Summer Lightning Read Online Free PDF Page A

through the small square of glass. In her eagerness, she misdialed twice before she got the right combination. Withdrawing the letter, heedless of decorum, she ripped open the letter. No money fell out. She shook the page vigorously, and then the envelope. Nothing.
    While waiting in line to break her hundred-dollar bill, Edith read the letter. It came from a client, now happily married in Topeka. For once, the joyful contents had no power to raise Edith’s spirits.
    The clerk at the counter was a different man, with scraggly side-whiskers and a frown. He barely glanced at the highly engraved piece of blue paper.
    “No good,” he said. “Next!”
    “What? No ... no good?”
    “The Braxton Bank of Louisiana closed five years ago, lady. That’s nothing but waste paper now. Next!”
    The woman behind Edith elbowed her way forward. “Two stamps, please.”
    Edith couldn’t move. Her aunt must have known about the bank. How could she leave a worthless inheritance? Edith didn’t want to think all her legacies might be valueless.
    The woman turned from the counter, nearly running over Edith. “Really! Eavesdropping on my business!”
    The tone, rather than the words, reached Edith. Hardly knowing what she did, she stumbled away from the counter.
    Walking home, her ankle aching bitterly inside her high-buttoned shoe, she felt raindrops fall out of a clear sky. One by one, they spotted the bosom of her dress. It was only when people turned to stare after her on the street that she realized she was weeping in public. She clawed down her veil.
    Her head spinning from hunger, Edith climbed the worn steps to the peeling front door of the boardinghouse. A sour smell of burnt potatoes reached her and made her mouth water. Even something charred would be better than nothing.
    She paused by the Maginns’ door, which was slightly ajar. As she raised her hand to knock, she thought, “I can’t do what he wants, but I could beg. . . . Evvie likes me; she’s talked to me once or twice. She told me about the boy who wanted to marry her. Maybe she’d give me something.”
    On the other side of the door Mrs. Webb said loudly, “But you promised me!”
    Mr. Maginn laughed coarsely and cruelly. “You didn’t think I meant it? I knew you were stupid but not that stupid.”
    Edith shrank back, her fist pressed to her chest. She couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
    “It’s that girl in the room next to mine, isn’t it? Her and that miserable canary. I should have known. First you leave Carrie Nester for me and now me for . . . her.”
    “Well, it’s not the canary. I can tell you that. Besides, what makes you think good old Carrie was the first? There’s lots of chances for a fella living in a place like this. Lonely women . . .” There was something so hatefully superior in his tone that Edith was not surprised to hear the sound of a slap.
    The snarl that followed the impact sent a thrill of fear down Edith’s spine. In a voice scarcely human, she heard Maginn say, “Don’t you . . . don’t you . . .”
    “Stop! You’re hurting me,” Mrs. Webb sobbed. Perhaps she stumbled, for she gave a half-scream suddenly cut off. Edith looked up and down the hall. Should she go for help? Should she break in and save Mrs. Webb?
    There came some soft, confused sounds next. Edith couldn’t make out what was happening. Then she heard Mrs. Webb’s pouting voice again. “You almost broke my arm . . . brute.”
    “Ah, but you’re a rare armful, m’lovely.”
    “And you’re not interested in that stuck-up snip, are you?”
    “Never mind about her.”
    “But Ringo . . .”
    “It won’t make no difference to you and me. So long as your husband is gone for good . . .”
    “I can divorce him any time, and then we could make it legal.” She seemed to be offering some rare treat.
    “Legal? I can’t marry any divorced woman. The Church . . .”
    “Why do you care? It’s this you should be wanting.”
    Ringo Maginn’s voice