Read Online Malus Domestica by S. A. Hunt - Free Book Online

sallow, made him look melty and thin, like a wax statue under hot lamps.
    Junk food, that was probably it. Slow-motion malnutrition. He ate a lot of crap because he didn’t cook.
    He could cook, no doubt—he could cook his ass off, learned from his mother Sally—but he never really made the effort. Not because he was lazy, but because he could never find anything in the cabinets that enticed him enough to cook it, and he never had anybody to eat with. So he really appreciated the chance for a proper home-cooked meal that left him out of the equation and gave him company to eat it with.
    Back in the hallway, Roy passed an open door through which he could see a headless woman in a crisp new wedding dress.
    “Hi there,” said a woman’s voice.
    “Hello, Miss Weaver.”
    An elderly flower-child came flowing around the mannequin to him, decked out in a busy, psychedelic dashiki. “How many times do I have to tell you?” she said, wagging a knurled finger. “Call me Karen. Are you staying for dinner tonight?”
    Locks of silver-blonde hair tumbled down from underneath a green knit cap and a long curl of yellow tailors’ measuring tape yoked over the back of her neck, draping over her bosom. Karen Weaver had the open, honest face of a grandmother, and eyes as blue as a Montana sky. A silver pendant on her chest twinkled in the light, some obscure religious symbol he didn’t recognize. It could have been a pentagram, except there were too many parts, too many lines.
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    She playfully slapped him on the shoulder. Wisps of Nag Champa incense drifted through the open doorway behind her, accompanied by the sinuous, jangling strains of the Eagles. “Don’t ma’am me, young man.”
    “Yes, ma’am,” grinned Roy. He flinched away before she could slap him again.
    Dinner was excellent. The four of them ate at the compass-rose dining table under the soft crystal glare of a chandelier, Cutty hunched over her plate like a buzzard on roadkill, Theresa with a napkin pressed demurely across her lap. Weaver ate with the slurping-gulping gusto of a castaway fresh off the island.
    In the background, the vinyl turntable in the living room was playing one of those old records the girls liked so much—Glenn Miller, Cab Calloway, one of those guys, he wasn’t sure which. Roy was a golden-oldie man himself, dirty southern rock. Skynyrd fan through and through.
    “Cuts like birthday cake,” said Weaver, flashing Theresa an earnest smile. “I’ve been cooking for ages, and somehow I still don’t hold a candle to you.”
    “You get a lot of practice, cookin for a long line of husbands.”
    Cutty said in a wry tone, “I wonder why you outlived them.”
    Theresa feigned hurt at her and went back to feeding herself dainty bites of pork chop with the darting, practiced movements of someone steeped in Southern etiquette.
    Roy interjected, “That’s a nice dress you’re working on, Karen. Where’s this one going?”
    The old hippie’s smile only broadened. “Oh, it’s going to a very lovely couple in New Hampshire. They’re planning on a November wedding. No expense was spared.”
    “Too bad it won’t be a Halloween wedding. That’d be interesting.”
    Cutty shook her head. “Ugh. I can’t think of anything that would be cheesier than a bunch of youngsters decked out like extras from the Rocky Horror Picture Show or something, exchanging their vows in front of Elvis and a congregation of monsters.”
    “A congregation of monsters!” said Weaver, bright-eyed and smiling. “What a wonderful thought.”
    “Only you.” Cutty eyed the voluptuous Theresa. “And what are you doing tomorrow?”
    The dark-eyed Mediterranean straightened in her seat. “I’ll have you know I’m volunteering at a soup kitchen tomorrow evening. The one in Blackfield. I’ll be there all evening.”
    “You? Volunteering? At a soup kitchen?” Cutty huffed in disbelief and pushed her food around her plate. “The only thing