Margot: A Novel Read Online Free Page A

completely missing the
11 joke.
12 “Juneau,” he said, laughing. “The capital of Alaska.”
13 “Oh.” I’d felt my cheeks turning red at my stupidity.
14 “I bet Ike’s already back in Gettysburg toasting his new
15 state. Or Mamie probably is anyway.” He laughed again, and
16 this time I got the joke, as Shelby was always telling me things
17 she read about Mamie Eisenhower having a problem with
18 drinking.
19 I laughed, and he turned his head to the side and looked
20 at me. I am medium height and too thin. My dark brown hair
21 tumbles past my pale cheeks, nearly to my shoulders, and I
22 wear round glasses that hide my leather-colored eyes. I dress
23 plainly, in conservative dresses and sweaters, the way any
24 good secretary would. But the way Joshua was looking at me
25 then, it made me wonder if he was seeing something else in
26 me, something more than a secretary. It was just a moment,
27 and then Ezra stormed out of his office, yelling at Joshua
28S about something. Still, it is a moment I want to get back to,
29N and so I often try to wait him out.
“Come on,” Shelby is saying now. She pokes my forearm 01
with her finger, hard enough so it hurts a little, even through 02
the sweater. “It’ll be fun. I promise. And Peggy thinks you’re 03
swell. She’d rather have dinner with you than me anyway.” She 04
laughs. And this time her laugh falls over me, like a stream. 05
I think about it for a moment, and I wonder if Shelby is 06
finished talking about the movie. I’ve noticed Americans, 07
Shelby included, have the ability to focus on something for 08
only a little while, and then they move on to something else, 09
so I am hopeful that the time has already passed for this. To 10
Shelby, it is just a movie, after all. It is not real life. 11
I glance again through the window in Joshua’s office. But 12
I want to go eat with Shelby and Peggy. So I stand up and 13
gather my things and follow Shelby to elevator. 14
15
16
Shelby and I walk down the city block, arms linked, our shad 17
ows stretching against the reflection of the office buildings 18
and the soon-setting sun. We head toward Casteel’s Diner, a 19
short silvery building with wide square windows and a neon 20
red sign, just down South Seventeenth Street. We walk 21
inside, and it is loud and smells of grilled hamburger. It is 22
crowded at this hour with men in suits and women in their 23
work dresses, and the sound of something fast that I don’t 24
recognize pours from the jukebox. I spot Peggy still dressed 25
in her starched white uniform, sitting in a red leather booth 26
by one of the large windows, sipping on what looks like a tall 27
chocolate malt. When she sees us, she stands up, waves, and S28
then reaches for her sister. N29
01 She and Shelby, they hug, and then they kiss each other
02 quickly on the cheek. I stand back, and suddenly my heart
03 feels like it’s bleeding out in my chest. When I see them
04 together, the way they look when they hold on to each other,
05 I remember again that something is missing from me, some
06 thing that feels like the phantom weight of a stolen limb or
07 internal organ, something so grossly essential that I’m not
08 quite sure how I remember to keep breathing all the time
09 without it.
10 I close my eyes, and I can still remember the feel of my
11 sister’s hip, resting against mine as we lay next to each other
12 on her small bed, both writing in our diaries, our pens scrawl
13 ing across the pages, nearly in unison.
14 My sister would sometimes put her diary down on her
15 chest, put her head on my shoulder, and close her eyes. “You’ll
16 wake me, if anything exciting happens?” she’d whisper in my
17 ear. Then she’d fall asleep, and I’d lie there, wide-awake, lis
18 tening to the soft sounds of her breathing, her chest hum
19 ming slowly as it moved up and down. She seemed so
20 peaceful asleep, as if