"Nina Kiriki Hoffman - Home for Christmas" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hoffman Nina Kiriki)

thing she could think of for someone who thought in graphs),
wondered how to get them to the cash register without him seeing
them. Then she realized there was a cash register at both doors, so
she went to the other one.
By the time he finished skulking around she was back studying
the magazines. It had been years since she had looked at
magazines. There were magazines about wrestlers, about boys on
skateboards, about muscle cars, about pumping iron, about house
blueprints, men’s fashions, skinny women. In the middle of one of
the thick women’s fashion magazines she found an article about a
murder in a small town, and found herself sucked down into the
story, another thing she hadn’t experienced in a long time. She
didn’t read often; too many other things to look at.
“You want that one?”
“What? No.” She put the magazine back, glanced at the shopping
bag he was carrying. It was bulging and bigger than a breadbox.
“You must of needed a lot of bathroom stuff,” she said.
He nodded. “Ready?”
“Sure.”
On the way into his fifth-floor apartment, she leaned against the
front door and thought,—Are you friendly?—
—I do my job. I keep Our Things safe inside and keep other
harmful things out.—
—I’m not really one of Our Things—Matt thought.—I have an
invitation, though.—
—I understand that.—
—If I need to leave right away, will you let me out, even if Jim
doesn’t want me to leave?—
The door mulled this over, then said,—All right.—
—Thanks.—She stroked the wood, then turned to look at the
apartment.
She had known he had money—those gold cards, that cash. She
liked the way it manifested. The air was tinted with faint scents of
lemon furniture polish and evergreen. The couch was long but
looked comfortable, upholstered in a geometric pattern of soft,
intense lavenders, indigos, grays. The round carpet on the
hardwood floor was deep and slate blue; the coffee table was old
wood, scarred here and there. A black metal spiral plant-stand
supported green, healthy philodendrons and Rabbit Track
Marantas. Everything looked lived-in or lived-with.
To the left was a dining nook. A little Christmas tree decorated
with white lights, tinsel, and paper angels stood on the dining table.
“I thought Linda was going to come,” Plainfield said, looking at
the tree. There were presents under it. “Corey didn’t tell me until
last night that they were going out of state. You like cocoa?”
“Sure,” said Matt, thinking about her Christmas Eve dream,
cocoa and other peoples’ memories.
“Uh—what would you like me to call you?”
“Matt,” said Matt.
“Matt,” he said, and nodded. “Kitchen’s through there.” He