Free Thin Ice by Anthea Carson Page B

be dark; all you’ll get is skin cancer, like I did.”
    Aunt Katie did have skin cancer, I remembered, because at one time she too had been a sun worshipper, and had fallen asleep in the sun lying on her stomach.  She still had a large scar on her back.
    “But I want to look good .  Isn’t it normal for me to want to be attractive?”
    “Of course, but you already know you are attractive, and attractiveness isn’t all it’s cracked up to be,” she said.  “And the reason you think you’re fat is that the fashion designers in New York are gay men, and don’t like a woman’s curves.”
    Fascinating theory.  I loved listening to my aunt.
    W hen the summer came to an end, she put me back on the bus.  She gave me more than enough money for food on the way home.  I can’t imagine what I spent it on, but I ran out very quickly.
    I sat staring out the window at the night , feeling my stomach churn and grumble.  I thought about Paul.  Krishna had called me at one point, and during our conversation she’d told me that Paul was thinking about me.
    “How do you know?” I asked.
    “Do you remember that song you were always trying to find the name of?  You finally found the name, but for a long time you couldn’t remember it and all you could do was hum the tune.”
    “ ‘Pictures of Matchstick Men’?” I asked.
    “ That’s it.  We were standing on Ziggy’s porch last night.  It was quiet, and no one was saying anything, and then Paul slowly, out of nowhere, started playing those chords on his guitar, the ones you used to hum.  And everyone said how they missed you.”
    “Paul did that?”
    “Yep.  He was thinking about you.”
    O ut the window, the desert rushed by in the dark.  I had felt a sort of high ever since she told me that, and couldn’t wait to go home.
    I fell asleep on the bus , but in the middle of the night, I woke up from hunger.  I had never known hunger, really.  There had only been a few odd times, like before a picnic, when I had been young, and my mom hadn’t let me spoil my appetite.  But this time I was alone, and out in the middle of nowhere, with nobody I knew.  And no money. 
    Un able to go back to sleep, I watched the sunrise.  I had been sharing my seat with a priest.  He noticed when we stopped that I didn’t leave the bus to go in and buy some food.
    “Aren’t you hungry?” he asked.
    “I’m starving,” I said, looking at him with what felt like hollow eyes.
    When he came back from the café , he brought me a bag of almonds, and gave me ten dollars.
    My dad picked me up at the bus stop.
    He looked sad when he saw me, which I didn’t understand at all.  I said, “Take me home; I need to use the car.”
    “Don’t call Krishna,” he said.
    “I haven’t seen her all summer ; I’m going to call her.”
    W hen she answered the phone, she sounded giddy with delight and said, “You’re home?  Come over!”
    “I don’t have the car .  Can you get me?”
    “I’ll be right over .  I just got my license!”

13
     
    K rishna picked me up.  She had her dad’s car.  We picked up Chrystal, bought a six-pack at Pat’s Tap, and planned to drive to Ziggy’s.
    “That’s where Gay is .  Wait,” Krishna said, “let’s surprise her.  You wait here at Pat’s on the steps and we’ll trick her.  We’re tell her we’re looking for dope, and then we’ll drive past Pat’s Tap and say, ‘Oh look, there’s Jane!  Maybe she has dope.’ Then you get in the car.”
    We giggled at this .
    I waited in the sun . 
    I loved being drunk in the middle of the afternoon when it was sunny.  There was something magical about it.  It was normal to be completely inebriated in the evening, but there was something special about it in the middle of the day.  The warmth of the sun on your skin, the blueness of the sky, the bright-green leaves on the trees.
    I loved the warm stones against my skin .  I wore short shorts and a tank top.  I lit a cigarette, and