Black Rabbit and Other Stories by Salvatore Difalco Page B

through many rainy days, and expected more, broke Wendy’s heart. So unfair. But what was fair? She neared the glass shaking in her shoes. The nurse gave her the juice in a small plastic cup. Wendy drank it down while a security guard joked with the triplets. Old and kindly, a hint of the molester shaded his profile. You couldn’t trust anyone these days. Simple as that.
    On their way out, Wendy noticed a wall calendar with a picture of a pinto—the bloody source of the dream horse. What a disappointment. Outside she lit a cigarette. She smoked less than ever these days. Her uncle Norm had just died of lung cancer. He looked freakish after alung removal, wheezing like a torn accordion. Probably better to die of an overdose than go out like that. But after a fix she loved a smoke. You smoked it slow and felt every fibre of tobacco and paper crackling and burning and sending its dark whisper through your body. The girls watched, rapt. She had caught them once with cigarettes in the bathroom; they had dropped the matches in the toilet bowl and never lit up. She beat them for an hour after that, bursting Donna’s eardrum. Boy, did she howl. She howled so loud at the hospital they never got around to asking her how she hurt the ear; Wendy told them she fell from a swing. The other girls confirmed this.
    They walked to the mall, a thirty-minute hike from the clinic. It felt like hours to Wendy, but she savored every moment—beside herself to see the girls so well behaved and pretty, what angels—and didn’t want it to end. The girls sang and skipped along. They were off to get clothes, something to make any girl happy.
    The foul and humid air washed over Wendy like warm water; and the hard, rough facades of Silver City yielded to a smudged blue-grey tranquility, an exquisite ballooning that even swooping seagulls could not burst.
    She outfitted the girls on the cheap, by stealing, risky given modern security measures. But Ronnie had given her pointers. He excelled at ripping off shops. The trick was finding one with a faulty security system—flawed, or in disrepair. Of course, stores never alerted the public to breakdowns—please don’t rob us while our security system is kaput!—but they happened.
    So Wendy sniffed around the mall and tested several systems until she hit the jackpot at a tony children’s boutique. The silly young salesgirl, flattered by Wendy’s compliments about her fucked up blue hair, noticed nothing untoward, and Wendy managed to lift three outfits, in three pretty colours, right from under her pierced nose. She also purchased a few inexpensive accessories to further dodge suspicion; and the girls, hiding smirks, played along.
    When they emerged from the boutique, they looked like cats after a canary feast and hurried down the street, unable to contain themselves. Even Wendy got caught up in the excitement, losing some of her buzz, but still feeling good. That it took an episode of shoplifting to make their hearts beat faster and their blood race saddened her, but for now she put that aside.
    They found Connor at the flat—petting a reluctant Max—with some other boys dressed in black clothes. They looked far too serious for teens. They occupied the living room like pirates, dark and sardonic, their smiles masking malice. Wendy smelled it on them and felt her stomach muscles tighten. She recognized the boy on the chesterfield with the red bandanna tied around his head, Ryan Clair.
    â€œWhat are you boys up to?” she asked.
    â€œJust chilling,” Connor said with an unfamiliar drawl.
    She stared at him and he reddened, dropping the cat with a thud. Auntie Wen was embarrassing him.
    â€œHow long do you plan to just
chill?
” she asked. “I’ve got things to do around here.”
    â€œNice little girls you got there, miss,” said a boy in a wicker chair by the window.
    â€œYou’re too heavy for that chair,” she