The Drowning Game Read Online Free PDF Page A

this rumor, this cautionary tale. It was kind of like seeing the Aurora Borealis. You couldn’t stop staring, even if you wanted to. Which I didn’t. Because one of the things never mentioned in the wealth of information and rumors and stories that had circulated for years was that this girl was beautiful.
    She was one of those girls you couldn’t look directly at for fear of burning your retinas. You needed one of those cards used to view a solar eclipse with a hole poked through it.
    Petty’s neck was long and slender, and her caramel-­colored hair hung carelessly to her shoulders. Her eyes were large and round and sparkling hazel, surrounded by more eyelashes than I had ever seen on a person, and I briefly wondered if she was wearing false eyelashes, then realized how ridiculous that was. When she licked her full lips, I saw a hint of dimples, which would deepen if she ever smiled.
    I stared so long her head rotated toward me, shriveling my guts. I gulped.
    â€œFive dollars,” she said, looking just to the right of my face.
    â€œHi,” I said, my mouth suddenly dry. “You’re Petty Moshen, right?”
    â€œOf course she is,” said Oma, annoyed. She leaned forward and talked around me. “I’m Lena Sachs, and this here’s my college-­dropout grandson Dekker.”
    I turned to glare at her.
    â€œOh,” Petty said. “That’ll be five dollars.”
    â€œHon,” Oma said, “we were so sorry to hear about your daddy.”
    â€œOkay,” Petty said, deadpan.
    Okay? The correct response to this platitude was of course “Thanks,” but clearly Petty hadn’t been schooled in the small-­town small talk like the rest of us. Which I found both exotic and slightly titillating.
    Oma chattered on at my side. “We brought you a casserole and some Jell-­O. Normally I’d bring it to your house, but I wasn’t sure . . . what I mean is . . . I didn’t know if . . .” She trailed off, waiting for this backward girl to finish a sentence she’d have no idea how to finish.
    â€œ . . . I like casseroles?” Petty said.
    I couldn’t help laughing.
    â€œI never knew you were funny, hon,” Oma said.
    I now felt Oma and me were the inappropriate ones. This girl’s dad died less than twenty-­four hours ago, and here we were giggling at her social awkwardness, or so it seemed to me. I cleared my throat.
    â€œSorry for your loss,” I said to her.
    Oma nudged me. I turned as she handed me the grocery bag with the food. I passed it through the window to Petty.
    â€œHeat that casserole on three fifty for thirty minutes or so,” Oma said. “And put the Jell-­O in the fridge soon’s you get home, all right?”
    Petty took the bag and disappeared as she set it on the floor, reminding me of the tollbooth scene in The Godfather where Sonny gets machine-­gunned in spectacular fashion. But unlike the movie tollbooth attendant, Petty reappeared and no gunfire erupted.
    A moment went by where the only sound was the idling of the old pickup’s engine.
    â€œYou gonna dump that washing machine,” Petty said, “I need five dollars.”
    I had momentarily forgotten why we’d come.
    â€œRight,” I said. I stretched out my legs and dug in my pants pocket, pulled out a folded bill and handed it to Petty. “There you go.”
    â€œJust pull on through.”
    â€œThank you,” I said.
    Oma leaned forward again and said, “You let us know if we can do anything, Petty.”
    Her eyebrows came together. “Anything?”
    â€œRight?” I blurted. “Everybody says that when someone passes away. ‘Let me know if I can do anything.’ Sure.”
    Petty’s direct, demanding gaze and no-­nonsense responses threw me into a mini-­panic, and I couldn’t seem to stop talking.
    â€œBecause the only thing you