Marry or Burn Read Online Free PDF Page B

around Francie, up against her ribs, and made a show of bearing her weight and lowering her step by step to the bottom.

    Tonya wasn’t pretty, but she didn’t have to be, she had the confidence without it. She did have pretty teeth, which she uncovered in a cold smile at Francie. The advantage was hers. She had Rafael. She knew how to comfort somebody who had a dead mother. She knew how to take him away from everybody else who had a claim on him, and how to make him hers.
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    THEY HAD FINISHED Patrick’s chili and gone on to Francie’s cake, on which at the last minute Rafael had drawn a house in red icing, with the chimney coming out of the roof sideways.
    â€œYou poor thing,” Dale said for the third time. “Those stairs are terrible.”
    â€œRafael’s going to fix that,” said Tonya, as if she were as much a part of what went on as any of them. They had fanned sage smoke into every closet, Georgette had chanted in her language, they had toasted Melanie because she had finished her thesis.
    Melanie. Melanie was the other partner. Tom’s other partner.
    Melanie had long black hair twisted up with a comb. Francie guessed her weight at no more than a hundred pounds. She was some kind of Oriental and she was beautiful, wearing overalls because she had come straight from work at the condo and a tank top that showed the perfection of her slimness.
    Chip sat with Tom on the floor putting CDs into the player. “I was going to bring Tupac,” Chip told him. “You may not know this because you’re not a fan. Tupac died. He died yesterday. It looked like he was going to make it after they shot him, but he died.” At the word shot, Tom shook his head warningly. “Don’t worry, man, I didn’t,” Chip said. “I didn’t bring it.”
    Francie wasn’t listening when Patrick started to speak. She was looking at Tom, thinking about his concern for her, and about music, how she couldn’t get used to music as it was now.
When Patrick said, “And now for the final toast, the big one. Are we ready?” a hush fell. He was holding the bottle high. “To Tom and Melanie!”
    Everybody cheered. The two of them, Tom and Melanie, came forward from opposite sides of the room. They met under Dale’s streamers; they took each other’s hands. “Tom and Melanie!” The noise made everything seem to be proceeding slowly. Patrick took their joined hands and raised them high, as if they were at the Olympics.
    Uganda. They were going to Uganda. They had come up with an idea for modular dwellings that could go up fast and hold more than one family. They had done this together. Once they had the design everything had fallen into place in a matter of days. “Oh, it is a disaster there,” Melanie said sorrowfully. They had their sponsor and they were going to build the first models in a refugee camp. They had their passports and they were leaving in a week.
    Before that, in five days and in this very room, they were getting married.
    That was better than waiting until they got back. Tom said, “We’ll be back in a month. We’ll be back before Chip can sell off the tools.” Everybody cheered again. Francie sat still, on the cleaned-off bench where she and Tom had kept rulers and levels and stashed their books.
    â€œSo, a week from today,” Tom said. “And meanwhile, all she has to do is defend her thesis.”
    Into the clapping Francie said, “What’s it on? Your thesis.”
    â€œOh, it is on buildings,” said Melanie. People had quieted down and she turned to Tom in embarrassment, lowering her smooth lids. “Actually, on buildings in . . . in literature. Because, my program is comparative literature.”
    â€œBuildings in literature,” said Francie stubbornly. “What literature?”

    â€œA French novelist,” Melanie said, looking up with a soft smile, as if