The City Still Breathing Read Online Free PDF Page B

job.’
    â€˜Where?’
    â€˜Wherever. Maybe you should think about it too.’
    â€˜I don’t wanna be a fuckin waitress, Slim.’
    â€˜My mom’s a waitress.’
    â€˜Yeah and you hate her.’
    â€˜I’m just saying maybe it’s time you gave up this fantasy, Francie.’
    â€˜Shut up.’ Flakes of blue coming down, everywhere they hit, the grey going blue, the ground the trees the hood of the car, a world of blue. ‘Just tell me.’ But Slim’s face goes even greyer, becomes an iceberg. ‘Are we going or not?’
    And he opens his mouth, so wide his skull might crack, and out comes the grey of the word No , all that grey spilling across his seat toward her and she swings the door open, falling back onto the dirt on her ass, the world rolling underneath her like dad’s sailboat on the lake in the summer, stumbling across the deck, scattering stones down into the water, her a stone, Slim’s words scattering her, sending her forward over the edge of the boat, and she’s falling down down down into the lake the creek the water down into Slim’s mouth she’s drowning in all that grey drowning in the pit of this town today tomorrow next all the nexts of Francie’s days on this planet, one grey mess, and then she catches herself. Her hands on the railing. The cold of the metal. Something solid under her feet. The bridge. The creek below her.
    Her hands around the railing blue. The bridge blue. Her insides the blue world. She’s colder than she’s ever been, so far beyond cold she misses the plain numb of grey.
    Something slides around her, someone holding her – no, a jacket – Slim’s jean jacket around her, the warmth of his body whispering around inside, but even this warmth just another kind of cold. She pulls it tight around her anyway.
    â€˜Dear Mr. Slider.’ Slim leaning on the railing beside her. He’s got that envelope from the diner and a white sheet of paper in his hand, reading. ‘Thank you for your application and portfolio but we regret to inform you … ’ And then he just keeps reading that part over and over again, we regret to inform you, we regret to inform you , saying it as he crumples the paper up in a ball and drops it down into the creek, regret, regret, regret.
    â€˜Francie. I’ll still drive you down, okay? I’ll come back here and work, just for a bit and then I’ll come down. Then we’ll do everything, go to that Mexican place, whatever.’
    But all she can hear is regret, regret, regret . ‘Liar.’
    â€˜A few months tops, I promise.’
    â€˜Liar.’
    Because it’s easier. And he might be right next to her, but he’s still all grey and she’s over here in a galaxy of blue. Right next to each other but so far away.
    Then Heck’s between them, his shirt off, big hairy belly flopping around and he’s still sweating.
    â€˜Okay, I’m ready, Slim.’
    â€˜For what?’
    â€˜C’mon, man, don’t fuck around. You gotta show us.’
    Francie remembers something about this, a million years back at the diner. ‘Show us what?’
    â€˜Regret, regret, regret.’ Slim’s singing it, wandering back to the car, Heck and Francie trailing him, following the music of regret, Slim prancing ahead doing his Jethro Tull impersonation with an imaginary flute, the pied piper of regret.
    He leads them around the back of the Dart, and there the three of them stand, staring down at the trunk. The look on Slim like some bad magician about to do his big trick. It was like that TV show she watched with her mom where they were opening a sealed tomb for the first time – all the excitement of what was inside, and then bullshit.
    Slim puts the key in the trunk, a twist, and the whole thing comes open. All the grey of the world coming out. Francie watches it pour out of the trunk, onto the ground, staining all