Ugly As Sin Read Online Free PDF Page A

to). He did recall the place, and he had agreed to meet her at that address. He expected to see a Subway or a Burger King sitting there at the south end of Main Street. He couldn’t believe Annie’s Country Diner was still around.
    He parked in front of the restaurant, between a gray utility van and a mud-spattered pickup with a gun rack in the rear window.
    He turned off the Bronco’s ignition. Realized his hands were shaking as he pulled his handkerchief from his back pocket and dabbed at his leaking right eye.
    For several minutes he just sat there, wondering what the hell he was going to say to his daughter after so many years.
    Finally, he pulled his hood over his head, and climbed out of the vehicle.
     
    †
     
    The place smelled like fried chicken and coffee. Not two of Nick’s favorite smells: when he was a kid, his father used to task him with beheading the birds on their farm, and ever since then the aroma of frying chicken made him sick to his stomach; likewise, he had never developed a taste for java, unlike just about everyone else he had ever known.
    There were a dozen or so customers in the diner. At least half of them turned to stare as he entered. Conversations halted, and for several seconds the only sounds were the grill sizzling in the kitchen and a cook’s voice calling out from back there: “Chuckwagon plate’s up, Brenda!” The people who had stopped eating to gawk at Nick did not return to their meals right away. A young mother pinched her son’s forearm, admonishing him about how it wasn’t polite to stare. At the bar beside the cash register, a dreadlocked twenty-something in a tie-dyed T-shirt mumbled “oh, that poor individual” to his chubby girlfriend, but when he swiveled back around on his stool he slid his plate of corned beef hash to one side.
    A waitress passed by, and without looking in Nick’s direction she said, “Seat yourself, be with ya soon as I can.” She was a living, breathing cliché with her orange hairdo, her rumpled uniform, the way she smacked at her gum like a cow working at a mouthful of cud.
    “No problem.” Behind his dark glasses, Nick’s eyes skimmed the restaurant. “I’m meeting someone.”
    The waitress had already moved on, and was catering to the culinary needs of three burly rednecks. She cackled loudly as one of the men said something hilarious, pulled her down onto his lap.
    Nick didn’t need her anyway. Because a moment later he found who he was looking for.
    She sat in a corner booth. Her back was turned to him. He could not see his daughter’s face. But he knew her. As if via some sixth sense, blood drawn to blood.
    She wore a faded denim jacket with a small rip in the left shoulder. A cloud of cigarette smoke hovered over her table like a bad omen.
    Slowly, Nick approached his daughter.
    As he crossed the diner, he searched for something to do with his hands. They were two enormous slabs of meat that existed only to get in his way. He shoved them into the pockets of his jeans. Pulled them out. Shoved them back in.
    When he at last stood over her, he cleared his throat.
    She turned to face him.
    Nick barely caught himself—his initial instinct was not unlike the averted-eyes reaction so many people gave him these days, when they saw his mangled features.
    She was twenty-nine. But she looked at least ten years older than that.
    Sitting before him, Nick knew, was a soul defeated. Someone to whom life had been unkind.
    An icy fist squeezed his heart as she slid out of the booth and wrapped her arms around him.
    “You, uh, wanna sit down?” she said when that was done.
    She took her seat again, and he crammed his bulk into the opposite side of the booth.
    Right away, Nick noticed that his daughter didn’t seem fazed by his appearance. He found that odd. She was aware of what had happened to him three years ago—he had received word after the fact that she had called to check on him while he was in the hospital—but this was the first