Night Vision Read Online Free PDF

her eye, she saw Hattie climb up on one of the dining room chairs, pull her bubble gum out of her mouth, and plop it down on the wood tabletop.
    â€œHatts! Stop!” The interior wasn’t exactly child-friendly.
    Sprinting across the room, she reached the table just as Hattie squished the gum flat with the palm of her hand. “What did I tell you about gum? It belongs in your mouth.”
    â€œOr in my hair,” added Hattie knowingly.
    As Cordelia finished peeling the gum off, the doorbell rang.
    â€œComing,” she called, depositing the sticky wad in a wastebasket.
    When she opened the door, the delivery guy asked her to sign for the package. “You Joanna Kasimir?” he asked, cocking an eye at her.
    â€œYes,” said Cordelia, scribbling her name.
    â€œThe actress?”
    â€œWhat do you think?” she snarled.
    â€œI think I’m leaving,” he said, turning and walking away.
    Cordelia glanced at the gray-and-orange paper the flowers came wrapped in and decided it was a tasteless florist. She looked around the room for someplace to set it. Hattie was now under the dining room table.
    â€œIt’s beau-ti-ful down here!” She motioned for Cordelia to climb under with her.

    â€œHattie, do the math. Auntie Cordelia won’t fit under there. Now come out this minute. I’m counting.” She set the package on an end table, then changed her mind and moved it to the floor behind one of the hideous chain-saw sculptures.

5
    â€œY ou goin’ out?” called Hillary Schinn’s dad. Fred Schinn was a retired stonemason, a man with cottony white hair, a red face, and rough hands. And he was diabetic. He was lying on the couch in the living room of his Richfield home, cup of coffee resting on his stomach, his swollen legs propped up on a pillow.
    Hillary was standing by the entrance to the kitchen, looking at herself in a full-length mirror that was hung on the back of the door. “Yeah,” she said, standing sideways and pressing a hand to her stomach. She’d been on a diet for the past three weeks, ever since she found out that Joanna Kasimir was coming to town, but she hadn’t lost more than two pounds. It was depressing beyond belief. Her boyfriend always said she looked great, but guys lied to get laid. It was a simple fact. She was a good thirty pounds over the number on the weight chart at her doctor’s office, and that meant she was a frumpy butterball, one who still lived with her dad. How pathetic was that?
    During her twenties, Hillary simply assumed that by the time she was thirty, she’d have kids, a great job, a reasonably handsome husband, a home, a yard, and a fat bank account—not a fat body. Nothing had worked out the way she’d planned. She’d gone to the U of M,
got her degree in journalism, but the year she graduated the job market was in the toilet. Maybe she didn’t always interview well. She was often immobilized by a bad case of nerves—just like right now. Her hands were clammy and her stomach was in knots.
    To get by, Hillary had worked various dead-end jobs over the years—Burger King, the Nicollet Car Wash, the Town Talk Cleaners, and Blockbuster video. She’d finally taken a position at a local hospital. For the past two years she’d been selling flowers and balloons to the families of the sick and dying. It was too depressing for words, which only made it seem even more important that she find a job as a freelance journalist. All she needed was one measly break. If things worked out as she hoped, Joanna Kasimir would be that break.
    â€œWhere you goin’?” asked her dad, flipping channels on the TV.
    â€œOut.”
    â€œOut where?”
    â€œDon’t pressure me, okay? I feel like my brain is about to explode.”
    He sighed loudly. “Always so dramatic. You got that from your mom. Hey, will you make me a sandwich before you go? My legs are really bad