Read Online Blue Moon Bay by Lisa Wingate - Free Book Online

least bit interested in admiring my growth or my natural beauty. She regarded me with the fisheye, as if some frightening life-form had invaded the casserole circle. “My word, you got on the bus with a . . . a man you met on the plane ? It’s a wonder he wasn’t after more than your purse.”
    I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. “He was a dentist .” As if that explained everything. “Anyway, I was never in any danger. I just forgot my purse.”
    â€œWhat sort of purse?” one of the ladies asked. “Nothing expensive, I hope?”
    â€œLand sakes, what’s that matter?” Mama B snapped, then turned and hobbled toward the car. “Let’s leave these folks to their reunitin’. We got more deliveries to make.”
    Even the members of the Moses Lake human telegraph knew better than to refuse a direct order from Mama B. Reluctantly, they backed away, having ferreted out enough details to successfully add their own and come up with an account of my arrival in town. In closing, they offered a few sympathetic, but pointed, comments about the burden of my two widowed uncles being forced to provide for all this company . Then they handed over more food before following Mama B. Clay’s apparent girlfriend kissed him on the cheek and whispered, “We gotta drop off a meal for a funeral.” Adding a meaningful look, she told Clay she’d see him later.
    An uncomfortable silence descended on us as the crowd departed. I was conscious of everyone surreptitiously watching me and maintaining their positions, in the way members of the bomb squad might gather around a suspicious package.
    My mother broke the stalemate by peeking under the foil on the CorningWare pan. “Still hot,” she said, her tone overly light and falsely cheerful. “Let’s go around back and eat on the sun porch. Clay, maybe you can give Heather a ride over to Catfish Cabins after that.”
    â€œThe cabins?” I glanced at the house. Despite the presence of the funeral office, parlors, and workrooms, as well as the chapel in what had once been a grand ballroom, Harmony House was still quite large, the entire second floor and both ends of the main floor remaining in use as personal residence space. There was also the small gardener’s cottage out back, which meant there was plenty of space for me to stay here. So why was Mom trying to ship me off to the rental cabins, halfway around the lake by Uncle Charley’s restaurant? With no car to drive, I’d be stranded there.
    Maybe that was their plan. Maybe I was being given the bum’s rush—while they were happy not to have to report me as a missing person, they didn’t want me around, either. “I thought I’d stay here.”
    â€œOh . . . Well, it’s sort of . . . crowded. . . .” Mom hedged as furtive glances darted between the relatives. “Uncle Charley has been living here for a while now, since Uncle Herb shouldn’t be alone. It’s somewhat crowded with Clay and me in the house, too, and now the mess of getting ready for the estate sale. The place really is a disas—”
    â€œI can bunk out back in the gardener’s cottage.” I didn’t wait for her to finish. I wasn’t about to let them warehouse me off-site while they continued with whatever they were doing. I’d never seen a group of people looking so culpable. I was going to be on them like fleas on a back-porch hound , as Uncle Herb’s Mennonite housekeeper, Ruth, used to say.
    Glancing at the house momentarily, I wondered what had happened to Ruth. During those terrible months of my senior year, she was the one who’d saved me. She hadn’t tried to convince me to snap out of it, or stop skulking around in black T-shirts and too much makeup, or keep a stiff upper lip, like Uncle Herb and Aunt Esther had. Nor had she echoed the