The Whore's Child

pasta twine that either wouldn’t fit in your mouth or gagged you when you tried to chew. Even though he now regarded himself as an expert twirler, he still liked it that you couldn’t predict, when you pulled on one strand, which strand on the opposite side of the plate would snake toward your fork through the giant tangle. Even when you’d eaten most of it, you still couldn’t tell what was connected to what. This complexity and surprise was nearly as delicious as the actual taste.
    Lin had eaten only a few forkfuls when his cousins suddenly crowded into the booth with him. Mackey arrived first, slipping onto the bench Lin’s father had vacated and flipping up the window’s wooden slats so he could peer outside, leaving his sister to lean across Lin. Her long dark hair brushed his nose, her body so close he could smell whatever it was she was wearing—perfume, maybe, or just girl’s soap.
    â€œThey’re fighting,” Audrey whispered, and sure enough, when Lin looked out through the open slats, his father and Uncle Brian were grappling with each other in the parking lot. His father momentarily managed to get him in a headlock, but then Brian backed him into a parked car, hard, breaking his grip.
    â€œDad’ll kick his ass,” Mackey said confidently, letting the slats fall back into place and heading for the front door. When the door opened, Lin heard a far-off siren, and saw Jolene hang up the phone behind the cash register.
    Her brother gone, Audrey slid into the opposite bench and regarded Lin critically. “Fighting is
stupid,
” she said, again peering out through the slats, opening them just wide enough to see through herself. After a minute she let them fall shut again. “The police are here.” When she sighed, her breasts heaved. “What are you looking at?” she said, having caught him.
    Lin thought it better not to say.
    â€œHow old are you?” she wanted to know, her eyes narrowing.
    â€œTen.”
    â€œYou’re just a kid,” she said contemptuously. “You shouldn’t be interested in things like that.”
    He supposed this was true, but said, “Things like what?”
    â€œLike what girls have under their sweaters.” This was an electrifying conversation, but then she went and spoiled it. “You don’t see us going around staring at your zipper, do you?”
    Lin could feel the blood rush to his cheeks. Blessedly, his aunt came out of the ladies’ room just then, looking surprised to find their table empty, her daughter sitting with Lin, her husband, son and brother-in-law nowhere in sight.
    â€œShall I tell my mother where you were looking?” Audrey said.
    Lin was about to beg her not to when he was visited by a sudden, mysterious intuition. She wouldn’t tell. She was relishing his discomfort, much as Mackey enjoyed never letting him bat. “Go ahead,” he said, surprising himself. To the best of his recollection, he’d never in his life done anything so bold, and it was thrilling to see immediately that his intuition had been correct. When his aunt arrived at the booth, Audrey said languidly, “Dad and Uncle Tommy are fighting in the parking lot.”
    â€œHow absurd,” his aunt said, ignoring Lin entirely. “Your father knows he’s got a bad back. He won’t even be able to straighten up tomorrow.”
    In a few minutes Lin’s father slid back into the booth opposite him. He had a split lower lip, and there were a few drops of blood on his shirtfront. “You all done?” his father said, seemingly amazed that his fight had lasted long enough for his son to eat his entire dinner. He stabbed a rigatoni and chewed it thoughtfully, wincing when the tomato sauce stung his cut lip. “You don’t have to tell your mother about this, you know.”
    Lin nodded. His father dabbed his swollen lip with a napkin, wincing again, then pushed his plate away and studied him carefully.
    â€œYour cousin Audrey’s sure growing up, isn’t she?” he finally observed, giving Lin a chill.
    HATE
    Hugo Wentz’s father might have bullied Mr. Christie into making a pitcher of Hugo, but that’s where it ended. Though he attended each game and heckled relentlessly from the stands—“Give the other kids a chance, Coach. You afraid you’ll lose your job?”—Mr. Christie continued to do things his own way. He did