"Andrews, V C - raven" - читать интересную книгу автора (Andrews V.C)

bad turned into a pasty, pale yellow, and her once
sUky hair looked like a mop made of piano wire. It
was streaked with premature gray strands and
always looked dirty and stringy to me.
Mama smoked and drank and didn't seem to
care what man she went out with as long as he was
willing to pay for what she wanted. I stopped
keeping track of their names. Their faces had begun
t&aaerge into one, their red eyes peering at me with
vague interest. Usually, I was just as much of a
surprise to them as they were to me.
"'Ybu never said you had a daughter," most
would remark.
Mama would shrug and reply, "Oh, didn*t I?
Well, I do. Yw have a problem with that?"
Some didn't say anything; some said no or shook
their heads and laughed.
"^You're the one with the problem," one man told
her. That put her into a tirade about my father.

3

V. C. ANDREWS

We rarely talked about him. Mama would say
only that he was a handsome Latino but a disappointment
when it came to living up to his responsibilities.
"As are most men," she warned me.
She got me to believe that my real father's
promises were like rainbows, beautiful while they
lingered in the air but soon fading until they were
only vague memories. And there was never a pot of
g&ldl .He would never come back, and he would
sever send us anything.
As long as I could remember, we lived in this
small apartment in a building that looked as if a
strong wind could knock it over. The walls in the
corridors were chipped and gouged in places, as if
some maddened creature had tried to dig its way
out. The outside walls were scarred with graffiti,
and the walkway was shattered so that there was
just dirt in many sections where cement once had
been. The small patch of lawn between the building
and the street had turned sour years ago. The grass
was a sickly pale green, and there was so much
garbage in it that no one could run a lawn mower
over it.
The sinks in our apartment always gave us trouble,
dripping or clogging. I couldn't even guess how
many times the toilet had overflowed. The tub was