by Sharon Short
“There’s still a chance, May. Come out. Tell me you love me like I know you always did. We can disappear together. You’re good at that—disappearing. This time disappear with me. I saw the look in your eyes, May. I know you loved me all this time. You can undo your choice of Henry—”
There was silence, and then I heard my daddy saying, “May, oh May . . .” I could see them, somehow, in my mind’s eye, and I knew they were holding each other.
“Shut up, damn you,” shouted Lenny. “Or I’ll shoot her now! Let her decide.”
There was another silence. I scooted forward, shivering, shivering. Lenny knelt, leaned forward, peering into the cistern, waiting for my mother’s answer.
I was waiting, too, because I knew all of Lenny’s attention would be focused on her.
Finally, my mother spoke, her voice quivering but somehow still strong. “If I’ve learned anything in my life, Lenny, it’s that you can’t undo your choices. What you saw in my eyes was pity. Now, as before, and always, I choose Henry.”
Lenny screamed, a long piercing, “nooooo!” and pointed the gun into the cistern, starting to pull the trigger . . .
I launched forward, grabbed the chunk of cistern lid—oh, Lord, it was too big for one hand . . . I grabbed it with both hands, threw it at Lenny.
I hit him in the shoulder.
He spun, still screaming “noooo!” and fell backward into the cistern as he finished pulling the trigger.
The bullet hit me in the shoulder, and I stumbled, losing my balance, and took an unfortunate step in the wrong direction as I gasped in pain and tried to keep from falling. But I fell anyway into the cistern. My head hit the side of the cistern wall and I plunged into sudden, consuming darkness before I hit the bottom.
Epilogue
“Am I dead?” I asked.
“Why would you think that?” Mrs. Oglevee asked sternly, frowning at me.
“You’re not doing anything weird,” I said.
Mrs. Oglevee was sitting behind her teacher’s desk, looking like she always had back in junior high. I looked down at my arms, hands, outfit, feet.
I was wearing jeans with ripped knees, one of Uncle Horace’s old sweatshirts—sleeves cut off, pulled to be off-shoulder to reveal my neon-green tank top—and tennis shoes with curly neon-green laces. The laces looked like curly fries.
Oh, my Lord. I had to be dead. I was dressed like I had in the 1980s, in junior high.
And if I was dead and back in junior high in the afterlife, I apparently hadn’t lived as good a life as I thought I had. I gulped.
“Don’t be impertinent, young lady,” Mrs. Oglevee was saying. “Of course you’re not dead. But you are, again, late with your assignment. Your essay about your family was due yesterday. Why didn’t you write the assignment?”
Part of me knew this was a memory . . . part of me knew this wasn’t real . . . but the same words came out of my mouth as I’d spoken years ago to Mrs. Oglevee, as I stared down at my green curly-fry laces.
“Everyone else was talking about how they were going to write about their mom or dad. But I can’t do that,” I mumbled. “I mean, I have Aunt Clara and Uncle Horace, and I love them, but the rest of my family . . .”
“Young lady, look at me!” Mrs. Oglevee barked.
I looked up at her. She was glaring across the table. “What do you think family is? Genetic coding? Bloodlines? A chart in the front of a Bible?” She leaned across the table, narrowed her eyes at me. “A real family is of the heart. And friends are the family the heart chooses.”
She glared at me a little longer, then shook her head. “I reckon you’ll understand someday, Miss Toadfern. At least, I hope so.”
She started fading, Chesire-like as always. “Mrs. Oglevee!” I called. My clothes suddenly felt looser. I glanced down. My 1980s garb had changed to hospital wear. “Mrs. Oglevee!”
But she just smiled. “Remember! Friends . . . family the heart chooses . . .”
Then she disappeared completely, and I was left in a white fog . . .
And then my eyes were open and I was wincing from a light.
“Hey, look who’s back from the dead!”
I tried to sit up, moaned.
“Take it easy,” the voice said.
Sally, I realized. I opened my eyes.
She helped me sit up, pressed a call button. I was in a hospital room, I realized. Several nurses came in, checked me over.
