The Water Museum

Начало книги

In a beat-down house at the foot of a western butte, a woman sips her coffee and stares at her high school yearbook. Most everybody’s gone. The pictures seem to be a day old to her. She still laughs at the drama club portrait, still remembers the shouting when the football team won the regional. And there she is on page thirty. She was one of the pretty ones, for sure. One of the slender ones who had a mouth that suggested to every boy that she knew a secret and was slightly amused by it. She had famous lips.

She looks at herself in her drill team uniform. Runs her finger down her skinny leg. Wonders where that girl went.

Now she keeps the shades at the back of the house pulled down so she doesn’t have to look at the cliffs. A few years back a woodpecker got into her roof beam, and it’s all chipped out. Wood bees are rooting around in there. She has been meaning to hammer some sheet metal over that corner, but she hasn’t seen woodpeckers in years — not since the drouth got ahold of the land. She keeps her geraniums and little apple tree out front alive with her dirty dishwater. Saves money, though her neighbor says that makes her a Democrat. Being eco-logical and all that happy crappy. They laugh about it over the fence some mornings.

Читать дальше →