A Bad Day for Sorry: A Crime Novel Read Online Free PDF

ugly gals with no access to a blow-dryer—enthusiastically reporting all the lovin’ they were getting. Diane didn’t back down, either. She listened with polite interest. She didn’t judge. Stella admired her for keeping her cool.
    Diane, who made even prison duds look elegant, hadn’tseen fifty in a while herself, but she had a sort of mature sensuality that implied she’d done more in the sack than most people even dream about. She probably had mind-blowing sex five days a week.
    Stella figured she might miss sex more if it had been any good when she had it.
    Fucking Ollie.
That thought, never far from her mind, and in a thousand different contexts, brought unexpected tears to Stella’s eyes as she lay there in the bed she’d once shared with him. This time, it was simply because he’d been such an incredibly worthless lay. All those years . . . all that bad sex. That wasn’t even in the top five reasons why he’d deserved what he got, but still, Stella found herself immensely sad to think of how many times she’d lain in this bed with Ollie laboring over her like a man stuffing fiberglass insulation between roof joists on a sweltering day.
    Of course, it wasn’t like he had an overabundance of insulation to work with. That wayward thought cracked Stella up a little, so that when she did finally manage to fall back into a brief but deep sleep, she did so with a smile on her face and tears dried to salty tracks on her cheeks.

TWO

     
     
    M onday went by slowly. Stella roamed the shop floor restlessly, her head throbbing and her mouth cottony. She ordered a pizza for lunch and, after promising herself she’d eat only half and take the rest home for leftovers, nibbled it down to a few crusts over the course of the afternoon.
    Hardesty Sewing Machine Sales & Repair did the same languid business it always had. There had been a steady trickle of customers when Ollie ran the place, and there was a steady trickle now. The only difference was that Ollie used to fix the machines himself; now, a man came in and picked them up once a week and returned them a few days later, running better than Ollie had ever managed.
    Stella made small talk while she handled the day’s few sales, and tried to keep herself awake by dusting and polishing and straightening the stock, until it was finally time to close up and go home. After a dinner of an apple and half a bag of carrots—penance for the pizza—Stella fell asleep watchingCNN, woke up after eight dreamless hours, and switched to
Good Morning America.
For a while she was content to watch Diane Sawyer sideways, checking the tourists holding signs, as she always did, for anyone from Missouri. On the rare occasion when one of her fellow Missourians made it all the way to Rockefeller Center, Stella felt both proud and wistful; the farthest east she’d ever been was a high school trip to Philadelphia, back when they still had the Liberty Bell out where you could see it close-up.
    Diane had on a fungus green jacket today, and a section of her hair, the part that was supposed to fall coquettishly above one eye, was doing something a little strange, winging out at an angle. “Not your best look,” Stella murmured at the television. But kindly: she could relate.
    Stella decided it would be a day of hard work. She had a banana for breakfast and got to work in earnest. She put the laundry in the dryer and collected all the dirty sheets and towels and the remaining dirty clothes and sorted them. The sight of the color-coded piles made her feel pleasantly efficient.
    She’d been a competent homemaker. As a young mother, she’d kept a spotless house, dressed her daughter Noelle in clean, pressed little outfits, with her hair in ribbons to match. She’d baked elaborate cakes for church fund-raisers, slipcovered all the furniture herself, vacuumed the drapes regularly, and dusted twice a week.
    Now, with two businesses to run, she’d let the place slide. Usually it didn’t