The End of the Pier by Martha Grimes Read Free Book Online

there with a cut-out smile while ribs of white anger shot through her.
    But the anger dissolved momentarily, replaced by an empathy for Chad, who had nearly dislocated his shoulder getting away from his father’s grip to go over and sit down and start a conversation with Ulub. This in itself was an act of desperation (though you’d never know it from his laid-back smile), since neither of the Woods talked. Ubub did act as main factotum sometimes, placing the orders at the counter. So Chad started up this monologue, offering them cigarettes (which they regarded as if they were strange Indian signs) in order to show Maud he was sloughing off these two tanned people and their offer if that was what his mom wanted.
    Maud kept on smiling and said, sure, sure, that was fine, that was very nice, she was sure Chad would enjoy that. Would any sane nineteen-year-old not enjoy going back to college with a tan like the ones Velda and Ned were sporting? Oh, La Porte had its lake, but no sand beaches, and people didn’t do much swimming, just boating of sorts. La Porte had seen better days. Once it had been a fashionable little summer resort, but it was pretty down-at-heel now.
    Velda and Ned had come to town and left with Chad, who was wearing (Maud noticed) a new pair of Gucci shoes and an Italian jacket that made his eyes look like molten gold. It was so strange, Maud thought, how her own dull coloring had translated itself into that sunlit look.
    And Shirl had rooted herself by the coffee machine, drinkingin the scene like her cup of coffee, enjoying every revolting minute of it.
    It was the first, last, and only time Maud had ever seen Velda.
    When Ned had paid for their three glasses of iced tea and called to “Velvet” they’d better be going, Maud heard Shirl make a retching noise over the cash drawer, which had sprung out to slap her in the stomach.
    Ned had left a tip.
    He had folded up a twenty into a little square and stuck it under the iced-tea glass. That was Ned’s version of “discreet.”
    No one had noticed this but Chad. He had stared at his father’s departing back, plucked the bill from the counter, and looked at it as if it were a hand grenade.
    It had saved what little could be saved of the encounter when Chad had shoved it back into Ned’s pocket without a word.
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    Maybe Shirl had been thinking of this present Labor Day as some sort of anniversary of last year’s and Velveeta’s (as Shirl called her) visit, because she couldn’t seem to stop talking about the haplessness and hatefulness of husbands, and what she’d have done if the big creep had come back to La Porte dragging the new Mrs. Creep along. Since she was scraping out the hard vanilla from the bottom of the ice-cream container, much of this was echoing up from the nearly empty basin. But her head and hand would emerge, the scoop dipped in warm water, and she’d call down the counter to Maud, who was trying not to pay attention, cutting up the lemon chiffon pie.
    Dodge Haines, who was getting the apple pie à la mode, crusty with ice, leered over his coffee, and the others up and down the counter were equally entranced with this playback of the visit of Maud’s ex-husband and his new wife; also, it gave a man like Dodge, macho to the core, a chance to exchange his witty keep-’em-barefoot-and-pregnant philosophical views with Shirl.
    The only person who had the good taste at least to pretend not to listen was the tall brunette sitting at the counter, the one for whom Maud had just cut up the lemon chiffon. This was Dr. Elizabeth Hooper, a woman Maud could hardly say she knew, for Dr. Hooper didn’t live in La Porte, but a woman for whom Maud felt an infinite respect and empathy.
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    Dr. Elizabeth Hooper fascinated Maud. She came through La Porte exactly once a month, every third weekend, like clockwork. She was tall