Move to Strike

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Book: Move to Strike Read Online Free PDF
Author: Perri O'Shaughnessy
Tags: Fiction
about you. How brilliant you are, all the work you do helping people . . .” She took Nina’s coat. “It’s so awful. But I knew help would come.”
    Nina looked at Bob, who appeared normal except for the crimson burning of his ears.
    The door opened directly into the living room. An area beside it had been designated the mud room, with a wooden bench and boots below, and pegs above for two old parkas, where Daria was hanging Nina’s coat now. Candles burned along the windowsills. A wooden chair held a modest boom box with a stack of CDs. In the center of the wall at the far end, a fire burned in an iron stove. A large hooked rug cozied up to the hearth.
    That was it for furniture.
    Daria had noticed Nina’s eyes. “Times are tough,” she said. “Who needs a couch anyway? Nikki and I sit on the rug. Or on pillows.” She looked around, saying absently, “Maybe Nikki has them in her room. She’s got the computer on the floor in there.”
    “We’re fine,” Nina said. They gathered by the fire. Here, the ancients made wise decisions. Here, families shared warmth and food. And here, as in ancient times, strong knees for squatting would help. Bob, who seemed accustomed to the situation, sat right down, and Nina folded her legs and hunched forward toward the fire.
    “I’ll just get us some tea.” Daria rushed off toward the kitchen.
    “No, really,” Nina said. “We’re okay.”
    “You don’t want tea?” She stood in the doorway, framed by a yellow glow from the kitchen, pushing brassy gold hair back with her hand. “I may have some lemonade . . .”
    “No,” Bob said. “Daria, just tell her what’s going on.”
    Nicole’s mother threw herself down and pulled her long slender legs up into a full lotus. She was as supple as a young birch tree, and Nina thought, she’s a showgirl. But her hair dye job looked lackadaisical. That and the slapdash clothes taken in conjunction with brushy, unplucked eyebrows created a surprisingly run-down effect, given her youth and natural beauty. Even her moist pink lipstick slopped haphazardly around her natural lip lines. She might have been a sexy, healthy girl once, but she had been letting things slide for a while. All clues pointed toward an unemployed showgirl.
    “I don’t know what to say. They’ve arrested my daughter. I don’t understand the karma here, because I don’t think we’ve done anything to deserve this. Is it because we’re poor? Do the cops think they can just grab some innocent child and blame her? I’ve been chanting to stay calm, but obviously I’m going to start screaming soon.” She lit a cigarette, her hand shaking. Her wrist was thin and bony.
    Bob put out his hand and patted her shoulder. “We’re here,” he said. “Don’t worry.”
    “But Bobby, she’s scared and alone in a prison barracks and I’m scared to death about it.”
    “My mom’ll fix it.” They both turned to look at her, Daria’s face as open and full of trust as Bob’s. Chronological years and emotional years didn’t seem to match up in her case.
    “Tell me about it,” Nina said.
    “My nephew Chris died in a plane crash on Saturday night—I guess Bob told you about that?”
    “In a plane crash?” Nina drew in breath sharply. The plane she had seen? She hadn’t had time to check the paper for details.
    “Yes.”
    “Where?”
    “In the Carson Range. He was the passenger in a Beechcraft. A charter. The pilot died, too.”
    “I’m so sorry.” She saw the terrible light again, sunflower yellow, and could almost feel the heat sweeping across the flats toward her from the mountains where the plane went down. After her husband died, she had imagined the moment of his death many times, trying to visualize something like a soul drifting up from the earth, moving toward something like a heaven. Maybe this boy and the pilot had gone that way.
    “Chris was only nineteen. Just starting out in life. We loved him. Everybody did. And then, you’ve probably
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