Read Online Little Death by the Sea by Susan Kiernan-Lewis - Free Book Online

Elise
done to her?
    Between poor Nicole and what was starting to
look like a Franco One-Night Stand, Maggie felt the beginnings of a
bone-wracking fatigue wash over her. Would raising a handicapped
child in their twilight years serve to assuage the guilt her
parents felt about their younger daughter? Would it help them pay
enough dues for a good night’s sleep? Maggie rubbed her eyes
wearily.
    “Ready to talk about Hi-Jinks Kiddee Wear?”
Gerry poked his head in her office door, a pair of disposable
diapers pulled down over his face.
    Maggie smiled and slowly gathered up her
notebook.
    “Product testing?” she said as she followed
him into the conference room.

     

Chapter 5
    1
    The summer passed in Atlanta in a steamy
swelter of wilted magnolias and scorched traffic knots. Polo ponies
fainted from the heat in Alpharetta, church picnics never began
before sundown, and hundreds of the city’s children found
themselves in emergency rooms suffering from dehydration or heat
stroke.
    The humidity was an amazing eighty percent or
more nearly every day, and this without a single drop of rainfall.
Roses shriveled up like insect husks draped on a fence, and the
Georgia Power electric company became richer still as air
conditioning units operated at full bore all over the city.
    Darla watched the leotard-clad group of women
go through their paces, each with a long, fluorescent thong
cleaving their pert rear-ends. Darla tried to imagine doing an
aerobic workout with a piece of her clothing clamped uncomfortably
in this manner and found herself regarding the women with a whole
new respect. The music the women were dancing to in the large
gymnasium was loud and the words unintelligible to Darla. Their
leader, a trim young woman with hair pulled into a ponytail on the
top of her head like Pebbles Flintstone, bounced and kicked and
squealed her encouragement to the crowd. Her large breasts were
just barely restrained in her scant lycra leotard top. They were
the only part of her that jiggled, Darla noted.
    “Sorry I’m late. Been waiting long?”
    Darla jumped at the sound of Maggie’s voice
although she’d been waiting ten minutes and expected her.
    “God, you’re edgy.” Maggie and Darla hugged
quickly. “I thought suburb living was supposed to be calming.”
    “It is,” Darla agreed, hefting her gym bag to
her other shoulder. “It’s coming into town I find unnerving.”
    “Oh,” Maggie made a face of understanding.
“Coming into Buckhead, huh?”
    “Gerry just about shit when I told him where
I was meeting you.”
    “I’m surprised he let you come.” Maggie led
the way to a set of empty lockers. She tossed down her duffel bag.
“He’s so paranoid about the crime in town these days.”
    “We had words about it,” Darla admitted.
“Maybe it’d be best for my marriage if you and I agreed to have
lunch together someplace in Roswell or Smyrna next time,
Maggie.”
    Maggie sat down on the bench in front of the
lockers and looked up at Darla. “Is that all that’s bothering you,
Darl?” she asked.
    “It’s nothing,” Darla said. She placed her
bag down and began rummaging around inside it, extricating gym
clothes, deodorant, aerobic shoes and socks. “I’ll tell you about
it sometime when we’re both too bored with talking about everything
else first.”
    Maggie continued to watch her friend.
    “Really?” she said.
    Darla stopped digging in her bag and looked
at Maggie.
    “Really,” she emphasized. “Besides, it’s you
I want to hear about. What happened in France? Gerry said you met
someone.”
    “I did meet someone but it turned out to be
nothing.” Maggie pulled off her slacks and folded them loosely
before placing them at the bottom of one of the lockers.
    “How, nothing? Come on, Maggie, this is
Darla, right?”
    “Yeah, I know. Well, okay.” Maggie held her
lycra biking shorts in one hand and looked at them as if doubting
the chances of squeezing into them. “He was one of the guys