The Long Wait for Tomorrow Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Huh.”
    “Hey, Kelly …,” Patrick ventured, heading down the steps. “I know I asked this a couple of whenevers ago, but … is everything all—”
    “This …,” Kelly interrupted, trailed off momentarily before resurfacing. “This is, I mean this room. Here, right? This is where we had that Christmas party, way back when….” Kelly glanced up, over to Patrick. “Right? My parents …” Kelly squinted. “My parents threw this kind of joint Christmas party, their friends in the kitchen, our friends in here. They let everyone get wasted, and, well … I mean, my parents were always drunks, they must have gotten …” Kelly’s certainty seemed to be fading. “Wasn’t this the place, Patrick? You, me, and Jenna stayed up past the dial, just talking, way back when, wasn’t it?”
    Despite knowing the story all too well, Patrick was having a hard time following. “Way back when, Kelly, I don’t … I mean, that was just this past Christmas.” Patrick walked over to a set of sliding glass doors leading out to the top of the driveway and innocuously drew the blinds. Long strips of plasticswayed in dissonant motion, rattled quietly against each other. “We’re talking a few months here, if that, Kelly …”
    Kelly’s eyes widened, remembering something…. “Jenna.”
    “Well, you, me, and Jenna, sure—”
    “Is Jenna still around?”
    Patrick felt a bit more comfortable fielding this one. “She took off last night, remember?”
    “Last night?”
    “Last night, yes. Before today, if I’m not mistaken.”
    And now a lightbulb popped above Kelly’s head. “Paper.”
    “What’s … what are you—”
    “We get the paper, right?” Kelly climbed over the sofa, plodded toward Patrick. “The Verona Something-or-other, right?”
    Patrick gave himself room to back up. “Yeah,
Verona Observer
, what’s the big deal …”
    Kelly didn’t have too much vested in Patrick’s sentence, and he took off once again. Up the four steps, and through the kitchen.
    Patrick might have stayed put this time if he hadn’t immediately sensed where this was all heading. Leaping into the kitchen, following his gut toward the front hallway, he saw Kelly at the far end, frantically undoing the brass locks on the front door.
    “Kelly!” Patrick cried out, several seconds too late. The door was jerked open with wrenching sounds of protest from the unaccustomed paint job. “Nobody goes out through the front door!”
    Oh
, his angels nudged him as Kelly burst out the screendoor.
And there’s the fact that he’s running bare-ass naked out into the street at seven-thirty in the morning.
    Patrick turned back, rushed through the kitchen, catapulted himself over the steps leading down into the den. Hit the ground running, right arm reaching out and snatching a quilted blanket from the back of the couch. Legs pumping, Patrick smacked into the glass doorway, cutting through the plastic blinds in search of the lock, hands fumbling.
    He got it, slid the door open, and tore through the blinds, hitting an immediate right.
    Scattered twigs and acorns dug sharply into his bare feet, only a few wild steps taken down the sloping driveway before Patrick came to a scampering halt.
    There, at the entrance to the street, stood Kelly.
    Unfurled early edition held high over his head. Waving the ink back and forth, grinning like the first North Carolinian to actually win the Powerball. Unconcerned with his naked state, even as a few neighbors stepped out onto their lawns to watch the spectacle, coffee mugs trapped in a holding pattern just below confused lips.
    “It’s May!” he cried out, lifting his left leg and hopping around in a demented circle. “It’s Thursday, May fifteenth! May fifteenth, two thousand motherfucking eight!” He paused, as though waiting for Patrick to react. When he got nothing, Kelly simply added: “AD!” before coming out with a long, booming laugh, not a shred of dignity as he returned to his