Page 288 - Some Dance to Remember

258 Jack Fritscher

stupid she was, because she would do anything to get attention, and
because her sins, which Ryan was sure were multiple, would not be for-
given by the mere fact that she washed up all the dishes and wiped down
the stove, “all I want is to be a housewife.”
Ryan had slept around enough to know the predatory look of lust
in another person’s face. Sie was hot to trot. “I know what you do,” he
had once told her. “I know what you do and I know what you will do.
You can fool all these other people because they hardly bother to look
at you. But I look at you. God! Look at you. You’re sixteen and strictly
ten-cents-a-dance.”
Sie glared at him. “You sleep with everybody.”
“I’m trashy,” Ryan said, “when I want to be because I want to be. I
can trash-fuck to enjoy it and then back out of it again. You’re trashy all
the time. And that,” he pointed at her, “is a very real and basic difference.”
“Abe! What the hell happened to you?” Thom repeated from the truck
window.
Abe pointed toward the back hills lined with huge fir trees.
Sie shouted from the porch, “My bitch sister tried to stab my bitch
brother in the leg.”
“All that money you spent on charm school for those girls,” Ryan said.
“I’ll handle it,” Thom said. He drove the truck on up into the yard.
Abe came limping in behind them. Sie moved to the edge of the
porch. From behind the row of trees, Bea stepped into view. She had a
long screwdriver in her hand.
“What happened?” Thom walked exasperated up the steps to the
deck. “Beatrice!” He shouted at the girl hanging back under the trees.
“You march your ass down here double time!”
Bea walked sullenly out from the tree shadows and began her spiteful
slow drag down the hill. She refused to double-time for anyone. They all
watched her ill-tempered procession. When she finally reached the deck,
she said, “I didn’t mean to stab him much.” She was expert at dividing
guilt. She grabbed Sie by the neck. “Sie poured boiling water on him.”
“I did not!” Sie said. “Let go. You’re always grabbing me. Are you gay?
Are you, Bea?”
“Nice the way they say hello when you come home,” Ryan said.
“Tell the whole story,” Sie said. “I dare you, Bea. B for bitch!”
“It was okay until they came into the house,” Abe said.
“Who came into the house?” Thom said. “No one comes into my
house when I’m gone.”
“It’s uncle Ry’s house,” Bea said. She tapped the screwdriver in the

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