Read Online The Reading Circle by Ashton Lee - Free Book Online

took a seat across from her superior, smiling genuinely. “Miz Mayhew, I’ve worked for you long enough now to know when something’s wrong. You dragged yourself in here this morning, and I was wondering if I might help somehow. You know I’ll keep anything you tell me in strictest confidence.”
    Maura Beth made another weak attempt at holding up the corners of her mouth but couldn’t stop her lips from trembling. “That’s sweet of you, Renette.”
    â€œWeren’t you and Mr. McShay supposed to get together over the weekend? Did he not show up or something? Being stood up is the worst.”
    Maura Beth decided she needed to confide in someone, since she hadn’t had the chance to run anything past Periwinkle yet; and even though Renette was ten years younger and just out of high school, she knew she could trust her Monday, Wednesday, and Friday front desk clerk with the slightly edited details of her private life. “Oh, Jeremy showed up, all right,” she began. “It would have been better if he hadn’t, though.” Then she recounted their surprisingly antagonistic exchange, complete with her own exaggerated hand gestures—right, left, up, and down—and finished with a long, calming intake and release of air.
    â€œI wouldn’t have seen that coming,” Renette said, her pretty young face creased with frown lines. “Mr. McShay was so professional when he brought down those three students from Nashville for the To Kill a Mockingbird review. He was so composed and made such intelligent comments. I wish I’d had a teacher like him ’cause I know I would’ve gotten better grades. Anyway, I was gonna tell you that my girlfriends and I have started reading Forrest Gump for the March meeting. We compare notes over the phone as we go along. We all like Forrest a lot as far as we’ve gotten, even though he doesn’t speak good English and some of the things he says are downright hilarious. But I can think of a few boys I went to high school with who didn’t sound too much better, and they weren’t nearly as funny. That Mr. Groom sure has captured the South so far, and that little first-grade romance with Jenny is just as cute as it can be. I had my first crush at the age, too, and I’ve never forgotten it.”
    Maura Beth held out both hands, palms up for emphasis. “Thank you! Those are the sort of comments I would have expected from Jeremy to get a review off to a good start. Instead, he just got completely bent out of shape about how football was stealing all his thunder, and I can’t believe he said he wouldn’t even come down. Really, now, how mature is that? I think I can remember fusses I had in junior high that were more reasonable than that.”
    â€œNo wonder you’re so upset.”
    They sat with everything for a while; then Maura Beth put the tips of her fingers together thoughtfully. “Well, he has to make the next move. I as much as told him so. I’m not saying he owes me an actual apology, but the Jeremy who showed up yesterday afternoon can take that show on the road.”
    Renette grinned and leaned in with a wink. “That’s the best thing about working for you, Miz Mayhew. You’ve got loaded book carts of spunk, and I keep telling myself that when I grow up, I wanna be just like you.”

5
“Duck and Cover”
    M iss Voncille had come to the conclusion that more drastic measures were in order. Locke’s favorite dinner of pork tenderloin with mushrooms, sweet potato hash, and homemade biscuits, which she lovingly prepared for him whenever they spent the night at her Painter Street cottage, wasn’t getting the job done by a long shot. So when they had finished off their dessert of bread pudding and coffee, she hauled her grade-school scrapbook out of the bedroom closet, rummaged through it extensively, and found just the image to move the object of