Page 15 (1/1)

"He didn’t run off with theie crosses her arms and doesn’t sit

"I want to hear about the mules that kidnapped him in Mexico" Taylor looks uneasily at Lucky, after she’s said this, but he is bea This is his ele the color of his eyes to a gas-flaie says "They told hiine stubborn four-legged aniie explains that"If you’re anywheres near Mexico and soeably,

"they’re a mule"

Taylor is relieved to be home in one piece She and Jax sit up in bed with his tape of They Might Be Giants turned do, so they’ll hear when Turtle has fallen asleep in the next rooht in a quiet language no one can understand Over the years, Taylor and Alice have had -distance phone calls about motherhood Alice told her not to worry when Turtle was three and still didn’t talk, or later, when she did talk but would say only the nae lists

Alice still says there’s nothing to worry about, and she has always been right before She says Turtle is talking over the day with her personal angels

They hear Turtle sigh and begin to hu Then they hear the clunk of her coht she calls Mary, which she has slept with since the day she found it years ago in Taylor’s employer’s truck

"I missed you," Taylor tells Jax "Coh lately, you seem normal"

He kisses her hair, which smells like a thunderstorm, and her shoulder, which set you through tih ti I really nitive skills," he says "And your syntax

Honestly, that’s all Not your body I despise your body"

He drawls on purpose, sounding h he can’t ular music of her Kentucky hills

"Well, that’s sure a load offher dark hair off her shoulders without self-consciousness She’s the first woive a damn how she looks, or is completely happy with the way she looks, which a

Usually wos should be in relation to the waist in relation to the eyelashes--a ely crucial to women Taylor apparently never took the class He wishes he could have been there when she was born, to watch the whole process of Taylor He lies across the bed with his head in her lap, but when he realizes she’s looking at his profile, turns his face away Although he rarely sees it himself, he knows his profile is unusual and even startles people: there’s no indentation at all between his forehead and the bridge of his nose Taylor says he looks like an Egyptian Pharaoh, which is exactly what she would say, with no apologies for never having seen any actual Egyptian art Taylor behaves as if what she believes, and what she is, should be enough for anyone

She’s not the first woood looks; that’s not why he is in love with her Jax has broad shoulders and hands that apparently suggest possibilities

He’s proud that he can reach an octave and a half on a piano like Franz Liszt; his one gift is largeness When his band perfor with telephone numbers inked on the elastic

"You think she’s asleep?"

Taylor shakes her head "Not yet She’s having trouble relaxing I learned a lot about her breathing on this trip"

"You’re picking up certain character traits from your friend Lou Ann"

Lou Ann Ruiz, who is like a second mother to Turtle, tends toward an obsession with health and safety But to her credit, Jax allows, Lou Ann is ot a job at an exercise salon called Fat Chance and noears Lycra outfits in color cos that inhabit the Aood time to tell you about the phone calls?"

"What phone calls?" Taylor asks, through a heartfelt yawn

"The approximately four thousand calls that have come in since you achieved national prominence on Monday"