Year of Lesser Read Online Free PDF Page A

phone and picks it up. She can smell herself on the receiver. She likes that. She curls up in an armchair, folds her small legs under her, and punches at the numbers.
    A kid answers. Loraine can hear music in the background. She would like to ask this kid about Chris. Is he there? But instead she says, “I want to talk to Johnny Fehr.”
    And then, after a few minutes, she hears his voice and for a moment she can’t speak. She’s been aching to tell him, walking around sucking on this secret for several weeks and now, at this point, she wants the giddiness of telling.
    “Johnny?” she says, “It’s me.”
    He seems neither pleased nor concerned. Loraine tries to imagine him, the way he looks standing by the phone. He’ll be wearing jeans and she likes that. She knows he’s smoking, she can hear him draw, even though he’s got a no-smoking rule for the centre.
    “We have to talk,” she says. She lifts her eyebrows and says, “Is tomorrow okay?”
    Johnny hums. The phone crackles as he shifts and stubs his cigarette. “What’s wrong?” he asks.
    Loraine’s mouth is dry. This was supposed to be fun, she thinks. “Nothing,” she says, “I got some news.”
    Johnny’s thinking. Loraine can tell. And then he says, “Listen, I’m going up to Sprague tomorrow, talk to a customer. You wanna come? For the morning?”
    “Yes,” Loraine says, too quickly perhaps. She’s holding herself, one palm on her stomach, and she’s remembering the way Johnny looks when he stands by the window and puts on his shirt. He rarely tucks in his tails and a couple of buttons are missed and this could be sloppiness to somepeople but to Loraine it’s what and who Johnny Fehr is and she loves him. “Yes,” she says again.
    Johnny is leasing a Ninety-eight Olds. It’s dark green and serious. Saturday morning Loraine sits in the front seat, runs her hand over the upholstery, and thinks that she prefers the half-ton. It has a smell of oil and grain and she likes the way Johnny looks behind the wheel. This new car makes him look too earnest.
    They’re mostly quiet driving down the Number 52 through Steinbach, but when they turn onto the Number 12 and it begins to snow, tiny flakes melting on the windshield, Loraine talks about an aunt who lives in Grunthal. “She’s got twelve kids,” she says. “They live in a three-bedroom house and the husband’s a mechanic.”
    Johnny doesn’t answer. He’s playing with the radio. “I love this,” he says. “They’re a family, I think. The Rankins. I saw them once on TV and they all look beautiful.” He lights a cigarette and offers Loraine one. She shakes her head and Johnny looks at her, surprised.
    “Anyway,” Loraine says, “this aunt wanted all those children, just wanted them. Two died in a car accident. She still has ten. It’s hard to imagine.” Loraine knows Johnny is waiting for her to talk, to say what she has to say, but she’s thinking now that something’s wrong, that when she finally really talks he won’t listen.
    She says, “I gather eggs. Twice a day. I take six at a time. Three in each hand. It’s strange these days to handle eggs. Not that they’re fertilized in any way but still it’s odd. I used to candle eggs at the hatchery. Watch them as they ran over a scanner, look for flaws, blood spots, bubbles of air. Sometimes I could see right into them, like I was looking into a perfect glass stone.” She pauses, reaches out, and takes Johnny’s right hand off the wheel and presses his palm against her stomach. “Here,” she whispers.
    Johnny’s tongue is touching his top lip and his eyes wrinkle. He’staking her words and running them around in his head. Finally, he bangs a palm against the steering wheel. “Aw, no, Loraine, really?” A noise rises from his chest. Loraine cannot tell if this is joy or sorrow. But he turns and he smiles and “Yes,” he says.
    “You’re happy then?” Loraine asks. “Really?”
    And Johnny is, she can see