Free The O. Henry Prize Stories 2011 by Laura Furman Page B

where you are now? Sherry asks me. She herds me toward the door. Dick manages to get a hand on my shoulder, so I look back. Take care, he says, but he glances away at the end like I hurt his eyes.
    I practically knock myself out saying thanks some more, and then I’m out of the house and the door is closed and I’m trying to catch my breath. I bend down and pretend to tie my boots for a minute, and then I check the mailbox. I take what’s there and walk quickly down the street. When I’m a few houses away, I take a sharp left and crunch through a snowy yard until I’m on the next street. Back on Grover I take the first guy that stops, an old farmerin a pickup. He’s silent the whole way to James’s, as if I’m just some stock he has to transport.
    RJ loves the coins. This one’s from 1903 Germany, he says. That’s their kaiser on it. He strokes the glass. Man, you know you have a lot of money when it just sits out on display, he says. I’ll take that, James says, pulling the frame from RJ’s hand. RJ goes back to chasing Riley around the house.
    Riley and Merilee are here, picking up money and giving Riley a chance to see his dad not framed in a car window. Little Fry finds a bank statement in the last delivery of mail Richard von Behren will receive for a while, so James gets me on the phone immediately to 24-Hour Customer Service.
    This is Sherry von Behren of 653 Oak, I say. How are you?
    Wonderful! the helpful person says. What can I do for you?
    I’d like to get your credit card but I lost the offer, I say. I give the checking account number.
    Password? the helpful person asks.
    Batman, I say, and then I’m in.
    A while later, Riley wants to go outside. The sun is low again, this time striped with clouds. James makes us all go with Riley, even Little Fry. RJ, Little Fry, and I have a foilie in the pantry before we venture forth. Home, again. The chef stands by the barn with a cigarette, carefully flicking his ash into a tin can.
    There’s a big cow pond behind the barn that’s frozen solid. RJ takes off and slides on his stomach like he’s stealing a base. Riley cracks up.
    I took Richard von Behren’s change of address card down to the box myself and put up the flag. The mail truck comes late here, we’re so far out. Dick and Sherry are going to visit their own mailbox over and over—nothing there. Every day will be like pressing on a bruise to test the pain. Those two will figure it out quick, butby the time they do, Little Fry, RJ, me, and James will have their finances in a snarl and then James will sell everything about Richard von Behren to someone else. People get passed around that way. They get lost.
    Everyone’s standing at the side of the cow pond watching RJ go crazy on the ice. All of that’s going to hurt later. Riley is pulling on Merilee’s hand. I go inside. My skates are in James’s room.
    Everyone is slipping and sliding on the pond when I come back out, so no one notices when I sit on a stump and put on my skates. The leather is like soft hands holding my feet. I took lessons until I was fourteen, and when I get on the ice everything comes back. I do an arabesque and a single Axel.
    Wow, Fritzie, Merilee says. That’s amazing. Do it again! Riley says. A girl of many talents, James says, but he looks mad.
    Everyone gets in a crowd trying to do my moves, but they can’t. This pond is all mine, I want to say. James starts sliding after me. Right away everyone follows, yelling and laughing. I take off, floating from side to side until my wheezy lungs smooth out. Marita, come back! Little Fry calls.
    I skate faster and faster toward the snowbank at the other end of this glassy ground, so fast I can’t feel the surface or hear a voice, so strong I could part the clouds over the sun. The wind is wicked.

Kenneth Calhoun
Nightblooming
    I was told they found themselves retired and so they said, Now’s finally the time to form a band! You should see the instruments they fished out of