Housebreaking Read Online Free Page B

suspect. But when she turned in profile, her bottom bulged into a perfect C. Often the guys would stand outside the gym, gawking as she did splits and backflips in her blue leotard.
    He couldn’t claim they had been friends in high school. She probably had never noticed him, a pimply underclassman. She’d regularly passed him in the hallway without saying hello. He’d never spoken more than two sentences to her, but along with every male in his class he had admired her from afar all those years of high school, had lain awake at night thinking about her smile, her ass, imagining silly scenarios to gain her affection—saving her from thugs in a dark alleyway, or rescuing her from drowning. Back then, he’d studied the pretty senior girls as if they were exam questions. He used to make lists: who had the best legs (Gretchen Peters), best hair (Diana Castenda), best boobs (a tie, Wendy Brewster and Wendy Yelton). The two Wendys had been inseparable, one blond,one dark-haired, often walking arm in arm, hugging or leaning against each other; you could practically hear the boys groan when the two ran up and down the soccer field. Their particular shapes, and the shapes of the other girls of his school, remained fixed in Benjamin’s consciousness like graven images, as clear in memory as if they were standing in the room with him now, his first exemplars of the contours of womanhood, and he’d lusted after them with a teenage ferocity, wholly disproportionate to anything the girls had done to inspire it, driven close to madness by a whiff of their shampoo or the sway of their hips.
    Benjamin had dated only one girl in high school, a day student like himself. Their romance had lasted a few months during his senior spring. She was a tall, green-eyed sophomore named Maureen O’Geary who favored gray corduroy pants. At night Benjamin would pick her up in his father’s Cadillac at her house in Farmington and they would drive to the public library to study. Afterward they would park at the mall or behind the town hall until eleven, her curfew; she had only one rule during these make-out sessions—that her corduroys remain buttoned. Despite his best efforts he’d never succeeded in violating this decree, although after three months those gray cords were loose around the waist. She’d broken up with him suddenly and vehemently for reasons he didn’t understand, and afterward she refused to speak to him.
    From downstairs came the sound of his father clanging pots and pans. The old man was making dinner. Benjamin checked his watch: not yet 5:00 P.M. Leonard was getting to be an early diner in his old age. Although he wasn’t hungry yet, Benjamin put away the yearbook and went down to the table. Leonard had made hamburgers, mashed potatoes, and peas.
    For dessert he served coffee cake. “You want another piece?”
    â€œSure. I’ll get it.”
    â€œNo. You did enough today, carrying all that stuff.” His father got up from the table and shuffled to the counter, his slippers scratching against the linoleum. “It’s a fine coffee cake. Look how it crumbles.”
    Benjamin asked, “Have you started smoking, Dad?”
    â€œNo. Never. I never smoked a cigarette in my life. You know that.”
    â€œI noticed a pack in the freezer.”
    â€œYour mother’s,” he said without lifting his head. “Her last pack.”
    Of course, Benjamin thought. He should have guessed. His fatherwasn’t getting senile, just more sentimental. This fact made Benjamin feel even worse about the information he had to impart.
    â€œI have some bad news, Dad. Judy and I are getting a divorce.”
    â€œShe asked for a divorce? Judy did?”
    â€œYes.”
    â€œAnd you can’t work it out like before?”
    â€œI don’t think so. Not this time.”
    Leonard exhaled, nodding slowly. “Have you told the kids?”
    â€œNo.” Benjamin