Read Online Rhythm and Bluegrass by Molly Harper - Free Book Online Page B

library, looked through historical materials, and helped her organize some of the chaos—at least the shelves she couldn’t reach.
    I ate most of my meals at the famed local diner. The Dinner Bell crowd was definitely blue-collar—work shirts, battered jeans, and baseball caps seemed to be the local uniform. This was a small-town diner, with classic car posters and sports schedules for the local high school teams on the walls. The owners also seemed to own a small fortune in antique soda signage. The brightly colored pressed tin advertisements they were using as decorations would fetch up to two hundred dollars each at an antique shop. Then again, if I mentioned it to the owners, they might think I was after something. It was better not to mention it. But it was nice to know that other people in Mud Creek valued older Americana. Maybe I could find a few kindred souls.
    There were no garden omelets or turkey bacon available at the Dinner Bell. Everything on the breakfast menu involved sausage gravy. But the chicken-fried steak was just as delicious as Will had promised. We’d even enjoyed one together a time or two.
    In fact, I was supposed to be joining him for lunch that very afternoon. But at the moment, I was staring in horror at a furry gray shape curled in the corner behind the music hall’s hamburger counter. I slipped on rubber gloves and was debating my disposal plan when I heard a shrill “Yoohoo!” from the glass-block entrance.
    A petite, vaguely familiar-looking woman with light caramel-colored hair, wide blue eyes, and a dusting of freckles across the bridge of her pert nose stuck her head into the doorway. “Are you open to visitors—” Brows puckered, she came toward me. “Are you all right?”
    “Oh, it’s just a dead possum. I don’t know how he found his way into the building. But I guess it’s better that I found him sooner than later.” I scooped it up, prepared to drop the carcass into an industrial trash bag for proper burial.
    The woman arched an eyebrow as I lifted the stiff little body by the tail. “Honey, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. I would just leave it and hope it skedaddles away on its own.”
    “Why?” I said, lifting the animal until it was level with my head.
    Here’s the thing about possums: they’re basically just giant rats with bigger teeth and more attitude. And, suddenly, this supposedly dead possum was not happy to be held by the tail like some sort of furry tetherball, as it demonstrated by hissing and screeching and thrashing back and forth as it tried to take a bite out of me. I screamed, “Oh my God !”
    And for some reason, I couldn’t seem to drop the little demon. I just held on, staring in horror as it snapped, sharp white fangs bared.
    “Why are you still holding on to it?” the woman demanded.
    “I don’t know!”
    I dropped the squirming, spitting mass to the floor as gently as I could, and my visitor shooed it out with a broom. I ran to the sink to scrub my hands clean, even though I’d been wearing gloves. I didn’t want to catch some weird possum-related illness. Was there such a thing as possum pox? As our chattering guest departed, the woman slammed the door behind it, hopefully barring further invasions from pissed-off marsupials.
    “Thank you,” I told her. “From now on, I will assume that any random animals I find in here are, in fact, living.”
    “Probably a good idea,” she agreed. “Mean little things, possums, but not bad roasted with potatoes.”
    I did my best not to make an “ew” face. I knew that many of the people I’d met in my travels were enthusiastic game eaters. They ate everything from deer chili to beer-basted wild boar. Sometimes it was out of necessity, because they couldn’t afford to buy meat from the grocery, and sometimes it was because they just enjoyed the challenge of eating what they caught. Either way, I didn’t appreciate it when people fed me something and then cackled “I bet you can’t