Hold on Tight by Deborah Smith Read Free Book Online Page B

his five-hundred-pound Aunt Clara Vanette—Aunt Clarinet—who felt a lump in her couch and finally figured out that it was her long-lost parakeet. She recalled the night he disappeared, the night she took a nap on the couch with him perched on her shoulder. Poor, squashed thing—”
    “Oh, please,” Dinah begged, “not during lunch.”
    “I like his accountant, Ed Howe,” interjected Byron Breedlove, head of the science department. “Of the firm Dewey, Cheatum, and Howe.”
    Everyone laughed again. “I like the Reverend Snooker Hornswaggle, his poker buddy,” Myra Faye said.
    Gita, a petite little brunette, giggled mightily. “Rucker said in one column that any woman over size eight ought to be sent to Russia. Isn’t that funny?”
    A booming, unmistakable voice filled the small lounge. “Looks like a mean group to me. Probably drink their beers warm and kick their dogs.”
    Dinah stood up, her mouth opening in amazement. “Speak of the devil.”
    Rucker grinned at her from the doorway, a bag from the local fast-food chicken franchise perched in the crook of one arm. “Good afternoon, teacher. I brought you some lunch.”
    He ambled in, looking quite handsome despite the fact that his auburn hair was tousled and he wore jeans, a Masters Tournament T-shirt, and an old green windbreaker. His eyes roamed greedily over her and her tasteful gray suit, then took in everyone else. Dinah put her hands on her hips and stared at him in amused exasperation. “Did anyone give you permission to come upstairs to the teachers’ lounge?” she asked finally.
    “Sure. My buddy Lou Parker.”
    “You never told me that you knew our principal.”
    He set the bag of food down and kissed her quickly on the cheek. Dinah put a fingertip on the warm, tingling spot and tried to ignore the slack-jawed looks the other teachers gave her. “I met him ten minutes ago,” Rucker explained. “Now we’re good friends. Hesaid I could come on up here and make myself at home.”
    Dinah shook a finger at him. “What did you …”
    Rucker smiled sweetly. “I promised to speak at the Friday afternoon pep rally.”
    “You are such a con man.” He nodded, unashamed. She gave him a fiendish look. “Tell me something, dear boy. Did you once write that any woman larger than a size eight ought to be shipped to Russia?”
    He didn’t answer, and she could almost see the wheels turning in his mind. He formed a comical, shifty-eyed expression. “What size are you?” he asked.
    “A perfect size ten, buster.”
    “I said any woman over a size sixteen ought to be shipped to Russia,” he lied confidently.
    “Hey!” Myra Faye, easily a size twenty and then some, waved a piece of celery at him with fake threat.
    He grasped his heart. “Uh, I said,” Rucker corrected, “that any woman over a size thirty …”
    Everyone broke into chortles. “Sit down and remove your foot from your mouth,” Dinah urged. She took a seat across the room and he followed her. He began pulling containers from the sack he’d brought. “Thank you,” she murmured, staring at fried chicken, potato salad, pecan pie, and biscuits. “This is fattening. Fattening and unexpected.” Everything about Rucker was unexpected, so she wasn’t surprised.
    “Well, I was down at Fred’s barber shop, and I mentioned what my favorite food is, and Fred told me to go to the Captain Cluck place out on the highway, and when I got there, I thought, ‘I bet Dinah likes fried chicken, and I know my possum does, too …’ ”
    “What were you doing at Fred’s?”
    “Playin’ poker.” He smiled gleefully. “I won fifty matches. Fred won’t be lightin’ any candles for a while.”
    “And tell me, Mr. McClure, how else does a famous writer spend his work day?”
    “Well, I got up real early and watched Oprah Winfrey. Then I went over to the Lucky Duck and had breakfast, and then I interviewed Bascom Lewis—”
    “Bascom? To put it politely, Rucker, he’s the townwino.