Hothouse Read Online Free PDF Page A

other. That’s the first sign. That things are not quite in the correct cosmic order. It is even, apparently, an organized approach, my old friends creeping up with caution once I am obviously alone. Didn’t want to approach, really. Didn’t want me alone though, either. Jeez, not that. I have seen them all at points, mostly funeral points and wake points and other such unnatural occurrences, but this, you would have to say, is the first real, live connection we would attempt to make since. Funny, guys seem to forget how to talk to a guy who has suddenly, spectacularly misplaced his father.
    â€œDude,” I say in response to Cameron and the weirdness.
    Cameron gets it. I can see him visibly relax, exhale like the sea, let his shoulders fall back to their natural slump. The stupidity of a well-placed dude can really defuse a situation. He shakes my hand. “You doing all right, Russ?”
    â€œHe’s still dead, if that’s what you mean.”
    It just came out. I think what I meant was to make light, to break ice, to help us all through the awkward moment that then would leave all the awkward moments behind us so we could enjoy something like a party and something like life from this point on.
    That was what I meant. What I get are two other things entirely. First, all the eyes in the lowering light go white as Wiffle balls. Philby and Jane and Lexa and Cameron and Burgess, folks I’ve known and schooled with and joked with for years, all go dead with bafflement over what I said.
    Second, though, is even worse. Second is what I did to myself. I choked myself, was what I did. The words were meant to show that I could handle it now but the fact is that I can’t, not quite, not now, and it takes every bit of my control not to spoil it all even worse by letting my face tell the truth.
    Firefighters come to the rescue. As they do.
    â€œA toast to heroes,” Melanie says, wedging herself in tight next to me on the wall. DJ, sitting in tight on her other side, hands across a beer.
    Everybody toasts heroes.
    â€œToasted heroes,” DJ quips.
    â€œWow,” Adrian says, leaning in and clinking everybody in reach, “you guys are hard-core.”
    â€œGallows humor,” DJ says. “It’s the very bedrock of the firefighter community. Think nothing of it.”
    â€œAnyway,” I say, “toasting yourself there too, Melanie. All firefighters are heroes.”
    â€œUntil proven otherwise,” DJ adds cheerily, initiating another round of clinks.
    Despite our best efforts, the crowd is beginning to relax and talk with something like the old familiar freeness. Adrian backs away into hosting; somewhere inside music creeps up a little louder to compete with rising tide and breeze.
    â€œBut you really are,” Melanie whispers, very close, breathy on my ear. “Both of you, heroes.”
    She hangs, just there, for a few seconds, breathing after talking, and who could argue?
    â€œThank you,” I say.
    She slaps my leg and goes back inside. That leaves me staring at DJ, across the empty space that was Melanie. With a grin, he slaps my leg just like she did. Except a lot harder than she did.
    â€œHaving fun?” I ask into his broad curious grin.
    â€œNope,” he says, slapping my thigh again.
    â€œIs my leg somehow responsible?”
    â€œSorry.” His sorry is real, though he slaps me again.
    â€œTry and have fun, DJ,” I say. As with so many times in the past, I bounce my own time off of what I read on his face, and his face is reading uncomfortable now. I want him to start getting over it as much for me as for himself.
    â€œI am trying,” he says, waggling the beer bottle in front of my face.
    Philby interrupts with a snack bowl, which he shoves between us. The combination of Doritos and shrimps in the same bowl confirms the absence of any parental input here.
    â€œWhat a great idea,” DJ says, mashing up a fistful and