JК
Bag of Bones :: Кинг Стивен
Страница: 147 из 425On her feet she wore low-topped sneakers so white that they seemed to flash in the gloom. Her hair was tied back and although she still wasn’t the gorgeous country-club babe I had briefly envisioned, she was very pretty. Now she looked at Kyra, looked at me, raised her eyebrows, made a lifting gesture with her arms. I shook my head, sending back a message that neither of us was ready quite yet. I resumed reading while Mattie went to work scrubbing her few cooking tools. She was still humming. By the time she had finished with the spatula, Ki’s body had taken on an additional relaxation which I recognized at once—she’d conked out, and hard. I closed the Little Golden Treasury of Fairy Tales and put it on the coffee-table beside a couple of other stacked books—whatever Mattie was reading, I presumed. I looked up, saw her looking back at me from the kitchen, and flicked her the V-for-Victory sign. “Noonan, the winner by a technical knockout in the eighth round,” I said. Mattie dried her hands on a dishtowel and came over. “Give her to me.” I stood up with Kyra in my arms instead.
“I’ll carry. Where?” She pointed. “On the left.” I carried the baby down the hallway, which was narrow enough so I had to be careful not to bump her feet on one side or the top of her head on the other. At the end of the hall was the bathroom, stringently clean. On the right was a closed door which led, I assumed, into the bedroom Mattie had once shared with Lance Devore and where she now slept alone. If there was a boyfriend who overnighted even some of the time, Mattie had done a good job of erasing his presence from the trailer. I slid carefully through the door on the left and looked at the little bed with its ruffled coverlet of cabbage roses, the table with the doll-house on it, the picture of the Emerald City on one wall, the sign (done in shiny stick-on letters) on another one that read CASA KYRA. Devore wanted to take her away from here, a place where nothing was wrong—where, to the contrary, everything was perfectly right. Casa Kyra was the room of a little girl who was growing up okay. “Put her on the bed and then go pour yourself another glass of wine,” Mattie said. “I’ll zip her into her pj’s and join you. I know we’ve got stuff to talk about.”
“Okay.” I put her down, then bent a little farther, meaning to plant a kiss on her nose. I almost thought better of it, then did it anyway. When I left, Mattie was smiling, so I guess it was okay.
I poured myself a little more wine, walked back into the scrap of living room with it, and looked at the two books beside Ki’s fairy-tale collection.
“I’ll carry. Where?” She pointed. “On the left.” I carried the baby down the hallway, which was narrow enough so I had to be careful not to bump her feet on one side or the top of her head on the other. At the end of the hall was the bathroom, stringently clean. On the right was a closed door which led, I assumed, into the bedroom Mattie had once shared with Lance Devore and where she now slept alone. If there was a boyfriend who overnighted even some of the time, Mattie had done a good job of erasing his presence from the trailer. I slid carefully through the door on the left and looked at the little bed with its ruffled coverlet of cabbage roses, the table with the doll-house on it, the picture of the Emerald City on one wall, the sign (done in shiny stick-on letters) on another one that read CASA KYRA. Devore wanted to take her away from here, a place where nothing was wrong—where, to the contrary, everything was perfectly right. Casa Kyra was the room of a little girl who was growing up okay. “Put her on the bed and then go pour yourself another glass of wine,” Mattie said. “I’ll zip her into her pj’s and join you. I know we’ve got stuff to talk about.”
“Okay.” I put her down, then bent a little farther, meaning to plant a kiss on her nose. I almost thought better of it, then did it anyway. When I left, Mattie was smiling, so I guess it was okay.
I poured myself a little more wine, walked back into the scrap of living room with it, and looked at the two books beside Ki’s fairy-tale collection.