Blue Moon Bay by Lisa Wingate Read Free Book Online Page A

hadn’t considered the possibility that, while the people of Moses Lake still loomed large in my mind, they might not even remember me. It was strangely pathetic to think that I’d been reacting all these years to people for whom I was just a temporary blip on the radar.
    â€œNo, I’m fine,” I answered, and then started walking, conscious of Mrs. Underhill staring after me, no doubt wondering why I was dragging luggage along the side of the highway. She was probably thinking, What an odd little thing. . . .
    I headed out of town, past Lakeshore Community Church, its brown stone walls warming in the winter sunlight beneath a patina of dust and moss. The doors to the squatty low-ceilinged fellowship hall were open, a half-dozen cars parked out front. An elderly woman in a red coat was trying to wrestle a wheelchair from the trunk of her car. After glancing back and forth between her and the door a couple times, wishing someone would come out and help her before she hurt herself, I parked my suitcase near the road and jogged across the gravel parking lot. The suede boots that had set me back a week’s salary squished in a layer of creamy, limestone-colored goo as I skirted puddles left behind by a winter rain.
    â€œHere, let me help you,” I said, and unfortunately startled her off-balance. She caught herself against the car, with a bug-eyed look. Such was usually the way with my awkward attempts at random acts of kindness. I wasn’t meant to be folksy and friendly, but I had promised Gary that I would pay it forward. If not for an act of kindness, I’d still be standing at the bus station, or worse yet, sleeping in an airport chair in Denver.
    â€œOh!” the woman gasped, catching her breath and squinting at me through glasses thick enough to make me wonder if she’d driven herself here. Something about her was familiar, but I couldn’t decide what. “Oh, well, all right. Aren’t you sweet?” She pulled and stretched the words, adding extra syllables on ri-ight and swe-eet . Scanning the parking lot, she tried to figure out where I’d come from.
    She motioned to the sidewalk in front of the fellowship hall. “Just set it up there, hon. It’s my cousin’s. I was tryin’ to make room back here for the casseroles.”
    Casseroles. Why did it not surprise me that the casserole ladies were on the move again today?
    A blue piece of cardboard tangled in the spokes of the wheelchair as I pulled it out, and I rested the chair against the trunk rim for a moment, wiggling the paper loose and dropping it into the trunk. It flipped over and slid partway under a folded navy-and-gold Moses Lake High stadium blanket. I found myself cocking my head to read, from the bottom up, the bold, white letters on the royal blue sign. Precinct 4. County Commission. Underhill. Blaine. Vote for.
    Huh . . . Looked like Blaine Underhill hadn’t strayed far from the hometown. “You shouldn’t be lifting this thing on your own,” I said, noticing that there was a rather large stack of Blaine Underhill signs wedged against the side of the trunk.
    The woman noticed that I was staring. “That’s my grandson.” Reaching into her oversized purse, she whipped out a flyer printed on red paper. “Are you a resident of the county?” A brow lifted with a hopeful look, and I gathered that my vote was about to be solicited.
    â€œJust visiting.” Now I knew why she looked familiar. This was the infamous Mama B. When I used to walk by the football stadium on my way home from school, she was always perched on the bleachers next to Blaine Underhill’s father, the two of them watching practice, making sure their golden boy was getting the kind of treatment he deserved. If she wasn’t telling the coaches what to do, Mama B was checking up on the teachers, shuffling through the school halls with a pug-nosed pocket pooch in her