Free All Your Pretty Dreams by Lise McClendon Page B

anyone to see.”
    “ Under the—?”
    She frowned. “Do I have to
spell it out for you? It’s been going on for months. There was a
fight last night. We don’t know where he is right now, probably
at her place. And
to think your mother invited her to the rose meeting as a favor to
him, because he said she liked roses.”
    “ Loreen Nielsen? The
church secretary with the—?” ‘Big ass’ is what he was going to
say.
    “ The tramp.” Carol crossed
her plump arms. Her face was blotched, her watery eyes rimmed in
red, her hair uncombed. She wore a man’s cardigan that hung almost
to her knees. “I’ve got to get back to your mother.”
    “ Where’s
Wendy?”
    “ Sleeping over at Darcy’s.
She hasn’t been home.”
    Carol swung back through
the door, leaving Jonny beside the dining table. The room looked
stripped of its soul, not a fork out of place. On closer look, one
chair leaned against the windowsill, its leg broken. The splintered
wood lay on the carpet. If only his nice, boring family had chosen
another time to fall apart.
    Wendy arrived about two,
dragging an old pillowcase of girl things, groggy from lack of
sleep. Jonny, who had left to get a plate of eggs and bacon at
Sid’s and returned full of grease and ready to rumble, followed her
up the stairs.
    She turned on him on the
landing. “What the hell?”
    “ Keep moving,” he told
her, pushing her up the steps. “I have to talk to you.”
    She fell on her bed,
exhausted, rubbing her eye makeup in wide circles. He told her the
news, short and not-so-sweet. She stared at him, uncomprehending,
then her face cracked. She rolled over, scrunching her blanket,
crying hysterically. He patted her knee until she kicked
him.
    Somehow he thought she’d
take it better.

Chapter 8
     

     
     
    The hairdresser poised his
scissors over her head and frowned. “We’ve been busy at the sink,
have we?”
    “ Don’t ask, Ricky.” Daria
stood to one side, rolling her eyes at him in the
mirror.
    Isabel crossed her arms
over the leopard-print plastic poncho and scowled at both of them.
Her hair wasn’t that bad. Just a couple inches of skunk stripe. She
was going to cut it herself. She’d had her scissors ready this
morning but her sister caught her in the act.
    Who knew you could travel
inside the same country and the change could make you queasy?
Isabel closed her eyes and felt real nausea. Was it the city or the
smell of perms? Only last night she’d been all cozy in Motel Moldy,
tucked away in the countryside of polka and mosquitoes. Only
yesterday she was a scientist, a researcher, a camp counselor. Only
yesterday she was hidden from her people: one sister and one
homicidal hairdresser.
    “ Iz. Isabel! Tell Ricky
what you want.” Daria poked her shoulder. Her sister wore a red
mini and black high-heeled boots with a flimsy top that managed to
make her look both trashy and pregnant. Neither described Daria. Rich and
bossy, sure. High maintenance, oh yeah. Her nails were perfect, not
to mention her highlights. “We don’t have all day.”
    “ Off with the black,”
Isabel told Ricky. He was exotically dark and wore blue eyeliner
and pointy sideburns. “Give it your best shot.” She kept her voice
low and disinterested. How she looked seemed irrelevant. She’d
driven half the night and this was her reward.
    Ricky ran his fingers
across her scalp, ruffling her hair. “Of course, sweetheart. You’ve
got the best.” Daria wandered off to read some high quality
magazines about plastic surgery and orgasms, which she felt
compelled to share.
    Isabel closed her eyes
again. She shouldn’t have come back. Was she a pawn of her sister,
a pale shadow compared to bright, brassy Daria who talked so loud
and walked so fast? Everything Daria did was bold and exciting.
Isabel balled her fists under the plastic poncho. She wasn’t
anyone’s pawn. She was fine by herself, more than fine, strong and
busy and getting on with real life. But around her sister, and