Suicide's Girlfriend Read Online Free PDF Page B

apartment door, her gay voice suddenly sad. “You didn’t like me telling that story about Roy drowning in the fallout shelter, did you?”
    â€œYou are a good storyteller, Peggy,” Oyekan said, “but I think your stories have the problem that they lie. They pretend to ask only for laughter. This is not right. A story may lie and lie, but all its lies must tell the truth in the end.”
    â€œWhoa!” Joe stood at the end of the hall, his feet clad only in athletic stockings. “It was so quiet out here I figured you’d gone, Oy!”
    â€œI’m trying to get him to stay, Joe,” said Peggy. She turned back to Oyekan, smiling. “Come on, now, we’ll make you a fine big bowl of popcorn. Popcorn with butter on it!”
    But Oyekan left. That he might stand in the open, second-story stairwell of the apartment building across the way and, leaning over the balustrade in a manner that caused passersby to stare, observe whether or not Peggy and Joe behaved differently in his absence.
    They watched television, made popcorn.
    Then a neighbor had threatened to call police officers if Oyekan did not move along, and so he had missed whatever came next.
    Where were they now, Peggy and Joe? Oyekan looked at his digital watch: 1:23 P . M . The clock radio beside his bed read 1:31. They might be late, or not yet due.
    The previous fall, when Joe and Peggy came to Mr. and Mrs. Scotty’s for dinner—the night Oyekan met the younger couple—why, no sooner had he and Mrs. Scotty stepped into the dining room to insert the clever extra piece in Mrs. Scotty’s shiny table than Joe and Peggy had begun to kiss! And not in a polite way, but with hands moving, mouths open!
    Would they be doing this now?
    To still himself, Oyekan noted the previous day’s high and low temperatures in his journal. The coldest day of the year since Oyekan’s arrival had been January twenty-third. He used to imagine reading from the journal to his family. Everyone would laugh at such cold, his stories of foolish American university girls, the loss of his new penny loafer shoe in the first snow. Back then, the journal drew him on, it extracted the gifts he wanted to share. Now, he felt the others would understand nothing of his recent entries; and the early entries nolonger amused him, showed only what a bumpkin he had been.
    The ringing of telephones still made Oyekan jump. Even when one knew one was to receive a call, even if one waited with the hand holding the phone, the ringing happened behind one’s back, nasty as Oyekan’s auntie’s monkey throwing its messes. Oyekan put his fingers in his ears as he walked into the recreation room. He had lived twenty-two years without a telephone and never felt the lack. This would be a rule in his U.S. home: No telephone!
    â€œAre you ready?”
    â€œPeggy,” said Oyekan. The high school graduation photo of Lee Hillis sat on the stereo. It seemed that daring, golden boy offered advice. Oyekan could say, “I have a surprise for you and Joe!” But, in fact, he said only, “I am thinking perhaps I will study this afternoon, Peggy.”
    â€œOh, Oy!” Peggy cried. “Mr. and Mrs. Hillis helped plan this! Besides, I personally know the picnic features ham, potato salad slathered with mayonnaise, and watermelon from Texas! Chocolate brownies with chocolate icing! Food our kidnapped ancestors ate to ease their aching hearts!”
    Kidnapped ancestors. As if both descended from slaves.
    Joe Hart took the phone from Peggy. “As you can see, Oy, she’s wired,” he said.
    â€œWired.” Which meant, Oyekan knew, excited.

    â€œMy, my!” Peggy called as he walked briskly around the car and slid into the backseat. Embarrassed, tantalized by the possibility that she truly did believe his haircut handsome, he said, sternly, “You do not wear your seat belt. Either of you.”
    Peggy laughed. Her lips