Shakespeare's Christmas by Charlaine Harris Read Free Book Online Page A

second’s thoughtful pause, a few eyes slid in my direction. I was the worse it could have been.
    But I was used to that. I kept my face blank, and the little moment passed. A purse snatching did not seem as remarkable as it would have a few years ago. Now, with gang presence and drugs in every tiny town up and down the interstate and all in between, what happened to Diane Dykeman, a sales clerk at one of the local clothing stores, didn’t seem so bad. She seemed lucky to be unhurt, rather than unfortunate to have her purse snatched at all.
    After a tedious two and a half hours we drove home, taking a different route this time since we were giving a lift to Lou O’Shea, whose husband had dropped her off on his way to a meeting. The Presbyterian manse was a large red-brick home that matched the adjacent church. I half listened to the backseat conversation between Varena and Lou, enough to gather that Lou, like Meredith Osborn, had an eight-year-old girl and another, younger child. When we pulled into the driveway, Lou seemed reluctant to get out.
    “I’m afraid it doesn’t make Krista any fonder of Luke, him crying so much,” Lou told us with a heavy sigh. “She’s not too enthusiastic about her little brother right now.”
    “Krista is Anna’s age, they play together a lot,” Varena reminded me.
    “It’ll all straighten out,” my mother said in her soothing way. “Sooner or later you’ll find out why Luke cries all night, and he’ll stop. And then Krista will forget all about it. She’s a smart little girl, Lou.”
    “You’re right,” Lou said instantly, back on her mettle as a minister’s wife. “Thanks for the lift. I’ll see you-all tomorrow afternoon!”
    When we were driving away, Varena said, “Lou’ll be coming to the rehearsal dinner tomorrow night.”
    “Isn’t it traditional to have the rehearsal dinner the night before the wedding?” I didn’t want to sound critical, but I was faintly curious.
    “Yes. Dill had originally scheduled it for that night,” Mother said. I was being subtly reminded that the groom’s family had the responsibility for the rehearsal dinner. “But Sarah May’s was already booked for the two evenings before the wedding! So we just moved it to three nights, and the couple giving the supper for Dill and Varena rescheduled it to the night before the wedding, bless them.”
    I nodded, hardly paying attention. I was absolutely confident I would be told what to do, when. I found myself wanting to be alone so badly I could taste it. When we got to Varena’s, I unloaded the shower presents with great dispatch, and at my folks’ house, I said a brief good-night to Mom before heading for my room.
    My father hadn’t yet gotten home from the bachelor party. I hoped he wasn’t drinking and smoking cigars. His blood pressure would soar.
    I sat in the little chair in my room and read for a long time, a biography I’d brought with me. Then I hooked my feet under the bed and did sit-ups, I dropped and did pushups, and I did eighty leg lifts. After that, it was time for a relaxing shower. I noticed that my father had come in at some point and turned out the remaining lights.
    But even after the hot shower, I felt itchy. I couldn’t walk in Bartley. People would talk about my family. The police weren’t used to me. They might stop me—if I saw any. The Bartley police force was not large.
    I pushed the temptation away and forced myself to climb in the bed. I worked three crossword puzzles in a book I found in the bedside table drawer. Somehow, trying to think of a five-letter word meaning an earth-covered Indian dwelling did the trick. Finally, I was able to draw a curtain on a very long day.
    Unfortunately, the next was more of the same.
    Before noon, I decided that everyone in my family should have had to go to work until an hour before the wedding.
    My father had taken two weeks’ vacation from the electric company. Since my mother was a housewife, she was always at