"Oates, Joyce Carol - Broke Heart Blues" - читать интересную книгу автора (Oates Joyce Carol)

"I'm afraid. If he sees us--?"

"I can't believe we're doing this. Oh God."

"Who's going to know?"

" If--he--"

"He would never tell." Verrie braked her car to a jolting stop. We saw she was excited, clumsy.

There were cars parked along the curb and one of them was John Reddy's, a rust-flecked old Mercury that yet exuded an air of sinister seductive power.

Just to look at that car, its darkened windows, a cobwebby crack in the rear window, a crooked radio antenna and dented right front fender--"You felt you'd been in it. Taken for a fast, rough drive somewhere unknown.

him." The Mercury was there, John Reddy was home! We jostled one leaning over to peer up at his lighted window on the third, top floor of the building. Or what we believed to be John Reddy's window. "Is that it? Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! Don't be ridiculous."

"Who's ridiculous? That's an insult."

"Shhh! Look." We stared, breathless. We saw that the blind at that window had been pulled down carelessly and hung crooked.

Possibly it had been tugged off its roller, broken, exactly what John Reddy might've done. (He had a short, hot, dangerous temper.

temper had beven his undoing. We knew. ) Anxiously we studied the blind, which was like, 8 none we'd ever seen in our homes, the blinds in homes, selected by our mothers, or interior decorators, were custom-made, slatted venetian blinds, this blind was parchment-colored, soiled, **skip**with cracks. Verrie cried, "Oh! --look."

"What? Where?"

"Where?"

"Millie, damn--move your head." Passing across the inside of the blind there'd come a faint fleeting shadow, blurred like a bird in flight, that might've been the shadow of a human figure, a tall lean young male figure--but we couldn't be surf. Trish Elders said, as if in pain, "That's him. I saw.

For a moment." Trish was the one of us who'd come belatedly to adoring John Reddy, she who'd once laughed at us. Mingled in her feeling for him was a shaken sense of her own judgment, for if she'd been blind and ignorant only a short while ago, mightn't she be blind and ignorant another time? ) Shelby cried, "But where? My eyes are staring but I can't seem to see." Mary Louise murmured something inarticulate, groaning. For suddenly there was nothing above us but the blank lighted window, a taunting rectangle of light. A grimy window and soiled crooked blind. Pattianne, who a good Christian girl and never, ever swore, even under her breath, was heard to say huskily, "Damn." Verrie parked the car and gave the command--"Come on." She was the first out of the car, panting as if she'd run from St.. Albans to here. The rest of us climbed out timorously and were surprised to discover the night air so chill, moist and almost hurtful to our nostrils. "Like the very air, the smell and taste of the air, was different in John Reddy's neighborhood.

Downhill, like at the bottom of a well." We realized it was November already, winter imminent. A hurtful bright moon like bone glared above us.

"Oh, God. Oh." We clutched at one another. Hands grappled hands, cold There seemed to be too many hands--too many icy fingers. From somewhere above (John Reddy's window had been opened by about six inches, you could imagine him shoving it up with his muscled arms, scowling, impatient because the room was overheated and stuffy) came a of blues music--heavy, p. ercussive, adult. It wasn't the simple pop-rock music we listened to. In that instant we knew that our fates would be a single fate, we were virgin Willowsville girls and would remain virgin girls all our lives. Though John Reddy would be our first lover, our virginity would grow back. We were impenetrable. This virginity, like a curse, would persist through our brave, desperate attempts at adulthood.

marriages, our plunges into motherhood and adultery. Through separations, "nervous breakdowns," divorces, second marriages, further motherhood.

Mary Louise Schultz, seemingly not so competitive a cheerleader rest of us, would have the most babies, four. ) We were virgins in memory of John Reddy Heart and those lovesick nights on Water Street, on the downside of town.

Thinking Our fathers would kill us if they knew!

Thinking Our mothers would die of envy We can't tell them.

One of us, it might've been Millie Leroux (of all good girls, a school teacher at the First Episcopal Church, a Girl Scout, a Student Council officer, with beautiful calm eyes) suddenly cupped her hands to mouth and called yearningly, "John Reddy! John Red-dy!" Appalled, of us, it might've been Shelby Connor, or Trish Elders, moved to quiet her- "Shhhh! "--and Millie whirled in frantic reaction, driving an elbow into the other's breast, which, fortunately, was cushioned by her WHS cheerleader's jacket. Mary Louise Schultz astonished us by moaning, "John Red-dy!

John!" Verrie groaned as if she were being tortured, swaying, big-eyed, yanking at her wind-whipped blond pageboy hair. For what was to prevent from calling for John Reddy Heart, screaming like young female in the throes of their first incandescent heat? What if ? And why not?