Calling Home Read Online Free PDF

the past couple of years inventing ways for meat to brown as well as cook in microwave ovens. They had moved out of the mixed neighborhood near Harding and into a new house on stilts overlooking eucalyptus and the expanse of Oakland.
    Angela let the BMW fishtail a little going around curves in the hills, flashing in and out of the shade of redwood trees. She jerked the wheel and the car jumped up the driveway. We left the car making the ticking noises cars make as they cool and slipped into a house so new it smelled like Saran Wrap. The carpet was orange, and the new sofa was a blinding blue. Paintings of patio furniture decorated the walls.
    I was drawn to the view, to escape the sight of all that newness and to get some wind on my face, but Angela called me back, holding forth a highball like a movie star in some old movie filled with talk and cigarettes. She arrayed herself on the sofa and I stumbled into a leather chair. I settled back, sipping my drink, a tall scotch. The flavor snaked into me and something in me went stiff. I swallowed the drink as fast as I could, hoping some shock to my system would ease me into a new state of mind: clarity. The use of booze as shoehorn is well known, but it is not a surefire method. What is? But I looked at Angela acting, whether she knew it or not, like her mother flirting with a lover, some friend of her husband’s invited up for a little of the wet stuff while hubby was out testing candied hams, and did not like what I saw. Angela is striking to behold. She could be in magazines, in or out of clothes. The sight of her did not please me.
    We did the sticky on her parents’ bed, gluey with whiskey and working it hard, like some athletic event, or a twelve-cylinder monster created to consume as much as possible in the shortest space of time. I took the bus home. I told myself that I felt fine, that I would maintain the situation and that Mead’s father would have a long and happy life.
    Lani was sitting right in front of me and I had not seen her.
    â€œI was calling to you and you looked right through me,” she said. Her black hair was damp from her postgame shower, and she held a notebook crammed with sheet music.
    I realized that I wanted to talk to Lani more than anyone. She was the sort of person you want to have like you, and you want to have understand you. There was a compelling quality in her dark eyes, and the way she looked at me as if she saw me.
    â€œYou must be on your way home,” I managed to say.
    â€œGoing to piano lessons. You can come, too. My teacher’s very interesting.” Lani has a soft, deep voice, always a little serious, a little formal. “I’ve never met anyone like him.”
    I was, stupidly, a little jealous of her piano teacher.
    â€œMaybe someday I will, but not tonight.”
    â€œAre you all right, Peter?”
    â€œI’m fine.”
    â€œI hope so,” she said. “You look so strange.”
    â€œI’ve always been a little strange,” I said, making myself laugh.
    â€œThis is different. You should take care of yourself.”
    â€œI’m fine, Lani. Really.”
    She flexed her fingers. “He tells me that the muscles for softball and the muscles for piano are not compatible. He tells me I’ll have to decide whether I want to pursue the piano, or the curveball.”
    â€œI’ve never heard you play.”
    â€œYou aren’t missing anything. Maybe someday I’ll be as good as I want to be. You know,” she said, changing the subject in an instant, “I’ve never seen any of your drawings.”
    â€œI don’t draw anymore. I used to. But I stopped. I think I’m getting stupid as I grow up.” I laughed, as though I had made a joke. “Premature senility.”
    â€œI think you should draw. I bet you’re a marvelous artist.”
    I felt hot, pleased and embarrassed. “Not that marvelous—”
    â€œI expect a lot of