Wallflower Read Online Free PDF

sorry for them. They say the worst thing that can happen to you is to lose a child. You never get over it, they say. . . ."
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    M onika accompanied him to the security gate. There he put down his bags so they could embrace.
    "This can't be good-bye. I don't want to lose you."
    "We're not going to lose each other. Don't even think that," she said.
    "You've been the best thing to happen to me in years."
    "I feel the same. We'll stay close. Somehow we'll manage to see each other, perhaps sooner than you think."
    "I'll phone you tomorrow night."
    The final call for his flight was announced. It was time to go. He hugged her as tight as he could. Then, just before he reached down for his bags, she handed him a package.
    "I bought this for myself, before I met you." She smiled. "Now I want you to have it. Please take it, Frank."
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    O n the plane, somewhere between Venice and Rome, he carefully unwrapped her gift. It was a fine antique Venetian wineglass, pure Renaissance in style, nothing fancy, no spirals or wavy bands of color, just a simple graceful transparent cone set upon an octagonal base.
    As Janek held it to the window so the wondrous light of the Italian sky could play upon it and fill it up, he knew, by the way it reminded him of the clear, yearning beauty of Monika's eyes, that it was the choicest piece of glass he had seen in Venice.

3
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CONVERSATION WITH MAMA
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    " C an you hear me, dear?"
    "I can hear you, Mama."
    "It's getting to be time again."
    "Yes, Mama."
    "Remember, it's not enough to feel the pain and then the fury. You've got to do something about it. Got to fix them good."
    "I understand, Mama."
    "He deserves it. Doesn't he?"
    "Oh, he deserves it! He surely does deserve it!"
    "So?"
    "I'll use Tool again."
    "What will you do to him?"
    "The same as to the others."
    "Let's hear you say it."
    "Fix him. Shut him up forever."
    " Why , child?"
    "Because of what he did."
    "And what was that?"
    "Must I, Mama? Please!"
    "You must! You know you must! Now tell me what he did."
    "He was unkind."
    "Ha!"
    "Very unkind!"
    "Don't make me laugh."
    "Well, he was."
    "Of course, he was, you goose. But what did he do? Tell me!"
    "Insulted me."
    "Is that all?"
    "Hurt me."
    "Is that really all he did? Come on, child. Spill your guts."
    "He harmed me."
    "Can't say it, can you?"
    "I can say it, Mama. I can say it all right. It hurts me to say it. But I can."
    "Then say it, for God's sakes. Say it!"
    "What?"
    "Humiliated me."
    "Don't whimper, child. Say it loud."
    "He humiliated me!"
    "Yep, that's what he did. So what're you going to do about it?"
    "Pay him back."
    "How?"
    "Use Tool."
    "Use Tool to do what?"
    "Kill him."
    "And?"
    "Fix him!"
    "And?"
    "Shut him up!"
    "For how long?"
    "Forever."
    "Say it again."
    "Kill him and fix him and shut him up forever."
    " There, that's the ticket. You got it, child. Yeah, you got it now."

4
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JESS
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    O n the Van Wyck Expressway, peering out of Aaron Greenberg's beaten-up Chevrolet, Janek felt malice in the air. Traffic was heavy. People sat rigid and angry in their cars. Cold rain pelted the asphalt through noxious yellow fog, while all around he could hear the biting sound of horns and, in the distance, competing sirens, perhaps a fire truck and an ambulance at odds.
    He touched the window. Ice-cold. The wiper slapped back and forth. The city ahead, toward which they were moving at such erratic speed, could not yet be seen, but Janek could feel it, could feel its nasty breath, its rancor.
    He turned back to Aaron, who sat straight in his seat, concentrating on the road. A short, taut, wiry man with weather-beaten skin, his eyes and smile were sweet. My partner and best friend, Janek thought. Kit would gladly have sent her car, but only Aaron, he knew, would come out to Kennedy Airport on such a day to meet him and bring him in.
    "New York's got no gender."
    Aaron peered ahead curiously. "What?"
    "Venice is a 'she.' New York's an 'it,'" Janek said.
    "Well, what do you