When Will the Dead Lady Sing? Read Online Free PDF

and—” I sighed. “It’s a mess.”
    She went about ten strides before she demanded, “When did you have time to date anybody else?”
    No wonder she asked. Joe Riddley and I started “going steady” in elementary school, which meant he carried my books and I saved him a seat at lunch. We dated through junior and senior high, which meant I wore his letter sweaters and he wore out a set of tires coming home from college while I finished my last two years. We dated all the way through college and got married the weekend after I graduated.
    “The year after Joe Riddley finished college. I didn’t think he loved me anymore.”
    “Pop? He worships the ground you walk on.”
    “Maybe so, but he was real slow popping the M question. Everybody expected us to get married after he finished college, so the Christmas before, I figured he’d give me a diamond. He gave me a necklace. That was okay—I didn’t want to get married until I graduated, anyway, and I thought he’d ask me that summer. He didn’t. In those days, a girl could hint, but she waited to get asked. I waited and hinted all summer. He didn’t say a word. Even worse, he didn’t come up to school that next semester. Kept saying he was busy. Heck, he was working for his parents. They’d have let him off for football games if he’d wanted to come, but I didn’t see hide nor hair of him, except a couple of times when I drove home. We never went anywhere then, just sat around at our folks’ houses. He even worked the two Saturdays I was here. He said he was learning the business, but we’d both worked in that store for years. Annie Dale was working for his daddy that year, and she was mighty pretty. I figured I had been a phase, and he was ready to move on.”
    “You never. You were just trying to justify what you did.” Martha has always been willing to call a spade a shovel. She moved ahead. “Walk faster, or we won’t lose an ounce.”
    “Joe Riddley loves me the way I am,” I insisted. “He says I’m not fat, I’m voluptuous.” She didn’t slow one iota. “But he really didn’t pay me a speck of attention that fall,” I added, hurrying to catch her.
    “He wrote, didn’t he? And called?”
    “Not often. He never was much for writing, and neither one of us was comfortable talking long distance. Our calls were generally things like, ‘I passed my differential equations exam’ or ‘Daddy’s thinking of expanding the nursery side of the business. What do you think?’ ”
    “If he wanted your opinion about the business, didn’t that tell you something?”
    “Yeah. That he was tired of counting nails. Let’s stop a minute to catch our breath.” While I rested, I said, “It may not make sense now, honey, but back then, I was mad. And hurt.”
    “And lonesome,” she guessed, jerking her head to say it was time to get going.
    I tromped along, trying to keep up. “That, too. And having second thoughts about settling down before I’d sampled what else the world had to offer. So I started dating somebody else.”
    “That was probably good for you and Pop both. Now, walk faster. We aren’t snails.”
    “We aren’t jet planes, either. We don’t have to walk off all our weight tonight.”
    “In case you haven’t noticed, everybody else is passing us. We’re not exactly flying.” She waited for another speedy duo to whiz by, elbows working as hard as their legs. Then she asked, “So what if the guy is here for a few days? It’s been years since you saw him, right?”
    “Yeah, but—” I hated to tell her the real reason I was worried. It sounded so petty. “I never told Joe Riddley about him, and I don’t want him to find out now.” She slid her eyes my way, so I hurried to add, “He could be so hurt, and you know he’s been unpredictable since he got shot.”
    She laughed. “Expecting Pop to shoot him? It’s not likely. They may not even meet.”
    “Oh, yes they will. Gusta’s having a Do tomorrow, and he’s bound