Free The Story Until Now: A Great Big Book of Stories by Kit Reed Page A

stopped by the fact that except for the slip with the mother, he hasn’t spoken. There are too many words backed up in him. He can’t get them in order, much less let them out. He just doesn’t have the equipment.
    Instead he hitches across the floor the way he did when he was two and sits with his back against the door, putting his head to the wood. Feeling her. He feels her outline pressed to the other side of the panel, her heart beating. Susan, breathing.
    “Don’t worry,” she says. “I understand. I just want you to come out so we can be together and be happy.”
    His fingers creep along the door.
    “Happy,” she says, and he will not know whether she is talking about theirfuture or using his name, which is his secret. “You know, you’re really a very lovely man. It’s a shame for you to be shut up in there when you could come out and enjoy the world!”
    Swaying slightly in time with that musical voice, he toys with the lock. He can’t, he could, he wants to open that door and do something about the way he is feeling. With Susan, he won’t have to wonder how the parts fit together.
    Like a gifted animal trainer she goes on, about his bright hair, about how lucky she felt when she first saw him; she is lilting now. “It’s sunny today, perfect weather, and oh, sweetie, there’s going to be a party in the garden!”
    Then he hears a little stir in the hall. Someone else out there with her, breathing.
    “A party in your honor. Cake, sweetie, and champagne, have you ever had champagne? You’re going to love it …” He does indeed hear music. Someone tapping a microphone. Voices in the garden. Behind Susan, someone is muttering. She breaks off. “Brent, I am not going to tell him about the people from Miramax! Not until we get him out of there!”
    The brother. Happy shuts down. What else would he do after what Brent did to him? Things in this room, he realizes; Brent was that much older. Brent giving him a mean, sly look on his last night in this world he outgrew, letting their father hit the gas on the minivan and drive away without him.
    After a long time, when it becomes clear that there’s no change in the situation, Susan gets up off her knees—he can feel every move she makes—and leans the whole of that soft body against the wood. He stands too, so that in a way, they are together. She says in a tone that makes clear that they will indeed lie down together too, “Champagne, and when it’s over, you and I …”
    There is the sound of a little struggle. Brent barks a warning. “Ten minutes, Frederick Olmstead. Ten minutes more and we break down the door and drag you out.”
    He does not have to go to the window to hear the speech Brent makes to the people assembled. He can hear them muttering. He smells them all. He hears their secret body parts moving. They are drinking champagne in the garden. Then it changes. There is a new voice. Ugly. Different from the buddabuddabudda of ordinary people talking.
    “Thank you for coming and thank you for your patience. OK , Brent. Where is he?”
    It’s him.
    Brett whines, “I told you, Dad, I couldn’t …”
    “Then I will.”
    Another voice. The mother. “No, Fred. Not this time.”
    There is a smack. A thud. Under the window, the father raises his head and howls, “Two minutes, son. I’m warning you.”
    Happy’s hackles rise. His lips curl back from bared fangs as in the garden under the window the mother cries, “I told you never to come here!”
    There is a stir; something happens and the mother is silenced.
    Him.
    He commands the crowd. “Give me a minute and I’ll bring the wolf boy down for his very first interview.”
    His father comes.
    He will find that Happy has unlocked the door for him.
    Big man, but not as big as Happy remembers him. Big smile on his face, which has been surgically enhanced, although Happy will not know it. Smooth, beautifully tanned under the expensively cropped hair, it is nothing like the angry face