. “I know what. We’ll give you a makeover.”
    “Me?”
    “Who else, stupid?”
     
    The good news was I had potential; the bad news was I would have to apply myself. Did I know