"Kathleen Ann Goonan - Angels and You Dogs" - читать интересную книгу автора (Goose Mother)

"About the ramp, the fence "
Dr. Lozano glanced around, apparently looking for Lulu, and saw that
she was well away from us, trailing Ambrose as he watered and fertilized
rare tropical plants. "Yes, yes." His voice was low and hurried. "I will pay
for them. Whatever she wants. Lulu that dog " He shrugged and
shook his head, seemed as if he would say more, and then did not. "Just
take good care of her, all right? She has had an unusual life."
I was somewhat discomfited by this; it seemed almost as if he were
giving her away in marriage. "I'm gay."
He nodded. "I realize that."
"But "
"I am just saying that if anything unusual happens, or you want to
call, my phone number is on my card."
We amended the lease to ensure that her father would also pay to put
things back as they were should I request this at the end of Lulu's sojourn
with me. Her last name was Thibideaux; I supposed that her mother had
taken back her own name and bestowed it on her daughter. Dr. Lozano
would also cap the stillborn lap pool. I couldn't help but think that I ought
to run the changes past my own attorney, but I was too lazy and relieved
to have the empty space in my life, and the deficit in my bank account,
filled.
Dr. Lozano and his excessively thin daughters got into their black
Lexus, which shone so dazzlingly that it made an excellent mirror. Dr.
Lozano shook my hand through the window and started the car. Lulu sat
alone on the lawn, leaning against the gumbo limbo tree, holding Ambrose
and absently stroking his tiny head, staring into space.




.....



Lulu's mother was from Louisiana, where she had returned with her
darling child after the now-ancient divorce to drink and heap invective
upon her ex-husband in relative luxury, no longer required to party and
dance strenuously, long into the night with hundreds of close Cuban
relatives, to the din of loud, nostalgic boom-box salsa and the wearing,
insistent rhythms of mambo. She much preferred Cajun fiddles and Cajun
patois. After twenty single years, she had still not recovered from the
overwhelming stress of her brief marriage. Lulu faithfully called her every
Wednesday night. She spoke in low, ever-more-drawling tones over her
cellphone, curled on the art-nouveau couch in the living room after
turning off The West Wing without even asking me if it was all right. After
two weeks, I took to watching it in my bedroom while smoking a cigar.
"They were like oil and water," Lulu told me, with unusual and
dispassionate brevity, speaking of her parents' separation.
Twenty years of living in rural Louisiana had given Lulu a certain
cultural uniqueness. She had an unfortunate penchant for tear-jerking