In Between Days Read Online Free PDF Page A

“You know, this professor of mine—this guy I’m working with—he’s been trying to get me to apply to grad school in creative writing. For poetry, you know.”
    “You should.”
    “Right,” he says. “Can you imagine what Dad would say?”
    “Have you talked to him about it?”
    “Well, no—I mean yeah, kind of. I mentioned it to him once and he was all,
What? They actually have schools for that?
”
    Richard mimics his father’s voice, his consternation, until she finally laughs.
    “It’s bad enough I’m gay. But a gay poet. I mean, I think that’s just a little too much for him.”
    She laughs again and realizes then how long it’s been since she’s laughed like this. How long it’s been since she’s had a reason. She imagines Raja sitting in his motel room all alone, then his parents sitting in the room next door, spending their very last penny to get him legal counsel. She pushes this image from her mind, readjusts her seat, rolls down the window.
    “I think I’m going to smoke,” she says.
    “Be my guest.”
    She reaches into her purse for the pack, just as a thin stream of rain comes into the car, dampening her lap. She pulls out a cigarette and lights it, then closes her eyes, letting the rain hit her face.
    “You know,” Richard says after a moment, “I don’t know what happened up there at Stratham and, I mean, I don’t really need to know. You can tell me whenever you want. I just want you to know that if you ever feel like talking about it, you know, I’m here.” He looks at her. “I mean, you don’t have to worry about me saying shit to Mom and Dad.”
    “I know that,” she says and smiles. Then she pats his hand. “Thanks.”
    She leans back in her seat again and closes her eyes.
    A moment later, Richard’s cell phone rings, and after a few brief exchanges, he pulls over on the side of the road and takes out a pen from the glove compartment and writes down something on his hand. An address? A number? When he finally hangs up, he looks at her and smiles.
    “Change of plans,” he says.
    “Oh yeah? What’s up?”
    “Well, it looks like that club thing’s not going to be happening anymore. Something about the weather or something. Anyway, we’re going to a party instead.”
    “Whose party?”
    He turns up the radio and hits the gas, and for a moment she thinks she sees him smile. “Beto’s,” he says, winking. “This guy named Beto.”

4
    LORNA’S BEST FRIEND , Elise Henriquez, is standing at the counter, making tea, a cigarette dangling from her mouth. Elise had arrived only minutes before Elson, just as he was about to walk through the door and tell Lorna what had happened. There had been a blackout in Elise’s apartment apparently, and so she’d brought over half her refrigerator in a cooler, all of the perishables, all of the meats. And now, as a sign of gratitude to Lorna, she is making them tea.
    Elson leans back in his chair and watches her. Just moments before, he had given Lorna a look, a nasty look, which Lorna had ignored. Now he wonders if he should have played it differently, maybe been a little more gracious. He tries to catch her eye again, but she has turned away.
    The apartment itself is dimly lit, the walls covered with original artwork given to Lorna by friends. There’s a warmth to this place, a warmth to this apartment, that belies her own personal aesthetic for clean lines and barren walls. A minimalist in theory, but not in practice, Elson thinks. On the wall to his left, there’s an enormous bookcase filled with books, more books than Elson has ever read, mostly political biographies and socialist rants, abstract discourses on the state of the world. On the wall to his right, there’s an enormous painting of Lorna herself, a nude, painted by an old boyfriend. When they’d first started dating, he’d asked her to take it down, demanded that she remove it, and she’d refused. He’d told her that it made him feel uncomfortable,