Slice by William Patterson Read Free Book Online Page A

had thrown her as she and Abby had strolled down the street, or the glance Bryan Pierce had given her when she’d driven past in Monica’s car. Jessie hadn’t stopped to say hello to anyone. She’d been back for four days now, and still she hesitated to reintroduce herself to these people from her old life. They knew too much about her, and what had happened. She couldn’t just pull up alongside Bryan and lean out the car window and gush, “Bryan, old pal, old buddy! How’ve you been?” Too much had happened between them—and to Jessie—for their first interaction after all this time to be so casual.
    But a gathering . . . here . . . in her own home . . . on her own turf . . . with Abby . . . and Mom’s things all around them. . . .
    â€œWe could invite old Mr. Thayer,” Aunt Paulette was saying, “and Bryan and Heather and their two little kids to play with Abby. . . .” Her voice trailed off. “Oh, honey, maybe you don’t want to see Bryan. . . .”
    Jessie smiled. “It was a long time ago, Aunt Paulette.” She took a deep breath. “Maybe you’re right. Sure, let’s have a party. I’ve got to meet the neighbors again eventually. Might as well do it all at once.”
    â€œWonderful.” The older woman clapped her hands together, a wide smile stretching across her leathery face, browned and roughened from years of being outdoors without any sunblock. “How about this Sunday afternoon? We’ll make a picnic out of it.”
    â€œThat sounds good.”
    â€œI suppose we’ll have to invite the Gorins, too. We can’t invite the whole street and leave them out.”
    Jessie smiled. “Well, maybe coming up here and seeing me and what we’ve done to the house will sate Mrs. Gorin’s curiosity. I’ve seen her looking over here with binoculars.”
    â€œYou’re being kind when you call her curious. She’s plain nosy. Why, once when I saw her snooping around the mailboxes, I read her mind and saw that what she was considering was pilfering everyone’s mail, steaming it open, then returning it.”
    â€œThat’s definitely not a good thing,” Jessie said, “but, honestly, Aunt Paulette, isn’t reading someone’s mind without their permission just as bad as reading their mail?”
    The older woman’s cheeks blushed red. “You’re right, sweetie. I try not to. But sometimes . . . it just comes. It just happens.”
    Jessie reached across the table and patted her aunt’s hand. For all Mom’s belief in fate and karma and the power of nature, she had never quite believed that her eccentric older sister had “the gift.” She used to say that Paulette had to believe she was good at something, because she’d tried going to teacher’s college, then nursing school, then cosmetology classes—and each time, she’d been unable to graduate. It wasn’t that Aunt Paulette was unintelligent—she was, in fact, quite bright—but she had little patience for protocols and discipline and rules and deadlines. Good thing that her own parents had left her enough money that she’d never really had to work.
    For most of the last twenty years, Aunt Paulette had read tarot cards and performed psychic readings for forty-five dollars an hour. She kept an ad running in a local “New Age” journal, which meant that, periodically, a car full of housewives, or college students, would show up on Hickory Dell, and they’d all traipse up to the cottage of “Madame Paulette Drew” to learn from the lady with the bright red lipstick if they were about to come into some money or meet any tall, dark, and handsome strangers. Mom dismissed it as “all in good fun”—a line that Aunt Paulette had to officially maintain herself. She billed her readings as “entertainment,” since actual