An Abundance of Katherines Read Online Free PDF Page B

RESTING PLACE OF THE ARCHDUKE FRANZ FERDINAND / ICE-COLD BEER / SODA / BAIT.
    Colin pulled into the store’s gravel driveway. Unbuckling his seat belt, he said to Hassan, “I wonder if they keep the Archduke with the soda or the bait.”
    Hassan’s deep laugh filled the car. “Shit, Colin made a funny. This place is like magic for you. Shame about how we’re gonna die here, though. I mean, seriously. An Arab and a half-Jew enter a store in Tennessee. It’s the beginning of a joke, and the punch line is ‘sodomy.’” Nonetheless, Colin heard Hassan shuffling his feet on the gravel parking lot behind him.
    They walked through a screen door into the Gutshot General Store. From behind the counter, a girl with a long, straight nose and brown eyes the size of some lesser planets looked up from an issue of Celebrity Living magazine and said, “How y’all doing?”
    “We’re okay. Yourself?” Hassan asked while Colin was trying to think whether a worthwhile soul in all of human history had ever read a single copy of Celebrity Living . 18
    “Just fine,” said the girl.
    For a while, they walked around the store, pacing the dusty, varnished two-by-fours that comprised a floor, pretending to consider various snacks, drinks, and minnows swimming in bait tanks. Half-crouched behind a chest-high rack of potato chips, Colin tugged on Hassan’s T-shirt, cupped his hand over Hassan’s ear, and whispered, “ Talk to her.” Except in point of fact Colin did not whisper, because he had never quite mastered the art of whispering—he just sort of talked in a slightly softer voice directly into Hassan’s eardrum.

    Hassan winced and shook his head. “What’s the total area, in square miles, of the state of Kansas?” he whispered.
    “Um, around 82,200; why?”
    “I just find it amusing that you know that but can’t figure out a way to speak without using your vocal cords.” Colin started to explain that even whispering involves the use of the vocal cords, but Hassan just rolled his eyes. So Colin brought his hand to his face and nibbled on the inside of his thumb while staring at Hassan hopefully, but Hass had turned his attention to the potato chips and so finally it fell to Colin. He walked to the desk and said, “Hi, we’re wondering about the Archduke.”
    The Celebrity Living reader smiled at him. Her puffy cheeks and too-long nose disappeared. She had the sort of broad and guileful smile in which you couldn’t help but believe—you just wanted to make her happy so you could keep seeing it. But it passed in a flash. “Tours start every hour on the hour, cost eleven dollars, and frankly aren’t worth it,” she answered in a monotone.
    “We’ll pay,” Hassan said, suddenly behind him. “The kid needs to see the Archduke.” And then Hassan leaned forward and stage-whispered, “He’s having a nervous breakdown.” Hassan placed twenty-two dollars on the counter, which the girl promptly slid into a pocket of her shorts, flagrantly disregarding the cash register before her.
    The girl blew a lock of mahogany hair from her face and sighed. “Sure is hot out,” she noted.
    “Is this, like, a guided tour?” Colin asked.
    “Yeah. And much to my ever-loving chagrin, I am your tour guide.” She stepped out from behind the counter. Short. Skinny. Her face not pretty so much as interesting-looking.
    “I’m Colin Singleton,” he said to the tour guide/grocery store clerk.
    “Lindsey Lee Wells,” she answered, reaching out a small hand, the fingernails a chipped metallic pink. He shook, and then Lindsey turned to Hassan.
    “Hassan Harbish. Sunni Muslim. Not a terrorist.”
    “Lindsey Lee Wells. Methodist. Me, neither.” The girl smiled again. Colin wasn’t thinking about anything but himself and K-19 and the piece of his gut he’d misplaced—but there was no denying her smile. That smile could end wars and cure cancer.
     
For a long time, they walked silently through knee-high grass behind the store,