Kritinka: переводы

→The worst part was that Dad was planning to be gone four days every week, flying to Chicago to keep up with all his needy clients. So not only was I in a hick town where the most popular gathering spot was the Dairy Queen, but I was trapped here alone with Lilith.

→At least I only had to live here for a few months before graduation. And at least I’d only missed one month of the school year, so I’d actually be able to graduate.

→Grandpa had died over the summer, leaving the whole of his property to me. Who’d met him once when I was seven and only remembered being sick most of the time and him yelling at my mom about something I didn’t understand. But I guess age did strange things to a person, and I was his only living relative besides Mom, who didn’t speak to either of us anymore.

→The sun had set below the woods surrounding the house, so everything was pretty dark. But above, the sky was still pale. Only a handful of stars poked through. Shoving my hands into the pockets of the hoodie, I headed for the trees. I could see the cemetery from my bedroom, and now was as good a time as any to see if I could find Grandpa’s grave.

→Grinding my teeth, I swung by the front closet, snatched a hoodie, and slammed out the front door. If I’d been at home, I could have jogged down the block to Trey’s house and we’d have headed for a coffee shop or Mikey’s to shoot some aliens on his Xbox. But instead I was alone outside a Missouri farmhouse with nothing nearby but a crumbling old graveyard. I finished chewing the asparagus spear as I marched over the gravel driveway and zipped up the hoodie.

→As I strode out into the foyer, I heard Lilith say, “It’s nothing to worry about, darling. That’s what bleach is for.”

→“You are excused,” Dad said calmly. He was always calm.

→“She’s thirty-two! I think if anyone needs to act mature, it’s her.” I shoved to my feet. “But I guess that’s what you get for marrying someone thirteen years younger than yourself.”

→“You’re nearly eighteen, son, and you’ve got to stop—”

→“Dad, didn’t you hear what she—”

→“Nick!” Dad frowned at me. He still wore his tie, even though he’d been at home for hours.

→I deliberately set my glass down too hard, sloshing red wine onto the tablecloth.

→She pursed her Botox-lips. “Come now, Nick, I doubt you’ll have any more trouble alienating yourself and being an outcast here than you did in Chicago.”

→“Right. A new school at the beginning of my senior year in the middle of freaking nowhere. I’m sure it’ll be great.”

→“It won’t be so bad.” Lilith slid a chunk of steak off her fork with her teeth: her version of a challenging sneer.

→“Like I look forward to sliding down a hill of razor blades.”

→“Looking forward to school Monday, Nick?” Dad asked, raising his own wineglass to his mouth. He believed in introducing me to alcohol gradually and in a controlled fashion, as if I hadn’t made friends with it in the boys’ bathroom at school by the time I was fourteen.

→We’d been at dinner: her, my dad, and me, sitting around the long table in the fancy dining room. I plucked at the white linen and wondered whether, if I spilled a few drops of wine onto it, Lilith’s eyes would roll back into her head and she’d start spouting Bible verses backward.

→I’d like to say I came to the graveyard in search of my past, or out of sentiment or nostalgia. But I came to get as far away from my psychotic stepmother as possible.

→NICHOLAS