Bigfoot Dreams Read Online Free PDF

either stay silent or chatter on about the summer program. On cranky mornings, they’ll fight about the bathroom floor, crumbs on the table, milk left out to spoil. Then they’ll go downstairs and off in different directions. Put this way, it doesn’t sound so bad, especially if Vera skips over the fact that she can’t recall when Rosie last kissed her hello or goodnight.
    “She’s growing up,” says Mavis. “It’s difficult.”
    “Difficult isn’t the word,” says Vera. Last week she sat across the subway aisle from a young Puerto Rican father and his baby. The baby was plump and adorable, giggling wildly as its father kissed it up and down the almost invisible bumps of its spine. They were like new lovers; they didn’t care who saw. Vera had to look away and remind herself of how, when her grandmother was alive, Vera complained about Rosie growing up too fast and her grandmother said, “You’d be happier if she stayed the same?” Vera thinks about Peter Pan’s mother. Did she like how things turned out?
    “I don’t know,” she tells Mavis. “She’s got a big ballet recital Sunday night. I think she’s nervous about it.”
    “Sunday?” repeats Mavis, with the peculiar, slowed-down pacing of someone giving you time to include them. So it’s decided: Mavis and Vera will meet at the recital, then Mavis will come back to Vera’s for a late supper.
    Making plans helps Vera fight the urge to run back and get Lowell’s letter. What little she knows about Mavis’s long and devoted married life makes her want to show it to her and ask, What about this? Instead she asks if Mavis has heard anything about Shaefer and Esposito going to see their lawyer.
    “I haven’t the slightest,” says Mavis. “Let me know.”
    “I’ll do that,” says Vera, tossing her cup into the trash and thinking how she likes this about coffee-room conversations. It’s not like having company, or visiting: no getting up, no goodbyes. At any point, you can just leave.
    Opening Solomon’s door, Vera walks in on a crouching nun, her mouth wide in a soundless scream. On the wall behind her is the shadow of a man with a knife. If you look closely, you can see that the shadow has a half-dozen cameras around its neck. It’s the kind of detail that makes Solomon’s photos transcend themselves. For even if you don’t notice the cameras, you still unconsciously sense it: After this maniac kills the nun, he’s planning to take pictures.
    Solomon has the shutter on automatic so he can get the shot and play Jack the Ripper at the same time. When Vera walks in he puts down the knife and says, “Fuck it, it’s too complicated.”
    “I’ll stop back later,” says Vera.
    “No no no no no!” Solomon grabs Vera’s hand and drags her into the room. “I need a break. Take ten,” he tells the girl in the nun outfit. She’s a dimply eighteen-year-old, and as she passes, trailing clouds of patchouli, her eyes meet Vera’s and Vera can almost see her figuring out the whole story of how Vera and Solomon were and maybe still are in love. She and Vera could be two female monkeys declaring their intentions—it’s strange, Vera thinks, having that sort of interchange with a nun.
    As Solomon rushes around, switching off lights, Vera can see why even an eighteen-year-old might want him. In his close-cropped hair, Hawaiian shirt, and clear-framed glasses, he looks sweet and confident and sexy, an eighties-style fifties hipster, except that he’s probably looked this way for twenty years.
    “I told Shaefer yesterday,” he whispers, “these lights get so hot, the wiring can’t take it. We’re gonna burn like fucking crisps.” He knocks on a wooden desk, then moves closer to Vera. Solomon stares into everyone’s eyes; Vera can’t count the waitresses and salesgirls and supermarket checkers she’s seen thrown off by Solomon’s gaze.
    “Where have you been ?” he says. His Hawaiian shirt smells of cigars, and as he squeezes her