Ravens Read Online Free PDF

helter-skelter in there. It was the single most mortifying moment of my life.”
    She shuffled again and again. She held her tongue between her teeth, like a child.
    Tara asked, “Who was your date? Was that Grandpa Bill?”
    “Nah, I hadn’t even met Bill then. Just some local yokel.” She dealt. But she was still lost in that memory. “Actually, you
     know the guy. You know who it was? — it was Burris Jones.”
    Said Tara, “The old cop? The one who goes to our church?”
    “Believe I’m gonna bet on this girlie here,” said Nell, drawing attention to the queen she’d dealt herself. “I’ll start this
     massacree at only fifty cents, to be kind.”
    “You
dated
Deppity Dawg?”
    “I did.”
    “What was
that
like?”
    “Oh, Lord.
Boring?
”
    “Did the blood gross him out?”
    “Not really. He was always crazy about me. You in?”
    Tara called the fifty cents. More cards fell, and the pot grew, and soon Tara was showing the King, Queen, Jack, ten. In truth
     she had no straight, since her hole cards were trash. But the hand
looked
pretty, and the shiraz and the jackpot and Nell’s stories were making her lightheaded, and she decided to make a charge.
    She bet the full value of the pot: twelve dollars.
    She was not a bluffer. Against Nell, bluffing was suicide. But she thought, who knows, I pulled it off with Clio. Maybe the
     ability to bluff is just another gift of the jackpot.
    Nell said, “Look at me, child.”
    Meet her gaze. That was all she needed to do. Same as with Clio. Well no,
much
harder than with Clio but still, she could do it. Just hold her gaze without wavering and remember: the jackpot makes everything
     possible.
    But her grandmother’s gaze was too searching.
    Nell could be foolish; she could be petulant, sullen. Her taste was all over the place: she loved equally the Texaco Saturday
     opera and her singing fish from the Dollar store. She’d had affairs during her marriages; she drank too much; her house was
     unkempt. She could be cool to the people she loved, sometimes even to Tara. But Tara thought her divine, and believed her
     to possess supernatural powers of wit and clairvoyance. And now it was impossible to endure her gaze. Tara let her eyes flicker
     away for an instant, and though she swung them right back, she knew it was too late. Nell was already calling her bet. Tara
     quietly folded. Nell raked in the pot. “I’ll catch you every time; don’t you know that?”
    Tara laughed. “I momentarily forgot.”
    “Like right now I can tell you’ve got some good news you’re not telling me. I feel it coming off you. Why aren’t you telling
     your grandmother your news?”
    “I’m that easy to read?”
    Nell nodded. “You are when you’re sittin there grinnin like a jack-o’-lantern. You in love?”
    “Uh-uh.”
    “Something about school?”
    “No.”
    “Well, what then?”
    Tara smiled shyly. “You want to guess?”
    “No I don’t,” said Nell. “There’s no profit in guessin. If I guess right, you’ll be disappointed ’cause you didn’t get to
     tell me your secret. And suppose I guess wrong, but my guess is better than the truth? That’ll make us both feel rotten.”
    “Your guess won’t be better than the truth.”
    “Child. Tell me.”
    “Really? Just like that?”
    Tara couldn’t recollect a more pleasurable moment in her life, and she hated to surrender it. But Nell was losing patience.
     “OK,” said Tara. “But don’t ask me if I’m kidding. I’m not kidding. Don’t ask if there’s been a mistake. There’s no mistake.”
    “Wow. This is a really big thing?”
    “Yes it is.”
    “Well then get to it.”
    “OK. Soon.”
    She laughed, and picked up her glass, and walked out of the kitchen. She went to Nell’s back porch. She lay down on the swinging
     bed, at an angle, relaxing into the old pillows. The porch was screened in, and a vine of Lady Banks’ yellow roses was climbing
     up the pilasters. Tara called, “Come on,