Michaela Thompson - Florida Panhandle 01 - Hurricane Season Read Online Free PDF Page A

real pretty.”
    “Well, it is,” said Pearl.
    Diana made a snuffling sound. “I’ve been bad, Pearl,” she said.
    “Oh, Sugar.” Pearl crossed to the bed and sat next to Diana. Her voice took on a dreamy tone. “You were about the sweetest little girl I ever did see. And when your mama was taken, Mr. Snapper said to me, ‘Pearl, you got to help me look after that poor motherless—’ ”
    “Oh, Pearl!” Diana sobbed. Pearl put her arm around Diana’s shoulders.
    “No use getting this way over a man.”
    Diana sobbed louder. “The awful things I’ve done. All for him. And he treats me like this!”
    “A man will do it. Every time.”
    They sat until Diana’s crying lessened. She lay back against the pillows. “I’ll be down to breakfast soon.”
    As Pearl put the bacon in the skillet and got out the eggs, she thought about Diana. Diana had turned out to be a wild girl. She had acted up all through high school—drinking, skipping classes, running around with men from the Coast Guard station—and without Snapper’s intervention she wouldn’t have graduated.
    Now that she was out of school, she was worse. Pearl heard jokes about her around town, sly remarks about her ways. Pearl’s neighbors in Bacon’s Settlement, who knew everything about St. Elmo’s white population, shook their heads when Pearl tried to defend Diana. To them, Diana was simply no ’count and trashy. Pearl could have told them, but didn’t, telling only her daughter, Marinda, that Diana could also be mean as a snake, would throw her hairbrushes across the room, and scream and curse at Pearl and her daddy.
    “What are you studying her for, then?” Marinda asked, her eyes hard.
    “You ask me that? You two girls used to play with her doll dishes in Mr. Snapper’s backyard.”
    “That don’t give her leave to cuss me out and throw brushes.”
    Pearl knew Marinda was right. But the truth was, whenever she saw or heard about Diana getting drunk or making a fool of herself with some man, she didn’t see the Diana of twenty, but an eight-year-old Diana sitting on Snapper’s front steps with her arms wound around her knees on the afternoon they told her her mother had died of cancer. “You must be a grown-up girl now and look after your daddy,” Pearl had heard one of the church ladies say to the motionless child.
    “I went to get her then, and she was cold as a fish’s belly. I stood her up and she wet her pants,” Pearl told Marinda.
    Marinda picked up her crawling son from the floor and balanced him on her knee.
    “The poor child,” Pearl persisted, and Marinda glanced around at the dingy little room where the two women and the baby sat next to the oil stove.
    Now Diana was mixed up with a new man who was married. That was Diana’s luck. She had used a lot of men and they’d used her, but the one she was really sweet on had to be married.
    Pearl had just poured the eggs into the sizzling pan when Diana appeared. Aside from the redness at the tip of her nose, no trace of her tears remained. She wore red shorts, a halter top, and sandals, and her hair was combed. Her eyes flicked over Pearl as if she barely recognized her, and she flung herself into a chair at the kitchen table without speaking.
    She nibbled her breakfast while Pearl, at the sink, got started on the dishes.
    After a few minutes, Diana stood up. “I’m not putting up with it any longer,” she said.
    Pearl looked over her shoulder. “With what?”
    “Any of it. Any of it.”
    “Sugar, don’t—”
    “I mean it, Pearl. You watch and see.”
    She turned and left the house. From the window, Pearl saw her run across the yard to the garage and a minute or two later heard her car start up. She saw a flash of chrome as Diana drove away. Then she turned back to the dishes.

A Choice
    When Diana arrived, Sue Nell Calhoun was sitting in her front porch swing mending a net. Although everyone knew the Calhouns made their living from moonshine, they were