McKettricks of Texas: Garrett Read Online Free PDF Page A

bygones be bygones.
    In time, Julie and Paige had both warmed up to Marva somewhat, Libby less so.
    The Cadillac bumped over potholes in the gravel parking lot behind Blue River High. The long, low-slung stucco building had grown up on the site of an old Spanish mission, though only a small part of the original structure remained, serving as a center courtyard. Classrooms, a small cafeteria and a gymnasium had been added over the decades, and during an oil boom in the mid-1930s, Clay McKettrick II, known as JR in that time-honored Southern way of denoting “juniors,” had financed the construction of the auditorium, with its two hundred plush theater seats, fine stage and rococo molding around the painted ceiling.
    Erected on school property, the auditorium belonged to the entire community. Various civic organizations held their meetings and other events there, and several different denominations had used it as a church on Sunday mornings, while their own buildings were under construction or being renovated.
    The auditorium, cool and shadowy and smelling faintly of mildew, had always been a place of almost magical solace for Julie, especially in high school, when she’d had leading roles in so many plays.
    Although she’d performed with several professional road companies later on, Julie had never wanted to be an actress and live in glamorous places like New York or Los Angeles. All along, she’d planned on—and worked at—getting her teaching certificate, returning to Blue River and keeping the theater going.
    There was no room in the budget for a drama department—the high school theater group supported itself by putting on two productions a year, one of them a musical, and charging modest admission. Like her now-retired predecessor, Miss Idetta Scrobbins, Julie earned her paycheck by teaching English classes—the drama club and the plays they put on were a labor of love.
    Julie was thinking about the next project—three one-act plays written by some of her best students—as she hurried down the center aisle and through the doorway to the left of the stage, where she’d transformed an unused supply closet into a sort of hideaway. Officially, her office was her classroom, but it was here that she met with students and came up with some of her best ideas.
    Hastily, she tossed her brown-bag lunch into the small refrigerator sitting on top of a file cabinet, kicked off her flat shoes and pulled on the low-heeled pumps she kept stashed in a desk drawer. She flipped on her computer—it was old and took forever to boot up—locked up herpurse and raced out of the hideout, back up the aisle and out into the September sunshine.
    She was five minutes late for the staff meeting, and Principal Dulles would not be pleased.
    Everyone else was already there when Julie dashed into the school library and dropped into a utilitarian folding chair at one of the three long tables where students read and did homework. The library doubled as a study hall throughout the school day.
    Up front, the red-faced principal puffed out his cheeks, turning a stub of chalk end over end in one hand, and cleared his throat. Julie’s best friend at work, Helen Marcus, gave her a light poke with her elbow and whispered, “Don’t worry, you didn’t miss anything.”
    Julie smiled at that, looked around at the half-dozen other teachers who were her colleagues. She knew that Dulles, a middle-aged man from far away, made no secret of his opinion that Blue River, Texas, hardly offered more in the way of cultural stimulation than a prairie-dog town would have. He considered her a flake because of her colorful clothing and her penchant for putting on and directing plays.
    For all of that, Arthur was a good person.
    Like Julie, most of the other members of the staff had been born and raised there. They’d come home to teach after college because they knew Blue River needed them; high pay and