Free The Wonder Bread Summer by Jessica Anya Blau Page A

Kathy’s eye, but Kathy wouldn’t look at her.
    “Allie!” Bud said, and he stuck out his hand. Allie shook it without taking her eyes off the man in the wheelchair. “This is my friend and client, Roger.” He pronounced it Roe-Jay. “He’s from Paris.”
    “You’re a French major, this should be easy for you,” Kathy said. She toward Roger. “I’m Kathy, by the way.” Then she leaned forward to shake Roger’s hand. Before she could get there, his arm spasmed. Kathy chased the hand across the board, trapped it, held it for the amount of time a shake would have taken, and released it. She was wearing her polite, nervous smile. Allie had seen it thousands of times over the years; it popped up frequently in front of teachers and parents. It reminded Allie of a pencil drawing: a single horizontal line to indicate a mouth.
    “Have a seat,” Bud said, and he pulled out the chair beside him for Kathy, then pointed at the chair in the corner for Allie. The wheelchair was blocking access, so Allie grabbed the two handles and tried to pull Roger back. Roger made a long, low squeal.
    “Brakes,” Bud said, “you need to release the brakes.”
    “Oh.” Allie tried not to laugh. When she looked toward Kathy, Kathy jolted her head away as if to indicate she would have no part in making fun of this incident. Beth would want to talk about this, Allie thought wistfully. Beth loved to laugh about everything she and Allie encountered in Berkeley: the bearded guy who wore dresses, lived in a tree on Telegraph Avenue, and shouted down to pedestrians, “Jesus hates you!”; the Gertrude Stein–looking woman in the black judicial robe, who wandered around campus blowing bubbles from a pink plastic bubble-maker; or Polka Dot Man, who silently held yoga poses for hours in Dwinelle Plaza, wearing his white polka-dot jumpsuit. And then Allie remembered Beth’s car, Jonas, Vice Versa, and the fact that she was supposed to have been back at Beth’s apartment with the coke hours ago. Another time , Allie said in her head, and she longed for some unimaginable future where there were no terrifying or uncomfortable thoughts she needed to banish.
    Allie looked down to the back wheels of the chair, saw a little red lever, and kicked it up with her foot. She rolled the chair back, got into her seat, and pulled the chair forward by the armrests. “I guess I can’t lock it from where I’m sitting.” She tilted her head to make her eyes even with Roger’s falling head. A loose lank of tin-blond hair jerked across his face. “Do you think you’ll be okay?”
    Roger banged the felt-tipped pointer on the word YES that was prominent in the upper right corner of the board. NO was on the other corner, MAYBE in the middle, the alphabet in the center, and then a few simple word combinations on the bottom: I need , I would like , Please , Thank you , Help.
    Bud ordered two pitchers of beer for the table. When the waiter brought out the bumpy orangey glasses, Bud poured a beer for each of them and raised his glass for a toast.
    “To old friends and new,” he said. “And to this foxy little lady!” He leaned over and kissed Kathy on the mouth, his fat lips completely concealing her face below her nose. Kathy had her hands on his shoulders, as if to push him away, yet she stayed with the kiss. Allie was impressed. Kathy had never been demonstrative. She would have sighed or rolled her eyes had Allie kissed someone like that in public.
    “Okay,” Kathy said, when she pulled away from the kiss. She straightened her already straight hair.
    “You need to help him drink,” Bud said abruptly, pointing at Allie with his cup.
    “Oh!” Allie laughed, picked up Roger’s beer, and put it to his mouth. Roger chugged, his mustache dipping into the cup, then rocked his head back in what seemed like glee. Allie wondered if she should wipe the beer foam off his mustache. She lifted her napkin once, hovered it for a moment, then put it back down