Deaths of Jocasta by J. M. Redmann Read Free Book Online Page B

to go change,” Joanne replied.
    “Well…” I let it hang, not wanting to argue, but not willing to lie and say I’d call her.
    “If you get a chance,” Joanne let me off.
    “Let’s go, Rhett,” I said and we started walking across the lawn at a fast clip.
    But not fast enough to avoid hearing Danny say, “What the hell has Micky gotten herself involved in now? Not sleeping with her, my ass.”
    I turned back to them, that quartet in the fading sunlight.
    “It’s not like that. It’s not like that at all,” I shouted to Danny. Then I turned away, following Rhett.
    The outside lights wouldn’t come on. It took me a few minutes of scrounging around in the work shed to find the right fuse, then all was bright. At least where the lights shone.
    I took a slow walk around the yard, eyeing the woods for any desperate water moccasins aiming to make a last-ditch attempt on the swimming pond. But no, no reptilian terrorists tonight. Even the lone frog had gone home.
    The sun was below the horizon, leaving pink mare’s tails in the sky. I walked into the gloaming of the trees, their trunks and branches cutting and striping the last tendrils of light across the forest floor. I was on the path closest to the stream, following it downhill, until the shadowed woods engulfed me.
    I stood still, watching the shadows lengthen and merge, hoping to catch sight of the first of the nocturnal animals. But all I saw was a squirrel hastening up an oak tree. I looked at my watch. It was a few minutes before eight. The woods were now bereft of all but diffuse gray light, the path only a lighter shadow among the dark patches cast by the trees.
    There’s a party tonight, Micky, no sense wandering about in the twilight. But I held still for a moment longer, feeling eyes watching me from somewhere in the darkening woods. Not a squirrel or a bird, but I didn’t know what it could be. I tried to pierce the deep gray to find the creature, but nothing moved, nothing stirred. I finally let it go.
    I turned away from my unseeable creature, following the gray ribbon path back to the bright lights and bustle of the party. From the dim edge of the woods, the house looked shimmering and alive, light and warmth bursting from windows and doors. There’s definitely a party tonight, I told myself. I walked back across the lawn.
    The dress code for this party was anything you wanted to wear, from tails to outlandish costumes to blue jeans. “Danny,” I called, seeing her and Elly. “I don’t believe it.”
    “I couldn’t resist,” she said.
    “And I couldn’t talk her out of it,” Elly added.
    I walked over to them, looking Danny up and down. She had dressed herself as a plantation owner; three piece white suit, black string bow tie, very fake handlebar mustache, and a white straw gambler’s hat.
    “It is, I must admit, mind-bendingly outrageous,” I commented.
    “I thought about carrying a whip…” she started.
    “But that was too much,” Elly finished for her. “Considering the likelihood of slave owners in my background,” she added.
    I looked at Elly, her light beige skin a talisman of her ancestry. Some foremother of hers was raped; it was a horrifying certainty.
    How many of us, I suddenly thought, remembering my own mother, pregnant at sixteen. How many of us are here through mischance, an unheard denial, force?
    “The mustache was a bitch to put on,” Danny was saying, not noticing my distraction. “But so was getting that magnolia behind Elly’s ear.”
    “I’ve always wanted to be a blues singer,” Elly explained. She was wearing an emerald green gown, her hair unadorned save for the magnolia and hanging long and full down below her shoulders. “Have you seen Alex and Joanne yet?” she asked me.
    “No,” I replied.
    “Just wait,” Danny said. Then she made a wiping-her-brow motion to indicate that they were hot.
    “Come on,” Elly said, putting her arm through both mine and Danny’s. We strolled toward the