Rabid Read Online Free PDF

or his long black cassock or his long, black hair. The guy looked like a hippie or a Renaissance relic. “You didn’t tell me he was a scientist.” He had looked like a fool all day, first with Leila threatening him, now this.
    Beverly shrugged and kept her eyes on Christ.
    “I’ll PubMed him, see if he’s really who he says he is.”
    His wife didn’t answer.
    “So what’s the matter with you? I thought you wanted counseling.”
    The overhead lights, dimmed to resemble candlelight, reflected off gold strands in her brown hair. She smoothed her beige skirt. “We’ll talk later.”
    “There’s something else?” There was always something fucking else. Maybe he could find Leila’s hidden stash of scotch at the lab.
     
    ~~~~~
     
    At choir practice that evening, Bev adjusted the piano bench and limbered up her fingers with a few scales. Minor keys suited her mood: dour, wintry music. The claxon fifth and descending minor scale were from Lieutenant Kije’s Suite, Prokofiev, snow falling on spilled Russian blood.
    Arriving choir members blew in, laughing in the January chill: happy, silly people who didn’t snoop where they shouldn’t. Bev stretched her lower back, which had tightened while she had crushed drives in the golf simulator at the pro shop that afternoon.
    Father Dante strode out of the library toward the piano.
    Bev gathered the sheet music she had been using, and the paper slipped sideways and fluttered. She snatched the sheaf and managed to catch half. The rest splashed on the floor.
    Father Dante was beside her, sweeping the pages together. He asked, “Could you choose the music for the Mass this week?”
    “But I wouldn’t know what to pick.” She took the pages from his hands. She might get the hymns wrong. She might ruin the Mass.
    “Afterwards, you can tell me what they are.” He sat beside her on the piano bench, which was far too small for two adults and her thigh rested against his black cossack over his legs. He handed her a list of names. “These people, are any of them in the choir?” 
    “Well, it depends.” She pointed to the middle of the list. “ White is probably Bill and Melanie. Melanie is a mezzo.” She pointed at a frosted-blonde woman in the third row. “These people,” she pointed to Lawrence, James, and Douglas , “only go to Mass and school events. Dietrich is Laura and Don. Laura is an alto. She’s wearing the red blouse and khaki slacks.”
    Bev waved to Laura, sitting between Lydia and Mary.
     
    ~~~~~
     
    Laura waved back to Bev and then whispered to Lydia and Mary. They had been discussing that Father Nicolai was AWOL and that no one had seen him for two weeks. Father Sam had only muttered “transferred” with tight lips, and he was never tight-lipped about anything.
    Laura said, “My, isn’t our Bev cozy with the new priest?”
    Mary, behind them, leaned in. “He’s so young. What is he, thirty-five? What a waste.”
    Lydia said, “Yeah, what a waist, and his ass is nice, too.”
    Laura smiled. “Oh, Liddy, you’re awful. How can you tell under that cassock?”
    Lydia flipped her bottle-blonde hair behind her shoulder. “Anyone with a face that gorgeous is morally bound to have a nice ass, too. Is it just me, or is there something especially sexy about a priest?”
    “Intrinsically playing hard to get.” Mary fluffed her naturally blonde hair, preening.
    “Forbidden fruit,” Laura countered.
    Lydia said, “He can take you to Heaven because he knows the way.”
    “Liddy! You are so going to Hell.” Laura examined one rough fingernail.
    “If that’s where all the fun people are,” Lydia said. “And he’s so cozy with our Bev.”
    Mary made a dismissive hmmf sound in her throat. “He should be up here flirting with us instead of wasting his time with our sweet little Bev.”
    The priest looked at them. He stood and walked up the risers toward them.
    Lydia said, “Quick, Mary, wish to win the lottery.”
    Laura said, “Oh, crap,”