Dime Read Online Free PDF Page A

box in L.A.’s room. She gave me clean sweatpants and a T-shirt from another box. They were big, but they worked fine. I washed my panties and socks in the sink.
    The third night, after he dropped her off at work, he asked me to wash dishes. He sat down to watch TV but looked at his phone every few seconds too. That’s what he did every day for about an hour before he went back out.
    â€œGet me a beer,” he called. I put a newly clean fork into the rack and pulled a forty out of the refrigerator. I was nervous in that heart-beating way I had just being near him. He made my head dizzy and my body hot. I’d read enough to know those were signs of being in love, but I was embarrassed in front of myself and didn’t want to admit it. He was old. Thirty at least.
    He patted the couch next to him. I gave him the beer and sat down. “Want one?” he asked.
    I shook my head.
    â€œYou got to answer me when I talk to you.”
    â€œI’m sorry.” I didn’t want him mad at me. “I don’t drink beer.”
    â€œHuh.” He took a swallow, looking at me. I didn’t want him to look anywhere else.
    â€œYou too good for beer?”
    I started to shake my head, but remembered to answer. “No. I’m just too young.”
    â€œYou funny is what you is.” He smiled. “I wouldn’t let you drink no alcohol anyway. That right there a test. You passed.” He put his forty on the glass coffee table and then pulled a bag out from behind the couch. He must have hidden it there when I wasn’t looking. It was fancy, with white tissue paper crinkling out from the top. “Take it,” he said.
    I wasn’t used to getting presents. I stayed still.
    â€œGo on.” He picked up his beer again. “Look.”
    It was two sweaters with vertical ruffles down the center of the back and sleeves that widened, like bells, at the wrist. Three soft T-shirts, two pairs of jeans, and fake-leather black boots. High boots. Four pairs of socks and five pairs of panties in five colors and a hot-pink bra. One sweater was red, like a valentine. One was gray. At the bottom of the bag, puffing up like a pillow, was a coat. Black with gray fake fur lining the hood.
    â€œYou got to have clothes.”
    â€œHow did you know my size?” I’d almost never been given new clothes before, and not this many all at once. I couldn’t believe it.
    â€œI know your body.” He moved closer, laying his arm across my shoulders and kissing my forehead. Nobody ever kissed my forehead. I loved the feel of that kiss. I loved the feel of his arm, too.
    â€œThank you.”
    â€œWhat’s wrong, Beautiful?” He sipped his beer.
    â€œNothing.”
    He sat back a little to look at me better. “I know your face now,” he told me. “And I know something just then bothering you.”
    Nobody had ever looked enough at my face or cared enough to see if I was bothered. It had been a long time since anyone had ever noticed any kind of feeling of mine. Maybe Ms. McClenny from way back in pull-out class. You feeling okay, honey? She had touched my cheek with her Murphy Oil Soap–smelling hand. The new baby Janelle had been keeping was sent home after only a few weeks, and I hadn’t slept for hearing Janelle cry all night. You feverish? Then Ms. McClenny pulled my head to her round hip in a sideways hug before tucking me under a blanket on the square patched rug. Close your eyes and rest until the bell rings.
    â€œDon’t get mad?” I said.
    He shook his head. “Nah. Tell me.”
    â€œMaybe L.A. wouldn’t like it if she saw you had your arm around me.”
    His teeth were so gleaming and perfect. They looked like candy. The gold D shone.
    Don’t laugh, I wanted to say.
    When he smiled, the angled outside corners of his eyes slid down even more. “You priceless,” he told me. “Don’t you worry about L.A. She know I