The Melting Season Read Online Free PDF Page B

cartoon version of a real town. I knew buildings came from somewhere, that they did not just pop up out of thin air. But it seemed like Las Vegas was made from scratch. There was nothing all around for miles, and then all of a sudden there were these huge towers that were imitations of real places. There was a circus, and there was ancient Rome, and there was the Eiffel Tower. Somebody built these, I kept thinking. Where I came from all the buildings were small and made sense. They served a purpose. This seemed almost immoral. But I could not say I minded it either. Everything new I saw made me feel like I was on the way to figuring myself out.
    It was just before the sunset when I arrived. I moved with the traffic, slowly jerking forward. On the sidewalks all around people walked slowly, like it was summertime, and they were taking their evening stroll. A car behind me started honking and I covered my outside ear with one hand. I did not know where to stop. I opened the window and it was cool, but the sun felt nice on my skin. The air felt still and clean. This is one reason people came here to get away from it all, I thought. Sunshine in December, God Bless America.
    My parents had come here once in the winter. It was one of Dad’s pharmaceutical conferences. They did not travel much. My father was like most everyone else in town, just like I was. Not much in a hurry to go anywhere. Simply content. My mother was mixed, and I was always confused by it. Sometimes she was herky-jerky all over the place, wishing she was anywhere but our town. She had had big dreams once. She had been to France once, she would have you know. That’s right. France. In Europe. But as I got older, and especially after Jenny was born, she pushed all of that down, deep down. The balance shifted somewhere along the way, and she just became our mother and not much more than that. She had her reasons, even if it was not always clear to us what they were. Whatever else she had imagined she would do with her life seemed to be gone forever, or at least hidden so far away none of us ever saw it.
    Still she liked her trips when she got them, and Las Vegas was a knockout, as far as she was concerned. I was in high school, and they left me in charge of Jenny. I sat in the room while my mother packed, and she told me she was taking her “dancing shoes.” I remember listening to her, and being happy for her, but in the back of my mind I was happier for Thomas. I knew he would be glad they were going away. He wanted to sleep in my bed with me, like a real man. He could spend the night at last. We had tickled each other in the mornings and paid Jenny twenty bucks to keep her mouth shut. I made blueberry pancakes and sausage for everyone. My parents came back two days later tired but still hungry for each other’s kisses. My father stroked the back of my mother’s neck at dinner. It was one of the few times I can remember bliss in that house. Everyone was happy all at once. I prayed Las Vegas might have some healing powers for me, but I could not imagine sleeping in any one of these buildings.
    My phone rang as I was stopped in front of a giant Statue of Liberty, so close you could almost walk right up to it. It was my mother. I sent it to voice mail. It rang again. It was my sister. I was sure my mother was somewhere nearby, but I picked it up anyway. I knew Jenny would never hand over the phone to my mother. She would rather dangle it in front of her that she was the only one who could get through to me. I decided to make her day.
    “Where you at?” she said. She was always tough on the phone now. All of her friends were like that.
    “I am driving,” I said. Across the street a pregnant woman posed for a picture in front of Lady Liberty with a set of twin toddler boys and a baby in a carriage. Her breasts were enormous. She licked the palms of her hands and smoothed down the hair of her sons, then arranged them on either side of the carriage.
    “Duh.