"Richard Wadholm - From Here You Can See The Sunquists" - читать интересную книгу автора (Wadholm Richard)

that had yet to be built. She'd gotten confused coming back.



Mr. Sunquist spotted himself over by the kitchen door, watching. Melanie had asked Bill
to stay away while she tried to explain things to her boyfriend. Of course there was no
way Bill Sunquist would do that? let her explain things to her boyfriend? So they might
smooth things out? Melanie had been naive to think he would.



It hardly mattered; Bobby Shelbourne saw him over Melanie's head. Shelbourne smiled.



"It's you, isn't it." His eyes were luminous with anger.



Bill made no attempt to deny it. He smiled his most irritating smirk, motioned to
Shelbourne in that silent gesture every young man knows? back of the hands up, fingers
cupping palms in ironic invitation: Come on then. Come get some.



Melanie pulled him back by the arm, and for one moment Bobby Shelbourne let her. The
pause was so brief that Billy Sunquist had barely noticed. Twenty-five years older, Mr.
Sunquist grinned: Look how he glances around for a way out!



"You were never no street brawler, Bobby." Slipping into a voice he had not spoken in
since he was a vain young man. "You were never nothing like what I was." Even now,
Mr. Sunquist lived for these moments. Anymore, the stakes would be infinitely higher
than a broken nose. But that desperate calculation remained eternal: Pride? Or survival?



Melanie saw her chance to wedge between them. The two boys clenched each other tight
against her. Mr. Sunquist remembered the collision between his belly and her skinny rib
cage. He remembered the sound she made as the breath went out of her.
Billy Sunquist might have reached for her. He always told himself that he would have, if
only Bobby had not started in the way he did.



"Look at her," Bobby hissed. "Now you've done it. Now you've hurt her." Nobody put
Billy Sunquist on the defensive.