Page 149 - Some Dance to Remember

Some Dance to Remember 119

“You,” Ryan said to Sandy Gully, “must have been gorgeous when you
were hatched.” He pulled his leg away from her. “When’s your birthday?
Halloween?”
Margaret Mary’s tears turned to laughter.
“I wasn’t hatched,” Sandy Gully said. She hadn’t appreciated Ryan
pulling his leg away from her. “I can tell right off, Thommy, that Ry’s a
real kidder.”
“The way Thom’s a real killer,” Ryan said.
“You were hatched!” Margaret Mary screamed. “You were hatched!”
“I wasn’t hatched, honey,” Sandy Gully said.
Ryan could no longer contain himself. Sandy had not yet even mar-
ried his brother, and already she had pressed her thigh against his leg. If
women’s temptations to impurity were so thin, Ryan could hardly under-
stand the fuss about their sinfulness.
“Yes, you were hatched!” Margaret Mary was jumping up and down
in the crowded back seat.
“I wasn’t hatched!”
“You look like,” Margaret Mary said, “the flying purple people eater!”
“Oh, my God,” Charley-Pop said, “not her too.”
“That’s my girl!” Ryan tickled Margaret Mary’s ribs till she screamed.
He whispered in her ear.
“If you weren’t hatched...,” Margaret Mary repeated Ryan’s whisper.
“What else?” she asked.
He whispered again.
“...why do you look like someone sat on your face?”
“If I ever talked that way in front of my parents,” Annie Laurie said.
“You better bag it, Ry,” Thom said. “And you too, Margaret Mary.
Enough is enough.”
“We’re going to say the rosary.” Annie Laurie pulled her beads from
her purse.
“You better double bag it.” Ryan was daring to see how far he could
push the new Marine Corps grunt. “One bag for her head and one bag for
yourself in case hers comes off.”
Annie Laurie screamed as Thom tried to climb from the crowded
front seat to the back. She grabbed Charley-Pop’s arm. As fast as the rental
car careened out of the freeway lane, it swerved back knocking Thom
down into his seat. Ryan had been ready to sock his brother in the jaw.
“Everybody settle down.” Charley-Pop was furious.
“Asshole,” Thom said over his shoulder. “I know thirteen ways to kill
you above the neck.”

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