The Waiting Room Read Online Free Page A

stand of trees—so they unloaded what few pieces of furniture they had in their rattletrap pickup truck, put up curtains, and made ready to wait out the coming winter.
    Two days later three of them died when the wood stove in the living room cranked out carbon monoxide as they slept. The youngest of them, a six-year-old boy named Frankie, survived, no one has ever figured out how.
    In 1970 the house was left to Art DeGraff by his Aunt Carol. She'd inherited it from her Aunt Bernice ten years earlier. Aunt Carol also died at the house. She'd been leaning against an attic window frame when it gave way and she fell thirty-five feet to the ground. She weighed close to three hundred pounds, so no one blamed the window frame. And it wasn't the fall that killed her. She died several days after the fall when a fat embolism broke free of her fractured right leg, made its way to her heart, and stopped it cold.
    No one, not even Abner, maintains that the beach house is a happy place, if it can truthfully be said that any house, all by itself, is happy or unhappy. But it is a place to be , it has walls, several dozen of them, and roofs, three of them, and it certainly must have its hidden charms, too, because whenever I was there, it was awfully crowded.
    ~ * ~
    I met Leslie the day my boa constrictor died, so I was in a pretty foul mood. I have a tendency to grow very attached to people and pets, and though that boa constrictor had been a dismal conversationalist, he was loads of fun to have hanging around.
    I was on my way by taxi to Queens and the possibility of construction work (I had a '68 Chevy Nova that was continually in for one repair or another; I have since given it up). On the corner of East 74th Street and Park Avenue, the taxi stopped. I leaned forward and tapped on the Plexiglas partition. The driver opened it a crack.
    "What are you doing?" I asked.
    "Earning a buck," he answered, then my door opened and a tall, stunning, dark-blond-haired woman of twenty-nine or thirty, dressed in a long earth-colored wool skirt and bulky beige sweater, stuck her head in, said, "Oh, sorry," and started to back away.
    The driver called, "Where you going, miss?"
    "I'm going to Queens," she answered. She had an air of quiet authority about her. I liked it. It seemed to fit her.
    "Where in Queens?" the driver asked.
    "Mission Boulevard."
    "Uh huh." I could tell that he was fighting to keep his patience. "Whereabouts is that?"
    "It's in Queens," she answered, and slid in next to me. She smiled congenially, nodded, said, "Hi."
    I nodded back. "Yeah, hi," I said, and found that my foul mood over the death of my boa constrictor was beginning to fade.
    "We've established," said the driver, "that Mission Boulevard is in Queens. What I need to know is, is it in Jackson Heights, or Flushing, or—"
    "Oh," she cut in, "yes. Sorry. It's in Jackson Heights."
    "Thanks," said the driver, and pulled away from the curb.
    She nodded at me, once more repeated "Hi," and smiled congenially again. What impressed me most about her at that moment, as she smiled, were her teeth, which looked perfect, her high cheekbones--which suggested that she was Indian, though she isn't—her ruddy, even complexion, and the way her entire face got involved in her small, congenial smile, so I did not doubt for a moment that it was genuine. I found myself rapidly warming to her.
    "Hi," I said.
    She stuck her hand out. I took it. Her grip was very firm. She let go of my hand and gave me a quizzical look. "You've obviously got something on your mind," she said. "I didn't mean to intrude." She turned her head and looked out the window.
    I said nothing. Although I had been drawn to her almost at once, she was clearly very perceptive, as well as very attractive, and that's a combination I've always found intimidating. We rode in silence for several minutes. At last I said, surprising myself, "My snake died." I grinned an apology. "My snake died," I repeated, as if she