The Cherry Cola Book Club by Ashton Lee Read Free Book Online

everything under the sun when we help students research their school reports. The teachers never stop assigning papers on the Vietnam War, and we’re open much later than the school libraries are. Anyway, I know there were a lot of casualties among our troops during that terrible period. So are you telling me Frank was one of those?”
    Miss Voncille absent-mindedly snapped her cookie in two, briefly staring down at what she’d done in astonishment. When she looked up, she picked a spot on the wall above Maura Beth’s head and spoke to it. “It was the worst thing that can happen. He was officially declared MIA, which doesn’t allow for closure. Of course, I never got it. He’s still MIA all these many decades later. He was just gone, and no one knew where to find him. I kept in touch with his mother until she died, but there was no further word.
    â€œOf course, there was a memorial service for him over in Corinth, which I sneaked off to when the time came. But it just wasn’t the same as putting his actual remains to rest. You might not think that’s such a big deal, but, believe me, I’m sure it would have helped me heal. Meanwhile, I busied myself with my school teaching until I retired and then took on all this genealogy research after that and . . . well, here we are sitting side by side, sipping punch and discussing it all as ancient history.”
    â€œI’m so sorry about Frank,” Maura Beth said, shaking her head slowly.
    Miss Voncille brushed away a few cookie crumbs from the palm of her hand with her napkin. “Sometimes, just when I think I’m really over him, something like this bubbles up to remind me I’m not. I mean, like making up a lie about someone skinning armadillos for a living. Of course, those Crumpton sisters have truly annoyed me beyond belief over the years. Mamie, in particular, has managed to make it very clear that my having to earn a living as a schoolteacher practically made me a peasant in her eyes. For that reason alone, I think she had my rude nonsense coming to her. Maybe that will help you understand what I did this evening a little better.”
    â€œJust between the two of us,” Maura Beth confided, leaning in, “there have been times when Mamie Crumpton has walked into the library and treated me like a servant—ordering me to get a book off the shelf for her without so much as a ‘thank you’ later.”
    Miss Voncille started nodding compulsively. “That’s Mamie in a nutshell—emphasis on the ‘nut.’ As far as I can tell, all that money of hers has insulated her from the hard knocks most of us receive in life—such as what happened to me and Frank.”
    â€œWell, I haven’t experienced your level of pain,” Maura Beth said, her voice wavering a bit. “But these lost loves are tough. I got jilted at LSU by a South Louisiana boy named El-phage Alphonse Broussard, Jr. We dated for three years, and I was convinced Al was going to ask me to marry him. Once, he even joked about having a gigantic wedding ceremony on the fifty-yard line of Tiger Stadium with Mike the Tiger in his cage roaring his approval right next to us. Instead, he suddenly made a big deal out of whether or not I’d convert to Catholicism before the ceremony. When I said no, he broke things off very abruptly. It made me suspect there was someone else waiting in the wings, and he was just using that as an excuse. He’d been so indifferent on the subject of religion before. Why, he didn’t even like putting on a costume and going to Mardi Gras parades to catch beads and doubloons, which is a complete betrayal of the culture down there. Believe me, college kids live for it. And . . . I’ve been a little skittish ever since.”
    â€œBut you haven’t remained missing in action like I have, I hope?”
    â€œOh, my girlfriend, Periwinkle Lattimore, keeps an eye out for me when