Mai at the Predators' Ball Read Online Free Page B

something suspicious about that that he won’t admit to, and why has he taken his writing time to go for a ride with me, maybe it’s so I won’t go out dancing, he doesn’t like that, so I couldn’t compare him to those possessive fathers with daughters in the abstinence clubs, purity clubs, who have a few drinks and watch their little ballerinas dance for them in their huge tutus, then waltz with them, black dragons in tuxes, one waltz for Daddy, smooth music especially for this, and a song rises in the adolescent throats, chanting your love Papa and your faith are my shield, and I will always be your baby, yes Papa, always so small and so confident and willing to sing whatever they’re told, nothing’s too stupid, then the exchange of roses and vows between fathers and tiaraed daughters devoted to total purity for Daddy’s sake, more than a vow, an oath, I will be forever faithful Daddy, your baby girl entwined in an embrace with Daddy as the vain tears well up, always faithful Daddy dearest, this is how the purity balls turn out, so even if my dad isn’t anything like them I’m still suspicious about why he wants me to go for this ride, yes of course, you’ve known Manuel for years, I remember he says distractedly, yes of course, he doesn’t want me to open the door too suddenly, his suspicious reason is that he wants to talk to me, that we both talk, sort of like a vow between us, and he’ll promise not to tell Mama, but he’s still not thinking of me but of Nora, she is his true inspiration, no dogs to walk so we can talk freely, no dogs to muddy up the car seats or lay the weight of their large heads between us or leap on me so happily, and Papa has absolutely no ulterior motive in speaking to me or me to him, you see Mai he now said, Manuel and his father have a pretty bad reputation, like those discotheques of theirs where you and your friends go dancing, bad, really bad he said, coming back to Nora, the muse for his book, maybe with a little more nuance, I’d say deterioration or slow degradation, which of course can happen to anybody, Nora is special, the opposite of Ibsen’s character you understand, you are too hung up on this woman Mai returned, implacable, besides she’s married, I was talking about my book her father replied, then in another tone, it’s dangerous for kids like you, but I’m no longer a child Mai said, and Manuel and his father are pimps, but he did not actually say anything, it is just in your head she thought, you are too hung up on this Nora said Mai again, plus you cut your own hair, and badly too I might add replied her father, smiling so he could interrupt the suspicious conversation while letting him be distracted by Nora, the one he was writing about, at the very moment when he should be at his work table, the fog’s fallen all of a sudden he said, I didn’t realize you’d known one another for so many years, I repeat, sweetheart, this boy has a very bad reputation, I know Papa, I know, you already said that Mai interrupted, but her father returned to it, I didn’t realize it he said without smiling, there are two things I don’t like about you Mai replied, you write books and you play golf like some sort of old man, and at this very moment she wanted more than anything else for her father to be less suspicious, that she be out from under this interrogation, and that he stop searching her out with those charcoal eyes and brows that had been greying for a while now, the fathers of the purity club in turn made their vows after dinner and a waltz, vows that they too would be pure in their lives as men, husbands and fathers owned forever by their little girls, then went out onto the terrace for a smoke, choking on the lies and posturing, and one of them with a cowboy hat recalled that he’d had ten kids by seven different women but now it was time for vows of purity, and he had three daughters in the room, one only ten years old swearing to Dad that she would remain a