The Stand (Original Edition) Read Online Free PDF Page A

Fran.”
    “Accepted,” she said colorlessly. “Drive on.”
    They didn’t talk on the ride back to the public beach parking lot. She sat with her hands folded in her lap, watching the slices of ocean layered between the cottages just west of the seawall. They looked like slum apartments, she thought. Who owned these houses, most of them still shuttered blindly against the summer that would begin officially in less than a week? Professors from MIT. Boston doctors. New York lawyers. These houses weren’t the real biggies, the coast estates owned by men who counted their fortunes in seven and eight figures. But when the families who owned them moved in here, the lowest IQ on Shore Road would be Gus the parking attendant. The kids would have ten-speeds like Jess’s. They would have bored expressions and they would go with their parents to have lobster dinners and to attend the Ogunquit Playhouse. They would idle up and down the main street, masquerading after soft summer twilight as street people. She kept looking out at the lovely flashes of cobalt between the crammed-together houses, aware that the vision was blurring with a new film of tears. The little white cloud that cried.
    They reached the parking lot, and Gus waved. They waved back. “I’m sorry I hit you, Frannie,” Jess said in a subdued voice. “I never meant to do that.”
    “I know. Are you going back to Portland?”
    “I’ll stay here tonight and call you in the morning. But it’s your decision, Fran. If you decide, you know, that an abortion is the thing, I’ll scrape up the cash.”
    “Pun intended?”
    “No,” he said. “Not at all.” He slid across the seat and kissed her chastely. “I love you, Fran.”
    I don’t believe you do, she thought. Suddenly I don’t believe it at all . . . but I’ll accept in good grace. I can do that much.
    “All right,” she said quietly.
    “It’s the Lighthouse Motel. Call if you want.”
    “Okay.” She slid behind the wheel, suddenly feeling very tired. Her tongue ached miserably where she had bitten it.
    He walked to where his bike was locked to the iron railing and coasted it back to her. “Wish you’d call, Fran.”
    She smiled artificially. “We’ll see. So long, Jess.”
    She put the Volvo in gear, turned around, and drove across the lot to the Shore Road. She could see Jess standing by his bike yet, the ocean at his back, and for the second time that day she mentally accused him of knowing exactly what kind of picture he was making. This time, instead of being irritated, she felt a little bit sad. She drove on, wondering if the ocean would ever look the way it had looked to her before all of this had happened. Her tongue hurt miserably. She opened her window wider and spat. All white & all right this time. She could smell the salt of the ocean strongly, like bitter tears.

CHAPTER 3
    Norm Bruett woke up at quarter past ten in the morning to the sound of kids fighting outside the bedroom window and country music from the radio in the kitchen.
    He went to the back door in his saggy shorts and undershirt, threw it open, and yelled: “You kids shut ya heads!”
    A moment’s pause. Luke and Bobby looked around from the old and rusty dump truck they had been arguing over. As always when he saw his kids, Norm felt dragged two ways at once. His heart ached to see them wearing handmedowns and Salvation Army giveouts like the ones you saw the nigger children in east Amette wearing; and at the same time a horrible, shaking anger would sweep through him, making him want to stride out there and beat the living shit out of them.
    “Yes, Daddy,” Luke said in a subdued way. He was nine.
    “Yes, Daddy,” Bobby echoed. He was seven going on eight.
    Norm stood for a moment, glaring at them, and slammed the door shut. He stood for a moment, looking indecisively at the pile of clothes he had worn yesterday. They were lying at the foot of the sagging double bed where he had dropped them.
    That slutty