WHAT YOU ASK FOR

Jeanie went a gray bloodless color and stumbled up front, like a sleepwalker pulled rudely into a harsh morning. She was fumbling for her money when Horvath said, "That one too, surely," as though Arlette'd overlooked it, and Arlette, flushing, stood there facing the three of them, holding the bills counted out as Horvath's change.

Jeanie grabbed at Liane like the kid was a bag of chips.

It was easy to forget how Liane was, she looked perfect and you could imagine that face in paintings, light gilding it in ways that words can't properly describe — when she started screaming we flinched though we'd all heard her go off before.

Horvath stood there, Liane's hand in his, and Jeanie was gathering force to wale it to Liane and put herself back in shit again, and all of us, feeling sick, sat there with our splendid breakfasts congealing on our plates.

"Such an unpleasant noise," said Horvath, "isn't it?" And Liane shut herself up and smiled.

They walked out together, to Horvath's car, and Jeanie followed, looking like she couldn't breathe.

Arlette told me it wasn't more than half an hour til Horvath dropped them back in the parking lot, and Jeanie and Liane got into Jeanie's dad's old pickup and left.

As it went on, we all felt trapped in someone else's bad dream. The usual Sunday mornings, colored over with a gray crayon.

Something was eating Jeanie from the center outward, leaving the smooth roundness under her skin intact but crumpling up her heart. The fire, useless as it'd been, had all gone out of her. That girl'd always had a good appetite and she still ordered those massive Sunday specials that kept the parking lot full of truckers' rigs, but she was shrinking into herself anyway.

Liane never'd had much expression to her though there'd always been something inside, lurking at the corners of her eyes, and now she returned your own gaze, steady and level. It surprised you to see how much was in there and how you'd missed it, all along.

These days she smiled when you greeted her, though she never said anything back.

"Wasn't it senior year," said Arlette, when I asked her, "when Liane was born? Mid-winter baby."

Horvath had thrown us off with his way of speaking. Like the old uncle in books, calling everyone children.