Beautiful Girls Read Online Free PDF Page A

any.”
    Miss Perry looks at her incredulously. “Well, then you must go now.” She ushers Libby to the east wing coat closet, and by this time Libby is crying, crying because why hadn’t she gone to the prom? So when Miss Perry accidentally grabs Bilox’s coat—long and black, woven with a touch of cashmere—Libby is mildly aware it isn’t hers, but what difference does it make at a time like this? Little Bilox, tidy and delicate as an egg in a nest, is just her size, and she grabs hertoken and flees to the subway.
    When Bilox comes in the next day wearing her coat, at first Libby thinks he’s just being polite by not mentioning the mix-up. But when he leaves for an early appointment, he slips into her velvet-collared wool coat and waves at the room before departing.
    It’s not that surprising when the sepsis comes. Her dad’s body has been invaded at too many points and the armies of antibodies wave a white flag. A ridiculous fever shakes his entire body, a smoldering heat rises from his limbs, and the back of his head, which has been pressed against a pillow for weeks, reveals a strange and snarled hairdo.
    Sepsis isn’t a bad way to go, the Dumpy Downer tells her. The toxic shock brings on delirium and then coma, after which her dad would float away to a better place, leaving behind his soggy body. Her dad wears a finger cap to monitor his oxygenation, which isn’t good, and in his furor he pulls it off and the machine begins a steady ding. Libby places the cap on her own finger and the room is quiet again. Why didn’t she fight with that Gestapo nurse yesterday—let him have the damned milkshake! Really, what are they doing here? She doesn’t know if she’s done right by her father, and she’s not sure he’s done right by her. He’s abandoning ship, and she blames him a little.
    Libby walks the twenty blocks from Penn Station to her apartment just to feel the cold breath of air on her face. On the way, she stops in a Korean market and buys a beer and drinks it out of a paper bag. It’s late, but when she gets to her door she finds Hugh sitting on the stoop, holding a bag of laundry as if it is a small child. “Maybe you’d like this,” he says.
    “You can’t give me someone else’s laundry,” she says, peering into the bag.
    “It’s been in the lost and found for a year, man.” He looks at her kindly. “You could probably use some underwear, right?”
    “Well, you’re sure this is nobody’s?” Maybe there are some towels inside. She needs a clean towel. Bingo. Inside are four towels, several aprons, knee socks, a large shapeless sweatshirt with many zippered pockets, and a daisy-printed muumuu.
    And so this becomes her routine: in the mornings, Libby pulls on her soft and comfy horror clothes and puts Bilox’s coat over the colorful, shabby mess. Then she dashes to the office, sits at Imelda’s desk chewing a nail, waits for Marianne Switzer and her wire cart, runs the forms in to Bilox, then Gautreaux, then Sodder, adds her own initials in four minutes flat, phones Marianne Switzer for a pickup, dashes down the hall at the sound of the breakfast cart, shovels a doughnut into her mouth, tosses MissPerry a buttered sesame bagel, snatches Bilox’s coat from the east wing coat closet, runs for the elevators, thinks bad thoughts all the way to the lobby, flies through the double doors, takes the shuttle across town, hops on the 2 or 3 to Penn Station, scrambles for a ticket, steps onto the Jersey-bound train and falls into a wicked hot sleep.
    Libby’s mother calls late one night from Chicago, where she’s married to a placid radiologist. “Tell me how I can help,” she says.
    “Do you want to see Dad?”
    “Well, no, not that,” she says. “I’ll come visit you!”
    “But I’m never here.”
    Today Libby’s cab sits in a traffic jam en route to the hospital. She pays the driver and gets out and walks, her feet crunching over autumn leaves. Directly across from the hospital is