Runny03 - Loose Lips Read Online Free PDF

was loath to indulge too much, however.
    “Whoops, shit—you ought to let me drive.”
    “You can’t drive Pearlie’s car.”
    “You can’t either.” Juts smirked.
    “You know, you think I don’t know what you’re doing—but I do. You think I’ll let down my guard and tell you everything that Celeste told me, but I won’t. Furthermore, I’m tired of your constant harping on my driving. You repeat yourself. I’m sick of it.”
    “Well, Wheezer, I’m not as dumb as you think, so there.” Juts ignored her sister’s driving comments. “The Chalfontes are planning some kind of merger or fishing for a big government contract and Diddy will throw a spanner in the works because it will be for war stuff. Diddy is a pure pacifist. Chalfontes manufacture ball bearings, so …”
    “You keep your mouth shut.”
    “I am.” Juts sighed heavily. “Doesn’t it make you wonder how Major Chalfonte did it? Our grandpa came home after the war and didn’t do squat.”
    “Mmm.” Louise slowed to take a nasty curve up ahead. “Major Chalfonte used to say, ‘The war taught me that machines are the future.’ So he started making ball bearings.”
    “He died before you were born.”
    “I know that.”
    “Then don’t talk as though you knew him.”
    “Celeste told me that … I did know him, sort of.”
    “Tell me why Celeste will pay our rent for a year but not the damages?”
    “Because if we work we’ll have to learn something.”
    “I have learned something.”
    “Oh?”
    “Never to sit next to you when you eat a strawberry frappé.”
    Louise exhaled loudly. “You wear me out. I have to be sharp for this.”
    “’Beautiful savior, king of creation’—” Julia sang.
    “Stop it.”
    “I have a good voice.”
    “Did I say you didn’t?” Louise checked her wristwatch. “Another couple of minutes.”
    “Are you sure we’re on the right road?”
    “Julia, how many times have I run up the road to McSherrystown?”
    Juts kicked off her shoes and flexed her toes. “I’m kind of sorry Barnhart’s closed.”
    “Go over to Cashton’s.”
    “If there’s enough business for two shoe-repair stores there’s enough business for two beauty salons. I wonder how Junior McGrail will react?”
    “Smile to our faces and tear us down behind our backs.”
    Julia paused. “How’s Pearlie with this?”
    “Says it will never work—but he hasn’t taken a job at Rife Munitions.”
    “Is he still mad at you?”
    “Maybe a little. He’s too worried about Mary to fuss with me. She’s working on my mood, too. If we had the money we’d send her to Immaculata Academy.”
    “Won’t do any good.”
    “A Catholic education is the best there is and Immaculata is one of the best schools around.”
    “I don’t mean that. I mean she’d sneak out with Extra Billy no matter where you sent her. She’s in love and she thinks she’s the only person who’s ever felt this way. You were like that once. Your ass runs away with your head.”
    “I most certainly was not. I had sense. Mary, however, does not.”
    “Louise,” Juts chided her. “You
swooned
over Pearlie. You wrote his name in your schoolbooks and Miss Dwyer sprouted blotches when she saw you had defaced state property. You were awful.”
    “I was not. I didn’t lie to Mother.”
    “No.”
    “And I didn’t sass her. As for you, you were a pest.”
    “With good reason. Pearlie would give me a dime to leave you two alone. I made a real haul.” She smiled. “I think you were more in love with Pearlie than I was with Chester. But you were younger when you met him. I love Chessy but I don’t think I was quite so wrapped up in him.”
    “No, but then you’ve always been independent.”
    “He’s still mad at me.”
    “Oh.”
    “He comes home late from work and he reads the newspaper. He hardly talks to me.”
    “Chessy?” This surprised Louise. Her brother-in-law was an even-tempered man.
    “Yesterday he took Buster for a forty-five-minute