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قديم 12-02-11, 05:29 AM   #7

Dalyia

إدارية ومشرفة سابقة وكاتبة بمكتبة روايتي وعضوة بفريق التصميم والترجمة و الافلام والسينما ومعطاء التسالي ونجمة الحصريات الفنية ومميز بالقسم الطبى

 
الصورة الرمزية Dalyia

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?  التسِجيلٌ » Jul 2010
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?  نُقآطِيْ » Dalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond reputeDalyia has a reputation beyond repute
¬» مشروبك   pepsi
¬» قناتك mbc4
?? ??? ~
My Mms ~
افتراضي


“Lot of hair.”
He pulled on his watch cap. “It just keeps growing out of my head.”
“I like hair on a man.” She yanked open the door. “Red hair, too.”
“It’s brown,” he corrected automatically, and pulled the cap lower.
“All right. Get off your feet awhile Rose,” she called back, then
trudged out into the wind and snow.
The cold struck him like a runaway train. “Jesus Christ. It freezes
your eyeballs.”
He jumped into the Ford Explorer she’d parked at the curb. “Your
blood’s thin yet.”
“It could be thick as paste, and it’d still be fucking cold. Sorry.”
“I don’t blush at frank language. Of course it’s fucking cold; it’s December.”
With her blasting laugh, she started the engine. “We’ll start
the tour on wheels. No point stumbling around in the dark.”
“How many do you lose to exposure and hypothermia in a year?”
“Lost more than one to the mountains, but those mostly tourists or
crazies. Man called Teek got himself stupid drunk one night, three years


ago this January, and froze to death in his own outhouse, reading
Playboy


magazine. But he was an idiot. People who live here know how to
take care of themselves, and cheechakos who make it through a winter
learn—or leave.”
“Cheechakos?”
“Newcomers. You don’t want to take nature casually, but you learn to
live with it, and if you’re smart, you make it work for you. Get out in
it—ski, snowshoe, skate the river, ice fish.” She shrugged. “Take precautions
and enjoy it, because it’s not going anywhere.”
She drove with steady competence on the snow-packed street.
“There’s our clinic.We got a doctor and a practical nurse.”
Nate studied the small, squat building. “And if they can’t handle it?”
“Fly to Anchorage.We’ve got a bush pilot lives outside of town. Meg
Galloway.”
“A woman?”
“You sexist, Ignatious?”
“No.”Maybe. “Just asking.”
“Meg’s Charlene’s daughter. Damn good pilot. A little crazy, but a
good bush pilot’s got to be, in my opinion. She’d’ve brought you in from
Anchorage, but you were a day later than we’d hoped, and she had another
booking, so we called Jerk in from Talkeetna. You’ll probably see
Meg at the town meeting later.”
And won’t that be fun, Nate thought.
“The Corner Store—got everything you need, or they’ll find a way to
get it. Oldest building in Lunacy. Trappers built it back in the early


s, and Harry and Deb have added to it since they bought the place

in ’


It was twice as big as the clinic, and two stories. Lights were already
gleaming in the windows.
“Post office runs out of the bank there for now, but we’re going to
break ground for one this summer.And the skinny place next to it’s The
Italian Place. Good pizza. No deliveries outside of town.”
“Pizza parlor.”
“New York Italian, came up here three years back on a hunting trip.
Fell in love. Never left. Johnny Trivani. Named it Trivani’s at the start,
but everybody called it The Italian Place, so he went with it.Talks about
adding on a bakery. Says he’s going to get himself one of those Russian
mail-order brides you hear about on the Internet. Maybe he will.”
“Will there be fresh blinis?”
“We can hope. Town newspaper runs out of that storefront,” she
said, pointing. “The couple who run it are out of town.Took the kids to
San Diego for the school break right after Christmas. KLUN—local
radio—broadcasts from that one there. Mitch Dauber runs it almost
single-handed. He’s an entertaining son of a bitch most of the time.”
“I’ll tune in.”
She circled around, headed back the way they’d come. “About a half
mile west of town is the school—kindergarten through twelfth.We’ve
got seventy-eight students right now.We hold adult classes there, too.
Exercise classes, art classes, that sort of thing. Breakup to freeze-up we
hold them in the evenings. Otherwise, it’s daytime.”
“Breakup? Freeze-up?”
“Ice breaks up on the river, spring’s coming. River freezes up, get out
the long johns.”
“Gotcha.”
“What we got is five hundred and six souls within what we’d call
town limits, and another hundred and ten—give or take—living outside
and still in our district. Your district now.”
It still looked like that stage set to Nate, and far from real. Even farther
from being his.
“Fire department—all volunteer—runs out of there. And here’s the
town hall.” She eased the car to a stop in front of a wide log building.
“My husband helped build this hall thirteen years ago. He was the first
mayor of Lunacy, and held that post until he died, four years ago next
February.”
“How’d he die?”
“Heart attack. Playing hockey out on the lake. Slapped in a goal,
keeled over and died. Just like him.”
Nate waited a beat. “Who won?”
Hopp hooted with laughter. “His goal tied it up. They never did finish
that game.” She eased the car forward. “Here’s your place.”
Nate peered out through the dark and the spitting snow. It was a
trim building, wood frame, and obviously newer than its companions. It
was bungalow style, with a small, enclosed porch and two windows on
either side of the door, both of them framed with dark green shutters.
A path had been shoveled out or tromped down from the street to
the door, and a short driveway, recently plowed from the looks of it, was
already buried under a couple inches of fresh snow. A blue pickup truck
was parked on it, and another narrow walking path snaked its way to
the door.
Lights burned against both windows, and smoke puffed out, a gray
cloud, from the black chimney pipe in the roof.
“We open for business?”
“That you are.They know you’re coming in today.” She swung in behind
the pickup. “Ready to meet your team?”
“As I’ll ever be.”
He got out, found he was just as shocked by the cold this time
around. Breathing through his teeth, he walked behind Hopp down the
single-lane path to the outer door.
“This is what we call an Arctic entry up here.” She stepped inside the
enclosure, out of the wind and weather. “Helps keep down the heat loss
from the main building. Good place to stow your parka.”
She pulled hers off, hung it on a hook beside another. Nate followed
suit, then dragged off his gloves, stuck them in one of the parka’s pockets.
Then came the watch cap, the scarf. He wondered if he’d ever get
used to outfitting himself like an explorer on the North Pole every time
he had to go out a door.
Hopp pushed through the other door, and into the scent of wood
smoke and coffee.




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