Her Wild Oats Read Online Free PDF

worldwide. When she answered, “OK, but a more pressing unavoidable issue at this moment is when you’re going to fix that broken step you’ve been promising to deal with for the last six months but you haven’t gotten around to it, and I almost killed myself on it the other day,” he got deeply insulted, saying she wasn’t taking his spirituality seriously. She said she thought there was a difference between spirituality and hitting someone over the head with evangelical fervor, which pissed him off. From her point of view, they used to laugh about stuff like this, but suddenly he had no sense of humor about anything anymore.
    It got to be more than a little much when the bumper stickers appeared on the fender of her Volvo: Jesus Made Me Kosher; Be More Jewish—Believe in Jesus; Jesus Was Raised in a Kosher Home; you’d think they could come up with something clever, they were Jewish , for crying out loud.
    Now there were huge checks written on her account, a gun in the house, a threatening note with her name on it. It was obvious that Jerry hadn’t just gotten religion; he’d gotten crazy. She had to believe she had done the right thing by leaving, that it was the only thing she could do.
    She kept on driving.

Just One of the Guys
    4
    Once they hit the highway and were far enough away from the Pixlie-Carsons’ naked butts for Oats to stop blushing, Bobby Lee offered to show him around.
    “Here’s your bunk—hope you don’t mind the upper. I see Pete already gave you a label.”
    Sure enough, a piece of gray gaffer’s tape with “Oats” scrawled on it in magic marker had been fastened, at a haphazard angle, to the little shelf above an upper bunk. Oats noticed that other bunks had similar labels: Dickie, Roscoe, Billy, and so on. The only name he didn’t see attached to a bunk was “Bobby Lee.”
    “Where do you sleep?” he asked, feeling amazingly stupid to even notice himself imagining Bobby Lee smiling and saying “with you, of course” as he touched his arm—Eddie and Hank Wilson had gotten him going on that one. Thanks a lot, assholes.
    “One of my few perks as band leader is the luxurious private bedroom suite.” Bobby Lee smiled as he pointed to a closed door at the back of the bus. “Luxurious by comparison, that is. I mean, let’s face it. It’s still a bus.”
    “It’s a pretty nice one if you ask me.” Oats tossed his duffel bag and harps on his bunk. “The Lollipopalooza bus isn’t anywhere near this cool.”
    “I’ll show you the rest. Come on…”
    A large, red-faced man with a full head of luxurious gray hair heaved himself up out of the shotgun seat and made his way down the center aisle.
    “Care to introduce me to your friend?” he asked, winking at Otis Ray.
    “Why, sure. Pete Rawley, this is our new blues harp player, Otis Ray Pixlie-Carson. Oats, this here is Pete, the tour manager. He can tell you everything you need to know about the logistics and so on.”
    Pete made an elaborate display of shaking Oats’ hand and making his acquaintance. Then they both grinned and hugged. In real life, Oats couldn’t remember a time when he hadn’t known Pete, a lifelong friend of his parents. He also remembered, mostly due to eavesdropping, that Pete Rawley was the only reason he’d been allowed to come on this tour at all.
    “How about we meet up over by your bunk in, say, ten minutes? I’ll give you all your paperwork and laminates and answer any questions. Meanwhile, Bobby Lee can show you around while I hit the head.”
    Pete disappeared behind a narrow door that shut with a metallic clank. Oats didn’t have to be told that was the vehicle’s portable toilet.
    “Come on,” said Bobby Lee. “Let’s go meet Dave.” Oats was not an especially tall thirteen-year-old, but he was at least an inch taller than the guy everyone called “Bus Driver Dave.” Everything about him was round: his face, his belly, and even the fringe of hair around his mostly-bald