Free The Girl Next Door by Jack Ketchum Page B

walked over to her. I glanced over my shoulder at Meg. She was coming toward me through the dining room. She was shaking her head. Her mouth was forming a silent “no.”
    That was okay. It was just shyness. Ruth would see the painting and she’d get over it.
    “Ruth,” I said. “This is from Meg.”
    I held it out to her.
    She smiled first at me and then at Meg and took it from me. Woofer had Father Knows Best turned low now so you could hear the crinkling of the stiff brown paper as she unwrapped it. The paper fell away. She looked at the painting.
    “Meg!” she said. “Where’d you get the money to buy this?”
    You could tell she admired it. I laughed.
    “It costs just the framing,” I said. “She painted it for you.”
    “She did? Meg did?”
    I nodded.
    Donny, Woofer and Willie all crowded around to see.
    Susan slipped off her chair. “It’s beautiful!” she said.
    I glanced at Meg again still standing anxious and hopeful looking in the dining room.
    Ruth stared at the painting. It seemed like she stared a long time.
    Then she said, “No, she didn’t. Not for me. Don’t kid me. She painted it for you, Davy.”
    She smiled. The smile was a little funny somehow. And now I was getting anxious too.
    “Look here. A boy on a rock. Of course it’s for you.”
    She handed it back to me.
    “I don’t want it,” she said.
    I felt confused. That Ruth might refuse it had never even occurred to me. For a moment I didn’t know what to do. I stood there holding it, looking down at it. It was a beautiful painting.
    I tried to explain.
    “But it’s really meant for you, Ruth. Honest. See, we talked about it. And Meg wanted to do one for you but she was so ...”
    “David. ”
    It was Meg, stopping me. And now I was even more confused, because her voice was stem with warning.
    It made me almost angry. Here I was in the middle of this damn thing and Meg wouldn’t let me get myself out of it.
    Ruth just smiled again. Then looked at Willie and Woofer and Donny.
    “Take a lesson, boys. Remember this. It’s important. All you got to do any time is be nice to a woman—and she’ll do all kinds of good things for you. Now Davy was nice to Meg and got himself a painting. Nice painting. That is what you got, isn’t it, Davy? I mean that’s all you got? I know you’re a little young but you never know.”
    I laughed, blushing. “Come on, Ruth.”
    “Well, I’m telling you you do never know. Girls are plain easy. That’s their problem. Promise ‘em a little something and you can have whatever you want half the time. I know what I’m saying. Look at your father. Look at Willie Sr. He was gonna own his own company when we married. Fleet of milk trucks. Start with one and work his way on up. I was gonna help him with the books just like I did back on Howard Avenue during the war. Ran that plant during the war. We were gonna be richer than my folks were when I was a kid in Morristown, and that was pretty rich, I’ll tell you. But you know what I got? Nothing. Not a damned thing. Just you three poppin’ out one, two, three, and that lovely Irish bastard’s off to God knows where. So I get three hungry mouths to feed, and now I’ve got two more.
    “I tell you, girls are dumb. Girls are easy. Suckers straight on down the line.”
    She walked past me to Meg. She put her arm around her shoulders and then she turned to the rest of us.
    “You take this painting now,” she said. “I know you made it for David here and don’t you try to tell me any different. But what I want to know is, what are you gonna get out of it? What do you think this boy’s going to give you? Now Davy’s a nice boy. Better than most I’d say. Definitely better. But darlin’—he’s not gonna give you nothing! If you think he will you got another thing coming.
    “So I’m just saying I hope that painting’s all you been giving him and all you will give him, and this is for your own good I’m telling you. Because you already got