Free The Lonely Polygamist by Brady Udall Page A

hair with a towel.
    She did not wait for Rose to comb out her tangled hair, did not wait for her turn in Nola’s chair. A bitterness had risen in her throat, sudden and hot—that she should have to feel guilty for wanting to be a participant in her own life, that she should be ashamed of wanting to spend a few hours with her own husband!—and she knew she should leave immediately. She made an excuse about a forgotten appointment at the clinic and on her way out made sure to slip the Cosmo from underneath the teetering magazine pile and tuck it under her arm as if it belonged to her. She stepped out into the bright day, the sidewalk scorching white beneath her feet, the sky a pale panel of blue over her head, and walked slowly at first, her hair wet and wild, her face still covered with the handkerchief, and then began to run, making a break for it like the outlaw she was.

4.
THE A-HOLES OF OLD HOUSE
    T HEY CAUGHT HIM IN THE UNDERWEAR. HE HAD JUST SLIPPED HIS foot into a pair of nylon tights when that little bubble-eyed freak Louise peeked in the room and ran down the stairs screaming her head off, “Rusty! Oh no! Rusty! He’s in the underwear! Rusty’s in the underwear!” Like she was Paul Revere telling everybody the Russians were coming.
    He happened to be wearing some panties over his jeans too, he wanted to see how they looked, kind of like an experiment. They were made of a smooth blue satiny material with a tiny bow on the band and were so small he had a terrible time getting them off. He yanked and pulled and had them down to his ankles when Aunt Beverly walked in and scared him so bad he tipped backward and cracked his head on the edge of the dresser.
    Even though his head hitting the dresser had made a noise, and he was now in a lot of pain, Aunt Beverly didn’t say, Are you okay, Rusty, hmm, you want an ice pack or something on that? She just watched him squirm around on the floor trying to stretch the panties around his feet. Rusty thought, Aunt Beverly, you old witchy woman , which made him feel a little less like he might crap his pants in fear.
    Someday, when he had discovered his own mysterious personal superpower, which would most likely be chemically radioactive laser beams that shot out of his eyes, he would do battle with Aunt Beverly and blast that witchy stare right off her fat face until her hair caught fire and she had to jump through a window and into the cow trough outside to put out the flames. And all the brothers and sisters would run screaming before him and his deadly laser beams, and he would blast one or two of them in the back before he said, Come on back, guys, I’m just kidding, ha ha, I won’t harm the rest of you as long as Aunt Beverly apologizes for all her wrong actions and crimes against humanity , and Aunt Beverly would come up to him all wet from the cow trough and her bald head still smoking and say, I’m sorry, Rusty, please forgive us all, won’t you, we will do whatever you say as long as you’ll allow us to keep our precious lives .
    Now there was a bunch more girls gathered in the doorway laughing, oh, so insanely happy about what was going on here, it looked like their big white teeth were going to pop out of their mouths. Rusty laughed too, just to show them he understood how funny this underwear situation was, but instead of laughing he snorked, which made them laugh harder, which made his face get hot and itchy. Aunt Beverly trained her witchy-woman stare on them for a second and they ran away howling and giggling, Hee hee, oh my gosh! Stop it! Shhhhh! and in about thirty seconds everybody in the family, including the neighbors and other innocent bystanders, would be up to date on the underwear thing. What a gyp.
    Aunt Beverly stood right over him and asked what he thought he was doing, creeping around in the Big Girls’ room like some kind of pervert, trying on their underwear.
    Rusty held his breath and had to concentrate extremely hard not to let her make