All the Single Ladies Read Online Free PDF Page B

for Charleston, in the middle of the day, in the broiling weather. She didn’t have a drop of perspiration on her and we were practically dripping. When she removed her oversized sunglasses I gasped, wondering how many times she’d had an eyelift. Then there was the alarming matter of her chin and neck to be considered.
    â€œExcuse me,” she said to Suzanne. “Are you part of Kathy’s family?”
    â€œNo,” Suzanne said.
    â€œOh. Well, did she have any family?”
    â€œNo. She was an only child. Her parents died years ago,” Suzanne said. “No siblings.”
    â€œWho are you?” Carrie asked. She seemed uncomfortable and she whispered to me, “Who knows? These days?”
    I nodded in agreement because sometimes suspicious ­people did turn up in the strangest places.
    â€œI’m her landlady. Wendy Murray. I have to dispose of her earthly treasures. Will you ladies be helping me to do that?”
    Suzanne and Carrie exchanged looks and said, “Sure, I guess. Of course.”
    â€œShe left everything to me,” Suzanne said.
    This was news. I had wondered about Kathy’s estate.
    â€œWhat got her?” Wendy asked.
    â€œCancer,” Carrie said. “She sure fought it.”
    â€œShe was incredibly brave,” Suzanne said. “And she never complained. Not one word.”
    â€œHumph, I knew there was something fishy going on. At first I thought she went on a long vacation, like a Carnival Cruise. She was always getting brochures from them in the mail. And then I had to read her obituary in the paper,” Wendy said. “Sometimes I think the whole world has cancer.”
    â€œSeems like it, doesn’t it?” Carrie said.
    â€œWe see so much of it,” I said.
    â€œWho’s we?” Wendy asked.
    Boy, I thought, this is one salty little old lady.
    â€œI’m Lisa St. Clair. And I was one of her nurses at Palmetto House.”
    â€œWhat in the heck was she doing there?” Wendy said, and shook her bangle bracelets. “I thought cancer patients went to hospice.”
    Carrie cringed.
    â€œShe was in hospice,” I said. “We have some hospice beds.”
    â€œPalmetto House, huh? That’s where I want to go when my time comes! That’s a swinging place,” Wendy said with a wicked grin that stretched across her stretched face.
    I figured she had to be seventy or maybe even eighty if she was a day. Well, I thought, she’d better hurry up and book a room if she wants to be part of the Palmetto House action. How long did she expect to live?
    â€œAfter happy hour it can get pretty crazy.” And, you’d better bring an antibiotic for STDs if you know what’s good for you, I also thought but did not say. Party on, babe.
    â€œSo I hear,” Wendy said, still grinning, and began digging in her purse, pulling out a pen and tearing the back from an envelope. She leaned on a car, scribbled her address and phone number, and handed the paper to Suzanne. “It’s already the twentieth of the month. If you could get her stuff this week it would be great.”
    â€œI’ll try,” Suzanne said.
    â€œI have to paint and try to rent the place out by the first,” Wendy said. “Life goes on, you know?”
    Wendy Murray turned on her kitten heel and proceeded to cross the parking lot to her car without so much as a “Gee, it was nice to meet you ladies” or “Wasn’t Kathy such a sweet lady?” or even a “What a shame!”
    We stood there together watching her get into her car and I think it’s safe to say there was a collective feeling that we’d been on the receiving end of some very unsouthern and unladylike behavior.
    â€œHere I am with my dear friend’s ashes in my arms, practically warm, mind you, and her landlady wants me to hustle and get her belongings so she can rerent the apartment. What is this? New