After they bustled out, I focused on Sally. “Tell me,” I said. She knew what I meant.
“You’re in Masonville County Hospital,” she said. “Room 53B.” She jerked a thumb at the pulled-to curtain behind her. “Lady in the other bed is here with a broken leg. Car wreck. Anyway, you were shot in the shoulder and knocked out when your head hit the concrete as you fell into the cistern.
“Lenny Burkette died upon impact in the cistern. Broken neck. According to Uncle Henry and Aunt May, he landed the wrong way, right on top of his daddy’s remains.” Sally paused and shuddered. “With the cistern lid off, Aunt May was finally able to use her cell phone, called for help. You’ve been out for a few days. But you’re going to be okay.”
“But, if I fell in, too, why didn’t I—”
Sally looked at me for a long moment, and then said, “Your parents moved to try to catch you. Even Aunt May, as weak as she was. They broke your fall, Josie, which may well have saved your life. Just as you saved theirs.”
I took that in. Then said, “Guy?” I didn’t like it that I had been out for a few days, unavailable for Guy.
“I’ve called Stillwater and let them know,” Sally said. “Guy is okay.”
“They didn’t tell—”
“No,” Sally said. “He was anxious two days ago—Sunday—when you didn’t come for your regular visit, but he’s okay. You may be okay to visit him next Sunday. Anyway, Chip Beavy’s been running the laundromat for you since you’ve been gone. And Rich Burkette is in custody for aiding and abetting attempted murder. He and your parents explained everything. Caleb Loudermilk got quite a story. Had to have extra copies of the Advertiser-Gazette printed. He is expecting two columns, by the way, to make up for the fact you didn’t get a chance to meet your deadline.” Sally smiled when she made that last statement.
I took in everything she’d said, then asked for a sip of water. She helped me with that. My head was pounding and I felt weak. I also really didn’t like all the IV lines coming into and out of my arms.
“Josie, I called Owen,” Sally said. “He sent those—the yellow ones.” I turned my head slowly. The bandage on my neck was stiff and thick. There was a gorgeous bouquet of yellow roses in the windowsill. And next to that, a purple and orange arrangement of fall flowers.
I looked back at Sally. My eyes pricked. “He’s not coming back,” I said.
Sally looked away for a second, then back at me with watering eyes. She shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said, taking my hand.
“The other flowers?”
“From your mama and daddy,” Sally said. “They . . . headed back to Arkansas, after they were treated and released—Aunt May, for exposure, and Uncle Henry, for a broken arm, which he got while saving you. They asked me to tell you that they’re not going to pursue FleaMart here. They think they’ll try to open one in the South. Something about keeping a promise to you, Aunt May said. But they said to tell you they wish you well.”
I didn’t even need to ask. They weren’t coming back, either.
“Hey,” I said. “You’d better get back to the boys.”
Sally gave a pshaw-style laugh. “What are you talking about? They’re out in the hallway—with the rest of your family. Want to see them?”
I perked up. “Of course.”
She jumped up, opened the door, and in trooped my family.
Sally, of course. Harry, Barry, and Larry.
Cherry and Deputy Dean.
Mrs. Beavy.
Winnie, who started crying when she saw me, and hugged me
so hard she almost pulled my IV loose. “You’re supposed to be in Chicago,” I said.
“I came back early,” she said.
Rusty Wilton and Lorraine McMurphy, the antique store owners.
Luke and Greta Rhinegold, the Red Horse Motel owners.
Don Richmond and Mary Rossbergen, from Stillwater.
And even Caleb Loudermilk, although in this spiritual collection of siblings and nephews and cousins and aunts and uncles and parents and grandparents, I wasn’t sure yet just where he fit in.
There were not enough seats for all of them, of course. But they stayed and chatted and talked and even laughed with me, fussing over me when the nurse brought in dinner for me: turkey slices and gravy and mashed potatoes and green beans and cranberries. At last, I was having my Thanksgiving meal.
