Free As Good As Gone (9781616206000) by Larry Watson Page B

saying that because . . . Fuck it. Forget the bathroom. It doesn’t have to be the bathroom. How about her bedroom? You know Billy Doyne, don’t you? His sister? With the big knockers? She was a basketball cheerleader last year. My brother said they used to spy on her all the time. They stood on a box outside her bedroom window. He said they used to watch her squeeze her pimples. She’d be naked and turning all around trying to squeeze pimples on her back. Jesus! What I’d give to see that!”
    â€œBilly too? Was he watching?”
    â€œShit yes, Billy too!”
    â€œMy sister doesn’t have pimples . . .”
    Although they had come to the black-­topped road, Stuart did not get on his bicycle and start to pedal off with the other boys. Instead, he stared at Will so long that Will began to contemplate the empty spaces between the freckles dotting Stuart’s face. And then Stuart began to laugh.
    â€œYou’re a nut, Sidey. You know that—a fucking nut! No pimples. No shower curtain!” When his laughter subsided, Stuart swung onto his bike.
    Will couldn’t bear the thought of remaining in Stuart Kinder’s company any longer. He slapped dramatically at the back of his jeans. “Oh no! Oh shit!” Will said.
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI lost my billfold. I bet it came out when we took our pants off to cross the deep water. Damn it! I gotta go back.”
    Stuart looked questioningly at him.
    â€œThat’s okay. You go ahead. I’ll go back and find it. I’m pretty sure I know where it fell out.”
    â€œWhat the hell were you doing with a billfold?”
    â€œI thought maybe we were going to stop at Holt’s Confectionary.”
    â€œYeah, maybe we should’ve.” Stuart stood up on his pedals and began to pump, but within twenty yards he jammed on his brakes. Over his shoulder he shouted another question. “How do you know your sister ain’t got pimples?”
    And then Stuart was off, the cackle of his laughter mingling with the rattle of his bicycle chain.
    When he returned home, Will had to answer to his mother’s interrogation. Where were you, she wanted to know; she had seen Glen go by on his bike over an hour before. Only recently Will had discovered that his ability to lie to his parents had become so well honed that it was no longer necessary to prepare a fabrication in advance; he could concoct a serviceable lie when the moment demanded. He didn’t come back with the other boys because his favorite fishing lure got caught in a bush, and it took Will some time to untangle his line and retrieve his spinner. His friends were jerks sometimes; they wouldn’t help him or wait for him.
    And that addendum to his lie Will was able to deliver with absolute conviction. On the long, solitary bicycle ride back from the river, Will made a decision: He had to get away from his friends, and he had to do it soon before they started skulking outside his house to get a look at Ann.
    It seems to Will that he has no alternative but to run away from home, yet as he becomes less and less interested in the world his friends inhabit, home is increasingly where he wants to be. Going off to live with his grandfather is hardly the ideal solution, but Will can’t think of a better one.
    MRS. BISHOP PASSES THEIR pew, and Ann lowers her head. Penney’s has installed new cash registers, and some of the employees, including Mrs. Bishop, who has worked at the store since it opened twenty years ago, have been having trouble learning how to operate the new machines. The store’s solution has been to team the slow learners with the employees who quickly got the knack of the new system. Ann and Mrs. Bishop both work in the Boys’ Department, and Ann was assigned to oversee the older woman to make certain she rang up her sales correctly.
    For reasons Ann can’t imagine, Mrs. Bishop dislikes her—perhaps the older woman thinks