Read Online Quiver by Peter Leonard - Free Book Online Page B

sticking into me.”
    “Jesus,” Maureen said. “What’d you do?”
    “I said, ‘What’re you doing?’ And he said, ‘I can’t pretend anymore. I’m crazy about you.’” Kate remembered the dreamy look in his eyes.
    “Were you nervous?”
    “I said, ‘Anders, why don’t you take your little buddy home, give it to Sukie.’”
    “I’ll bet she doesn’t want it either.”
    “He said, ‘I can’t stop thinking about you.’ I said, ‘What are you doing? We’re neighbors,’ hoping that would bring him to his senses, snap him back to reality.”
    “How about your husband died seven months ago,” Maureen said. “Did you remind him of that?”
    “I looked him in the eye and said, ‘You’ll be allright. Try to keep busy. Go clean the garage, take the empties back.’”
    Maureen grinned. “What’d he say?”
    “Nothing. He walked out and I haven’t seen him since.” Kate finished her wine and poured a little more. “Another neighbor asked me to call him and said he had something important to tell me. I dialed the number, he answered, recognized my voice and started saying things.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Describing what he’d like to do to me like he was reading a porno script.”
    “How dirty was it?”
    “Dirty,” Kate said.
    “What’d you say?”
    “I laughed. He was so serious, and it was so dumb. I said, ‘Frank, am I giving off some kind of desperate vibe, or what?’ He’s an engineer at GM. He drives a Buick and has outlines of all his tools on a pegboard in the garage so he doesn’t put something in the wrong place. I thought, wow, where’d that come from?”
    “What kind of neighborhood do you live in? All these perverts coming out of the woodwork.” Maureen finished her wine.
    “He and Owen were friends, played tennis in a league together for years.”
    Maureen lit another cigarette. “So how’re you doing? You doing all right?”
    “I’m okay.” Kate looked away, glanced out the kitchen window at the pool still covered for a couple more weeks.
    Maureen said, “You’re not very convincing.”
    “I’m fine—most of the time, but then I’ll see something of Owen’s, or a picture of him. The other day, his Corvette pulled up in the driveway and for a couple seconds I forgot and thought he was home. He left it at the shop and one of the young guys was returning it.” Kate felt her eyes well up. “Night’s the worst, I reach for him in bed.” She lost it now, tears coming down her face like she had no control, and Maureen came around the island counter and hugged her and she was crying too.
    “Should’ve happened to those two schmucks I married—not Owen.”
    Now they were laughing, Kate picturing Maureen’s first husband, Carlo, a short balding director who shot five-Step Restroom Cleaning , thought he was the next Spielberg.
    “All right, I’m going to stop asking questions. I came over to cheer you up and look what I’ve done.”
    “I’m glad you’re here,” Kate said. She lit a cigarette.“People have been calling, offering ways to help me cope, handle what I’ve been through.”
    Maureen said, “Like who?”
    “A group called Afghans for Widows invited me to stop over,” Kate said. “They express their grief by knitting.”
    “What’s that all about?”
    Kate said, “They knit afghans to help relieve their stress and loneliness.”
    “Come on.”
    “And a woman from the Community House asked me if I wanted to join her poetry workshop. Said poetry is a common way of expressing grief.”
    Maureen lit a cigarette.
    “Every workshop starts with a reading—it might be ‘Grieve Not’ by William Wordsworth, or ‘Grief ’ by Elizabeth Barrett Browning.” Kate sipped her wine. “And then all the grieving poets write a poem. The woman said a few lines of poetry can express deep emotional feelings.”
    “Are you putting me on?”
    “It’s okay. People are trying to help,” Kate said. “I packed up all Owen’s clothes in boxes