Apparently, I was the only patient happy that the hospital was still serving Thanksgiving food. Although I have to say, Aunt Nora’s cranberry sauce was much better. I wondered if she would ever give me the secret recipe and then decided that no, she probably wouldn’t.
Finally the nurse came back in and shooed everyone out, and insisted on giving me another dose of painkiller.
Sally was the last to leave. Before she went, she pulled a framed photo out of her big handbag, and handed it to me.
It was my photo of Guy with his pumpkins, the one I always kept on my nightstand. “Thought you’d want that,” she said. “He’s here in spirit, you know.”
I nodded. “I know,” I said.
Sally patted my arm and walked out, brushing the dividing curtain. In the swaying of the curtain, I thought I saw for just a brief second the fog thin images of Mrs. Oglevee, Aunt Clara, and Uncle Horace, all smiling at me.
I closed my eyes, heard the woman from the bed in 53A say, as I drifted off again, “That’s some family you have.”
“Sure is,” I said.
PARADISE ADVERTISER-GAZETTE
Josie’s Stain Busters
by Josie Toadfern
Stain Expert and Owner of Toadfern’s Laundromat
(824 Main Street, Paradise, Ohio)
Vinegar solves an amazing number of life’s problems. Just not heartache. Although I have heard of folks making a tonic of apple cider vinegar for various ailments.
But this is a column about stain removal, for which of course you only want to use pure WHITE vinegar.
In a spray bottle, mix up ⅔ water and ⅓ vinegar. Label the bottle and use it to pre-treat any number of stains (after blotting up as much of the spill as possible with a white absorbent cloth):
• Cranberry sauce (and other fruit-based stains)
• Spaghetti sauce (and other tomato-based stains)
• Deodorant and anti-perspirant stains
• Perspiration stains
• Pet stains (urine) or people stains of the same nature
• Cola stains
Wait at least 10 minutes before treating with enzymatic pretreatment and washing as usual.
Remember, white vinegar is actually acetic acid, so if you want to use this solution on finer or fragile fabrics, test a hidden spot first, then apply just to the stain with an eyedropper.
You can also spray your knits with the solution before ironing if you want a sharper crease.
This vinegar/water solution is great outside the laundry, too. Use it to clean glasses (both the drinking and seeing kind), countertops, mirrors, windows, spigots, and sinks.
Full strength white vinegar is a good glue and gum dissolver. Heated on the stove top or microwave, it works even better. (But be careful about using vinegar full-strength on wood—the acid can hurt wood.)
Add about a half cup of white vinegar to your rinse cycle to reduce lint, remove built-up detergent, reduce static cling, and prevent yellowing.
But never ever mix vinegar and chlorine bleach, or use vinegar on clothes that have been treated with bleach! The two chemicals will mix and may release a harmful gas. Clean clothes and linens are a joy in life but not worth harming yourself over.
Until next month, may your whites never yellow and your colors never fade. But if they do, hop on over and see me at Toadfern’s Laundromat—Always a Leap Ahead of Dirt!
About the Author
Author photo by David Short
SHARON SHORT’s humor column, “Sanity Check,” appears every Monday in the Dayton Daily News, and covers everything from shredding pantyhose for stress relief to talking refrigerators. Her fiction credits include several short mysteries published in Futures Mysterious Anthology Magazine, Murderous Intent Mystery Magazine, and Orchard Press Online Mystery Magazine. In addition, Ms. Short is a principal of her own marketing communications firm. She lives in Centerville, Ohio, with her husband and two daughters. Readers can find Josie’s stain tips at www.sharonshort.com or contact Sharon at [email protected].
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.
Also by Sharon Short
DEATH IN THE CARDS
DEATH BY DEEP DISH PIE
DEATH OF A DOMESTIC DIVA
TIE DYED AND DEAD
MURDER UNFOLDS
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
AVON BOOKS
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HUNG OUT TO DIE Copyright © 2006 by Sharon Short. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.
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HarperCollins® is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers Inc.
ISBN-13 978-0-06-079324-1
ISBN-10 0-06-079324-4
EPub Edition September 2013 ISBN 9780062330468
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
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