Me and My Baby View the Eclipse Read Online Free PDF

consider getting rid of him, she couldn’t have told you why. And now Margaret Fine-Manning had moved in with David and they jogged together every morning. They ran from the Swiss Chalets all the way to Burger King, along the highway. Cheryl, driving to work, saw them every day. Margaret wore ankle weights.
    â€œCheryl?” Jerry Jarvis was saying. “Listen to me.”
    Cheryl looked at him. His hair was red, his face was flushed, and his eyes were as blue as the sky. He was a big, impressive man. “I can have a boy over here tomorrow to run you a little old electric wire right around the bottom of this fence and then you won’t have no more trouble. It won’t hurt him a bit. Just a little jolt is all, he won’t hardly feel it, but I guarantee you he’ll stay in this pen.”
    â€œWell, thanks, Jerry,” Cheryl said, “but I think that’s awful. Shocking him.”
    â€œWouldn’t hurt him a bit, now,” Jerry said. He grinned at her. He had big, white, even teeth, and Cheryl found herself grinning back.
    â€œNo,” she said. “I know you think it’s stupid, but I won’t do that. I’ll just keep on doing what I’m doing. We’ll just put more stuff around until he can’t get out, that’s all. Sandy would have a fit if Bob got electric shock.”
    â€œIt’s not
electric shock,
Cheryl.” Jerry was laughing. “It’s really nothing, just a little whammy, that’s it.”
    â€œNo,” Cheryl said.
    She stood by the fancy gate as Jerry Jarvis walked over to his hardware truck. Sometimes he drove the truck, and sometimes he drove his BMW. It was September now, almost time for school to start. The leaves on the hickory tree looked papery against the sky, yellowing. Cheryl felt cold suddenly, although it wasn’t cold. She couldn’t think why she was being so silly about this pen.
    Jerry Jarvis reached his truck and opened the door and then suddenly slammed it. He turned and walked back to her, fast. He grabbed her and pulled her to him and crushed her up against his yellow shirt. “Cheryl, Cheryl,” he said. “I’ve got to have you, it’s only a matter of time.”
    â€œLet go of me this minute, Jerry Jarvis,” Cheryl said.
    â€œYou’re driving me crazy,” said Jerry Jarvis.
    Then he kissed Cheryl slow and hard, a kiss that left her breathless, leaning against Bob’s pen. Jerry rubbed her cheek and smiled into her eyes, it was clear he didn’t even care who might be looking. “You know where to call me if you want me,” he said.
    *   *   *
    T hen Jerry Jarvis sent her twelve free cinder blocks, but he didn’t come back again. School started. Cheryl was swamped with orders for slipcovers—fall was very big in the slipcover business. Angela cut off all her hair except for one long piece down the back, which she dyed pink. Lisa almost died when she saw how Angela looked. But Angela liked it. Cheryl didn’t know what to think about Angela’s hair—at least Angela’s old boyfriend, Scott Eubanks, had gotten busted for marijuana over the summer and had been sent to live with his father in Georgia, so that was something. Cheryl guessed she could stand Angela’s hair. And Louis had started off better in school this year. He liked English. Of course he had passed Spanish, after all. Sandy too was doing better—he’d stopped coughing, for one thing, and his Cub Scout troop had a new leader who was young and energetic. Sandy had earned merit badges in knot tying, carpentry, and letter writing. For his letter-writing badge, Sandy had to write a hundred letters. He had a Cub Scout pen pal in England who wrote to him on thin crinkly blue see-through paper. Sandy had also written several letters to his father, which just killed Cheryl. She couldn’t imagine what in the world he said. Also, Sandy had a new friend