Mummers' Curse Read Online Free PDF Page A

solemnity.
    I agreed.
    “I was scared. The people screaming scared me.” I nodded.
    “Even though I got to be on C.K.’s shoulders.”
    “That part was good.” We held hands.
    “He said there wouldn’t be any shooting this year. That all the shooting was a long time ago.” Karen’s tone was solemn. A great deal was at stake.
    “He thought that’s how it would be. That’s what everybody thought, because this was not how it is, or was. This never happened before. This will never happen again.” Please, oh, please, don’t make me a liar on that last count, I silently begged. I needed to know that almost as much as Karen did.
    “I wish I didn’t know that Mummer was dead.”
    “Me, too.”
    “I wish he wasn’t dead.”
    The phone rang. I bolted. This had to be Mackenzie.
    But the voice had no southern softness, no bass undertones. “Mandy!” my sister said. “You’re home. Karen’s there, too, isn’t she?”
    “Yes, we’re—”
    “Thank goodness you didn’t go to the parade. I’m so relieved!”
    “Actually, we—”
    “Did you hear what happened? Somebody shot a Mummer!”
    “Yes, I—”
    “Killed him! He’s dead !”
    “I know. I—”
    “That city! How can you live there?” She sounded more like our mother every day, a fact that would curdle her blood if she were aware of it.
    Certainly, the city isn’t often mistaken for Utopia, but my sister’s method of disengaging, standing back, and pointing didn’t help. Besides, I was tired of blaming everything on geography. Cities don’t kill people, guns do. I hoped the murderer turned out to be one of Beth’s suburban soulmates.
    “Karen’s fine,” I said. “But we were there.”
    “There? Where? Not at the—”
    “Yes. At the.”
    “Nowhere near what happened, I hope.”
    “Right there. When he fell into his suit. She seems okay and we’re talking about it, but you should know, in case she has bad dreams or anything.”
    “Mandy!” Her inflection suggested that I’d purposefully exposed my niece to urban slaughter.
    “It wasn’t like we could see anything gross.” A weak defense, but the best I could manage. “And we’re comfy up here now, and talking it through, so don’t worry.”
    “I don’t feel good about her in an old warehouse in that city. No offense intended.”
    “I’m taking some, anyway. This is historic Old City. Where I live once was a warehouse, but now it’s a loft. This is chic , Beth. This is Philadelphia’s SoHo.”
    “I don’t go to New York’s SoHo,” she snapped. “And I certainly don’t take my babies there.”
    This was a bad way to start the year, and the basis of it, the problem of the increasingly fearful suburbanite, of walls real and imagined, deserved a bigger chunk of time and thought than I was willing to donate at the moment.
    “I’m sorry you were so worried,” I said as sweetly as I could, given that she hadn’t even asked whether I was all right. Let alone Mackenzie. “Would you feel better if I brought Karen home right away? We’re settled in with hot soup and the TV, but…”
    She was too well bred, or at least too cowed by what my mother had said was the code of female politeness—never inconvenience anyone but yourself, a code my mother did not necessarily follow, by the way—to say what she meant, which was “bring my baby home now and I don’t care what you want.”
    Beth sighed. I waited, counting on her excellent, if antiquated, standards. I wanted to stay put until I found out more about the Mummer. “No, no,” she murmured. “I didn’t mean… Thanks for offering, but I guess I’m being… I know you didn’t put her there on purpose. I tend to be over-protective at times…”
    And thus do the city sister and the country sister once again stave off a value clash; plus, the trip to the hinterlands was suitably delayed.
    However, two hours later, I’d had my fill of sequins, struts, and strings, but I hadn’t gotten a call from Mackenzie. His