Riding Shotgun by Rita Mae Brown Read Free Book Online

called out, “I love you.”
    “I love you, too.” Cig waved. She closed the door once Grace had started the car. A whiff of clear, cold air snuck into the room.

3

    From the mud room window, Cig watched the silvery curlicue of exhaust from Grace’s tailpipe as she cruised down the driveway. She crossed her arms over her chest, not realizing how tightly she was hugging herself until she couldn’t breathe. She shook her head and walked back into the kitchen. Hunter was eating a huge piece of carrot cake.
    “This is great, Mom.”
    “I slaved hours over the stove to make that cake.” He winked at her. She returned the wink and walked into the library where she picked up the family books and papers stacked on a wide shelf next to the dictionaries. She opened the massive maroon leather book, gilt edged, and studied the cursive handwriting that cataloged births and deaths since 1860. Like so many Americans, she was indifferent to her family’s history as well as history in general. She wasn’t a total fool, she knew the past was prologue, but somehow she never got around to studying the part that the Deyhles, the Buckmghams, the Charters, the Burkes, the deVries, the Chesterfields, the Merritts, and who knows whoelse had played in creating Virginia, the nation, and her own self, genetically anyway.
    Hunter entered the room and read over her shoulder. “How did they do that?”
    “Years of practice, plus india ink and pens with gold tips.”
    “When did we stop using quills?”
    “Do you really think I know the answer to that?” She laughed at him.
    “You might. You know some incredible stuff, Mom.”
    “Like what?”
    “Like you remember Richard Nixon.”
    “You remember what you lived through. I was about your age then.”
    “Well, I bet quills were fun to use.”
    “As long as you weren’t the goose.” Cig traced a big C with her finger. “Not that they killed them for their feathers.”
    “Mom, feathers fall out—kind of like Uncle Will’s hair.”
    “I swear, he’s hitting the dye pots or using Grecian Formula 44. He was grayer, I know he was.” She glanced at her own hair in the mirror. Not much gray. “Did you finish your homework?”
    “I’ve got two problems left in physics.”
    “Knock ‘em out.”
    “Okay.” He didn’t budge.
    She put her hands on her hips” “Yes?”
    “Can I borrow twenty dollars?”
    “Twenty dollars?” Cig’s voice rose.
    “I know it’s a lot, but I want to take Beryl Smith to the dance and I’m short.”
    “Hunter, I’m not made out of money.”
    “Mom, it’s only twenty bucks.”
    “Twenty here and twenty there—it adds up. You’ve got to get it through your head that we don’t have money like we did when Dad was alive.”
    “What if I put in extra hours at the barn?”
    “I’ve heard that before.”
    “I’ll do it. I’ll clean out the cobwebs, change the lightbulbs under the eaves, fix the broken washer in the wash stall. I promise… please.”
    “What’s so hot about Beryl Smith?”
    His eyebrows knitted together. “She’s, uh, she’s…”
    “A space cadet,” Cig blurted out. “I take that back.” She sighed. “Hunter, I hate crabbing about money, I hate denying you anything, but every penny counts.”
    “Mom, I swear I will keep my promise. I’ll do those chores. I’ll even wash and wax the car.”
    “And the next question is, can you borrow it for the dance? Hunter, you’re transparent.” She paused, then held out her hand. “Oh, all right. Deal.”
    “Deal.” He shook her hand.
    “Is your sister bagging the dance altogether?”
    His face blanked. Hunter’s ignorance had an artful air. “I don’t know.”
    “Oh yes, you do.”
    “You always tell us to be direct. You should ask Laura, not me.”
    She stared at him. “You’re absolutely right.”
    He bounded out of the library, happy to have twenty dollars, leaving Cig to wonder just what was going on. She heard his door close. She climbed the stairs, passed