Shakespeares Trollop Page 0,1
Audie, with a good heart. When I married M. T. - I was just eighteen - Miss Audie told us to build a house wherever on their land we pleased. Wasn't that nice? So M. T. picked this site, and we spent a year working on the floor plan. And it turned out to be an ordinary old house, after all that planning!" Birdie laughed. Under the fluorescent light of the bathroom, the threads of gray in the darkness of her hair shone so brightly they looked painted.
By the time Birdie had reached the point in her husband's biography where M. T. was asked to join the Gospellaires, a men's quartet at Mt. Olive Baptist, I had begun my next grocery list, at least in my head.
An hour later, I was saying good-bye, Mrs. Rossiter's check tucked in the pocket of my blue jeans.
"See you next Monday afternoon," she said, trying to sound offhand instead of lonely. "We'll have our work cut out for us then, because it'll be the day before I have the prayer luncheon."
I wondered if she would want me to put bows on Durwood's ears again, like I had the last time Birdie had hosted the prayer luncheon. The spaniel and I exchanged glances. Luckily for me, Durwood was the kind of dog who didn't hold a grudge. I nodded, grabbed up my caddy of cleaning products and rags, and retreated before Mrs. Rossiter could think of something else to talk about. It was time to get to my next job, Camille Emerson's. I gave Durwood a farewell pat on the head as I opened the front door. "He's looking good," I offered. Durwood's poor health and bad eyesight were a never-ending worry to his owner. A few months before, he'd tripped Birdie with his leash and she'd broken her arm, but that hadn't lessened her attachment to the dog.
"I think he's good as gold," Birdie told me, her voice firm. She stood on her front porch watching me as I put my supplies in the car and slid into the driver's seat. She laboriously squatted down by Durwood and made the dog raise his paw and wave good-bye to me. I lifted my hand: I knew from experience that she wouldn't stop Durwood's farewell until I responded.
As I thought about what I had to do next, I was almost tempted to turn off the engine and sit longer, listening to the ceaseless stream of Birdie Rossiter's talk. But I started the car, backed out of her driveway, and looked both ways several times before venturing out. There wasn't much traffic on Farm Hill Road, but what there was tended to be fast and careless.
I knew that when I drew opposite the unmarked road, I would stop on the narrow grassy shoulder. My window was open. When I cut my engine, the silence took over. I heard... nothing.
I got out and closed the door behind me. A breeze lifted my short, curly hair and made my T-shirt feel inadequate. I shivered. The tingling feeling at the back of my neck was warning me to drive off but sometimes, I guess, you just can't dodge the bullet.
My sneakers made small squeaky noises on the worn blacktop as I crossed the road. Deep in the woods to the west, I heard a bobwhite sound its cry. Not a car was in sight.
After a second's hesitation I entered the woods, following the unmarked road. It hardly deserved the name.
It was really two bare tracks with grass growing up between them, some old gravel pressed down into the ground marking where the last load had been leveled years before. My progress was quiet, but not silent, and I slowed involuntarily. The path curved slightly to the right, and as I rounded that curve I saw the source of the flash of color.
It was a car - a Taurus - parked facing away from Farm Hill Road.
Someone was sitting in the front seat. I could see a head outlined on the driver's side. I stopped dead in my tracks. My skin rose in goose bumps up and down my arms. If I'd been apprehensive before, now I was truly frightened. Somehow, that unexpected glimpse of another human being was more shocking than the discovery that a car was parked out here in the woods where it had no business parking.
"Hello?" I said quietly.
But the person in the front seat of the red Taurus did not move.
Suddenly I found I was too