Ms. Miller and the Midas Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

she said, and without hesitating she added, “Have you met Mr. Hammond? He’s recently moved back into his family home, which has stood empty for so long now that, well, you know how dirty things can get when they’re neglected. I was going to...”
    “Oh, my gracious, yes,” Dorothy said, feeling the baton in her hand and running with it. “I’ve known Scotty since he was no bigger than the little end of nothing. You sweet boy, how are you? I heard you were coming back to town.” She took hold of his forearm and Gus’s heart smiled. He wouldn’t be getting away any time soon. “And taking up your daddy’s old job no less. I can’t tell you how happy I was to hear it.”
    “Thank you, Mrs.—”
    “And that old house of yours. Lord A’mighty. What a terror it must be for you. I can’t even imagine the ground-in dust and dirt. This is the worst season of the year for mold and mildew and...”
    Gus began taking small steps backward, out of the conversation and out of the church. She couldn’t stop the chuckle. He deserved this, he really did, she decided, shrugging innocently when he issued her an I’ll-get-you-for-this look.
    Unconsciously, she fisted the fingers of her left hand and twisted her wrist in a small circle. Round and round—then back in the opposite direction. Actually, she was doing him a favor, she thought, appeasing what little guilt she felt for being so unkind to him. Someday he’d thank her for her disinterest. He would. She wasn’t a quick roll in the hay sort of woman, and anything more...well, even if he were looking for more, he wouldn’t find it in her.
    Disappointing people was what she was good at. It wasn’t a motivating force in her life, certainly, but when you’ve disappointed enough people—despite all your best efforts to do exactly the opposite—you eventually begin to recognize the pattern of your existence. Disappointment was Augusta’s pattern. So far, she’d been a massive disillusionment to everyone she’d ever cared about, including herself.
    Except for Lydia, of course.
    She watched her sister—over Howard’s right shoulder—later that afternoon. With baby Todd on her hip, she flipped hamburgers on the grill and warned her two older children to beware of the flowers as they kicked a soccer ball around the yard. She was, without a doubt, the most stubborn, blindly devoted, and tolerant sister ever born, Gus surmised.
    Or else she was just plain stupid.
    She managed never to disappoint anyone. Not her husband. Not her children. Not her sister. Not her teachers. Not her friends. Not her...
    “...and then Scotty Hammond joined the team and—”
    “What?” Gus asked, falling from her reverie so unexpectedly she felt dizzy. Yes. Yes, they were still in her tidy little backyard. It was her turn to hostess the Sunday barbecue. “Who did you say?”
    “Scott Hammond,” Howard said. “Lydia was saying he moved back into his parents’ house, next door to you.” He motioned toward the big house with his head.
    “He did. Yes. But I thought we were talking about asthma.”
    Lydia and Alan laughed. “Forgive her, Howard. The mind of a true artist is never really where it’s supposed to be,” her sister said, shaking her head. “It’s just sort of around, in the vicinity, dropping in now and again to catch up on the conversation. Pay attention, Gus.”
    Howard chuckled good-naturedly. Alan left to get drinks for the children.
    “We were talking about asthma, Augusta,” Howard said, carefully pronouncing all three syllables of her name. “Larry Masterson had terrible asthma growing up, but he was a terrific basketball player, except that he tired quickly. He was a couple years older than Scotty, but when he—Scotty—finally made the team, the two of them played off each other like pros. Scotty did all the rebounding and running around and Larry sank every ball he got his hands on. They went to the state championship games two years in a