Lupi 04 - Night Season Read Online Free PDF Page B

nodded. “Purple, huh?”
    Cynna gulped in a breath, held it, and started walking again without being told. After a moment she said, “They teach you that in cop school? What to do when a witness hyperventilates?”
    â€œNo, my sister used to have panic attacks, and of course she didn’t want our folks to know, so I’d walk with her. Wonder if she still has them.” Lily tilted her head, considering that. “I haven’t walked her through one in years, but maybe her new husband does. It’s not easy being perfect.”
    â€œThat’s your older sister, then. The doctor.”
    â€œUh-huh. Maybe I’ll ask her about her panic attacks next time she calls.”
    â€œThat seems like the kind of question a big sister might resent from a younger one.”
    Lily smiled. “Yeah.”
    â€œYou’re meaner than you look.”
    â€œShe only calls to tell me to ditto whatever my mother’s been saying—now that Mother’s speaking to me again, that is. It usually involves a lot of criticism couched as advice. Why am I not married, what am I doing in D.C. instead of…Hey, the food court’s up ahead. Are you ready to stop for a minute, grab a Coke?”
    That was girl-speak for Are you ready to talk? Cynna walked on in silence for a moment, then stopped and looked right at Lily. “I never boosted panty hose because I didn’t wear them. Copped some lipstick, though. Jewelry. A wallet once.”
    Lily didn’t seem shocked or even surprised by the subject. “So did my cousin Jenny when she was fifteen. Makeup, I mean, not a wallet. I’m not supposed to know about it, but my cousin Freddy told me once when he was proposing.”
    Ick. “Your cousin proposed ?”
    â€œSecond cousin, but we all just say cousin.”
    â€œYou’ve got a lot of family.”
    Lily nodded and waited.
    â€œI don’t have any sisters or cousins. I had an aunt—she’s the reason I’m not more messed up than I am—but she never had kids.” Cynna jammed her hands in the pockets of her new coat. “I was pretty much a cliché growing up, you know? Not just poor, but ghetto poor. Funny how they don’t call it that anymore. We have ‘urban poor’ these days.”
    â€œI guess some people think if they keep renaming it, maybe it will go away.”
    â€œYeah. Doesn’t work, does it? Kids still grow up like I did—absent father, drunk or junkie mother. I dodged some of the clichés, mostly because of Aunt Pat. I didn’t drop out of school or do drugs or get…get…” She stopped, swallowed.
    â€œPregnant?” Lily said gently.
    Cynna tipped her head up and stared at the girders crisscrossing the vaulted glass roof. The sky was blue and bright. After a moment she said, “I didn’t hyperventilate. I guess that’s progress.”
    â€œI guess it is. You want to go to the food court?”
    Cynna shook her head. “We’d better head back and get Rule’s card. I don’t trust that clerk.”
    â€œOkay.” They reversed direction. “Did you mean it about trying on a skirt?”
    â€œNo.”
    Lily grinned. “Temporary insanity does not constitute—oh, my God.” She stopped moving. “What’s she doing here?”
    Cynna couldn’t figure out who Lily was talking about. There were a number of “ she s” directly ahead—an older woman with a Talbot’s bag, a young mom with a toddler, two teens who should have been in school.
    All at once a runty bald something was standing ten feet away. It had breasts, orange skin, and pointy teeth. It—she?—wore a tight yellow dress with purple polka dots, and it was grinning at them. “Hi, Lily Yu!”
    The teens screamed. A nearby man in a suit gaped, then swung his briefcase at it.
    â€œHey!” It grabbed the case with both hands. That’s when Cynna