Falling

Free Falling by Anne Simpson

Book: Falling by Anne Simpson Read Free Book Online
Authors: Anne Simpson
Tags: General Fiction
her shoulder. It was as though she were on a stage, Damian thought, and now she was going to speak to the audience. She looked out the window, though the glass must have been a square of darkness to her, and it seemed to Damian that he could predict how she would walk through the beaded curtain and part it exactly as she did, with one hand, going to the invisible back door where she would flick off the lights, as if she knew people were watching. Damian and Elvis both stood staring into the darkness, until Damian realized they were waiting for something. They were waiting for her to come back onstage.
    Damian put his hand on Elvis’s arm. Let’s go, he said.
    When Elvis didn’t move, he took his hand. His skin was soft and pliant, unexpectedly pliant. And it was larger than Damian’s own hand. If Elvis wanted to, he could crush it. Itmade him think of how Elvis had held the gun, as if he’d meant it.
    Okay, said Elvis, allowing himself to be led away. Okay.
    It was on the back streets that Damian noticed the moonlight again. It fell on parked cars, on street signs, on a Dumpster, on a small plaster boy fishing on someone’s front lawn, flickering in and out of the pachysandra that grew thickly around the base of a group of birches.
    They wouldn’t let me in, said Elvis.
    Who? asked Damian.
    They asked me how old I was. Then they asked me if I had any money. You’re supposed to have money if you go to the casino. I looked inside, though.
    Damian imagined Elvis at the casino, looking in at the potted plants and marble floor, his breath making plumes on the glass.
    You wouldn’t have liked it, Elvis.
    They told me it was past my bedtime. The men said it was past my bedtime and they said things about my pyjamas. Elvis turned to Damian, his eyes glistening. They laughed about my pyjamas.

 
    EVERY NIGHT BEFORE ELVIS went to sleep he kissed Shania Twain, who smiled on his pillowcase. Once he’d said goodnight to Shania, he pulled a photograph out from under the pillow. There was a white crease across it, but the woman in it, though faded, could still be seen. Her long red hair fell over her shoulders. She wore a man’s black leather jacket, and she was leaning against a motorcycle. In her arms was a baby, snugly wrapped in a blanket. There was a doll-sized knitted cap on its head. The woman wasn’t looking down at the baby; she was looking directly at the camera, or she seemed to be looking directly at the camera, but she wore sunglasses so it was hard to tell. Elvis kissed the photograph twice. He kissed the woman on her sunglasses and he kissed the baby on its knitted cap. Then he slid it back under the pillow. On the back of the photograph, in a small, rounded script, were the words:
    Elvis Graceland Hockridge
    November 2, 1987
    Toronto, Ontario

 
    TO HELL WITH IT , Jasmine thought, tossing the pencil. She took off her apron and picked up her bag. When she looked out the window all she could see was her own reflection, a girl who was a bit on the skinny side, except for her hips, which she’d never liked. Hair in need of washing, twisted up on top of her head and held with a clip. Her grandmother’s bangles on her wrist. But she looked like a nine-year-old, with or without bangles. Jasmine, who had been Sandra Blakeney, from Lanigan, Saskatchewan, on her way to Somewhere Else, preferably New York City, in the United States of America, before she went on to France, Italy, and Spain, was stranded for the moment in a tattoo parlour in Niagara Falls, Ontario, until she could make enough money to go Somewhere Else.
    As for the drawing, she could tell herself it was fine, but it wasn’t; she couldn’t do foreshortening worth beans. The dragon was all right, but she couldn’t do the motorcycle. A drawing for a tattoo, the guy had said. His name was Jordan, he told Tarah, and what he wanted was a dragon sitting on a Kawasaki motorcycle, with the bike shown from the front, not the side.
    Jasmine had said she’d try to

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