The From-Aways Read Online Free PDF Page B

hand, my spine goes electric, and, man, am I in trouble.
    “I buried a time capsule down there when I was eight,” Rosie says. “In my backyard. I had every intention of digging it up and then one day there was all this cement.”
    “What’s in there?”
    She exhales irritably. Like the stuff in there isn’t even the point. “Some photos. A letter I wrote to myself. A tape of me singing my favorite songs. A magic seashell.”
    “Magic?”
    “Again, eight years old.”
    “Magic.” I turn back to the substation.
    Rosie wraps her fingers around the chain-link fence that surrounds this electric outpost. “Hmmmm,” she hums, the exact same pitch as the transformer. Maybe Rosie really will become a famous singer someday. Not to be outdone, I hum an octave higher, harmonizing.
    “We’re going in,” Rosie says, and starts to climb the fence.
    “You’ve got a death wish,” I say. “You’ll be zapped.”
    Rosie shakes her head. “It’s never the fence that’s electric,” she says. “It’s everything inside that’ll kill you.” She hops it.
    I follow. An obituaries writer, even a retired one of little mettle, has a duty to follow the doomed.
    The ground inside rattles with gravel. Rosie lies down and stares up at the steely forest buzzing around her. I lie down too because she’s fucking crazy and I might want to get close to that.
    How many watts is a thousand? A million? I spread my arms wide and make a V with my legs. Then I slide them shut. I do it again, and a third time, and I might be cutting up my bare arms and thighs on the gravel but I don’t care.
    “Gravel angels,” I tell Rosie.
    “You’re wicked crazy,” she says, and begins to flail. “You know that?”
    As we flex ourselves open and closed a cloud of dust rises around us. It hangs in the air, tiny particles. We are scuffing ourselves up in this toxic dirt. We are too close together, and as we beat our wings furiously Rosie’s nails scratch my face and my fist wing catches her ribs and we’re drunk and bruised and laughing.
    When we’re exhausted and spent we tuck our wings at our sides. There’s only the sound of our alternately rasping breath and the humming. We sit up. The orange light on top of one of the transformers flicks on and light falls around us like a pumpkin, like a halo.
    Rosie’s bright hair catches the light and within minutes pale moths have gathered around her head. They parachute their furry bodies in arcs around her, wholly determined torpedoes. Rosie closes her eyes. A few moths settle on her head. I could stare at her like this for a long while yet. In fact, since I got here, all I want to do is stare and stare at this girl’s face, and yes, I really am in trouble now. Bad trouble, I think as I watch this solar system of tiny revolving bodies orbiting Rosie’s head.

5

    Leah
    T here are dead bees on the windowsills of the Menamon Star office. Their legs stick up in surrender. I have been here five minutes and already I can tell, this is the kind of office where even the vermin have given up.
    Charley is in a backroom office. A scrappy redhead raps on her open door to let her know I am here. Charley knows I am here. The redhead walks past me to the copier. On the breeze of her motion I smell last night’s booze. She sits down at a desk that seems more appropriate for an antiques shop than an office.
    “You smell like gin,” I tell her.
    She looks at me. Her eyes are pinkish around the rims, like a rabbit my class used to have in school. She’s wearing a blue-and-white-striped button-down with the cuffs rolled up and too-big, straight-legged jeans. “What kind?” she says. Her cheekbones are high, a note of distinction in an otherwise ragamuffin exterior.
    “Gordon’s, maybe, but I’m only saying that based on looking at you. The smell could be Tanqueray. Could be Beefeater.”
    “Who are you?” she says, but then Charley emerges.
    Back in her office Charley makes a big show of actually looking