Different Drummers Read Online Free PDF

looks deserted,” she said, her voice high-pitched and strange, not like her own voice at all. “Maybe there’s nobody home.”
    â€œOh, they’re home all right. That’s Otis’s car.”
    Freddie had already jumped down from the truck and was coming around to her side to open the door. Would she be able to get out? She felt glued to her seat, unable to move.
    â€œCome on, Kathleen. We’re here. You’re home at last.”
    Like an invalid, she let him help her out and watched helplessly while he lifted her luggage out of the back.
    â€œBeulah’s most likely out back in her garden,” he said. “You be careful in them high heels. There’s ruts in the ground. You don’t need to be hurtin’ yourself when you only just got here.”
    He took her arm as they walked around the side of the house. “See, there she is. That’s Beulah, Bobby’s momma.”
    The woman, her back bent over the land, was weeding vegetables. She turned around at the sound of Freddie’s voice. Leaving her hoe in the ground, she wiped her hands on her skirt, brushed her forearm across her sweating brow and walked toward them.
    Kathleen saw a face registering no emotion, aged too soon, and withered and lined from too many long days under a burning sun. She dredged up a semblance of a smile and held out her hand that she tried hard to keep from trembling.
    â€œI’m Kathleen, Bob’s wife. I hope you got my letter I’d be arriving today. I, well, you don’t seem as if you were expecting me.”
    The woman’s hand was rough, like sandpaper. Her face still showed little expression as she gave a barely perceptible nod.
    â€œYeah, we knowed you was comin’. Figured as how you’d find your own way out here. Nearly always somebody settin’ outside Gus’s to tell you the way.”
    Freddie shifted from foot to foot. “I reckon I’ll be gettin’ on back to town. It sure was nice meetin’ you, Kathleen. Welcome to Eddisville.”
    Beulah Conroy nodded to him. “I’m much obliged to you for the favor.”
    Kathleen clasped her hands behind her back to keep from grabbing his arm, to stop herself from begging him to take her back to the bus stop. Instead she smiled at him, a tight sort of leer.
    â€œYes, thank you very much.”
    Freddie climbed into his truck, put it in reverse, and backed out of the driveway. He threw up his hand in a wave before he guided his truck onto the winding road and disappeared from sight.
    â€œI guess we need to go in and get you settled,” the woman said as she picked up one of her daughter-in-law’s suitcases and walked ahead. Kathleen looked neither left nor right. All she saw was the woman in her ratty gray skirt and sleeveless blouse, which showed her sagging upper arms. Varicose veins bulged from the bare legs, and her back was bent forward with the seeming weight of years of hard work and hopelessness on her shoulders. She opened the screen door and held it for Kathleen, who struggled in her brand new high heels up the rickety wooden steps.
    Strange cooking smells greeted her as she entered the stifling house. The dismal room in which she found herself was made even gloomier by the brown paint on the walls. There was a sofa against the wall with a print of huge yellow and orange flowers. Two mismatched chairs were across the room with a floor lamp between them. To the left was a small kitchen with an unfinished table and four chairs pushed against the window.
    Kathleen’s mother-in-law walked ahead then opened the door of a room at the end of a narrow hallway.
    â€œThis is y’all’s room. I cleaned out this chiffarobe so you’d have somewhere to put your stuff.”
    The woman tucked a strand of her straggly graying hair into her battered straw hat. “There don’t seem to be much else I can do right now so I guess I’ll be goin’ back to