"Severna Park--The Breadfruit Empire" - читать интересную книгу автора (Park Severna)

stop crying or to truly scare the shit out of her.
Bob lit a match and then a hurricane lamp. Lisa watched, freezing and appalled as black boards
over the curtainless windows quivered in the yellow light.
"Didn't you pay the electric bill?" she said.
He blew out the match. "They turned me off six months ago. I closed my checking account."
She knew why. Cash didn't trace. He was probably paying for groceries with fifties from under the
floorboards.
"I'll make you a sandwich," said Bob. He picked up the lamp and headed for the kitchen.
In the kitchen, there was a wood stove which hadn't been there before. Lisa looked around for the
refrigerator and found an old-fashioned wooden icebox framed by stacks of cardboard boxes instead.
Bob put the lamp on the kitchen table, hunched in front of the stove and began loading it with kindling.
He lit another match and tossed it in. The fire licked up inside, making his face look sallow and gaunt.
"It'll be warm in a minute or two." He slapped his hands against his arms and grinned. "You want
chicken salad or cheese?"
She eyed the icebox, calculating how long it would take for the mayonnaise to turn bad. "Cheese."
"Mustard or mayo?"
"Just bread."
He chuckled. "Getting to be a purist in your old age?"
She didn't say anything.
He lit a second lamp and shuffled around the kitchen taking a neatly formed, homemade loaf of
bread out of a wooden box. He'd taught her how to make bread when she was too young to know that
feeding yeast and kneading dough were all part of Taking a Stand. She didn't doubt he could make
mustard or mayonnaise, or bouillon cubes or pure cane sugar. He put the cheese in front of her and went
to get a knife. The stuff looked cold and hard, and was wrapped in familiar coarse cloth instead of
grocery store plastic. She wondered if Bob had procured a cow.
"I want to go home," she said.
"I know you do, honey, but you can't tonight."
Did that mean she could go back to her mother's apartment in the morning?
He gave her the sandwich without a plate or even a paper towel. She bit into it, wanting a Coke and
french fries more than anything else. The coarse bread and salty curd were tastes she'd grown up with
and she chewed, trying to decide if the sensations in her mouth made her sad, or angry, or just sick to her
stomach.
He set a tea kettle on the wood stove and Lisa glanced up to the shelf where the loose tea leaves
and straining spoons were supposed to be. The shelf was empty. Bob opened a cardboard box,
rummaged through it and came up with the tea, a cup and a little wicker strainer.
Lisa stopped chewing. No electricity. No heat. Stacks of boxes.
He was moving out. He was going to take her with him.
This blinding revelation made the kitchen even darker. She swallowed and studied the pattern of
bites in the sandwich, not wanting to let him know that she'd figured out what he was up to. She
wondered if he was going to tell her what was going on, or if he would bundle her into the car again,
pretending to take her to her mother's apartment.
"I want to call mom," she said. "She doesn't know where I am."
He nodded toward the dining room where the phone was. "Good idea."
She took a hurricane lamp with her and set it next to the phone. The receiver was like a block of ice,
and there was no dial tone. She checked the wire to the phone and from the phone into the wall jack.
She tugged on them to make sure there was a connection, and stood there for a while, letting the silent
earpiece warm against her cheek.
"The line's dead," she said.
"Must be the snow," he lied, out of sight. "You remember how we used to lose the phone in the
winter? We'd go for days before they fixed it."