Club Dead (Sookie Stackhouse #3)(3)
Somehow, that didn't sound like an entrancing prospect. Somehow, that sounded ominous.
Again I inclined my head, not risking speech because I was actually crying now. I would rather have died than let him see the tears.
And that was how I left him, that cold December night.
1 he next day, on my way to work, I took an unwise
detour. I was in that kind of mood where I was
rolling in how awful everything was. Despite a nearly
sleepless night, something inside me told me I could
probably make my mood a little worse if I drove along
Magnolia Creek Road: so sure enough, that's what I did.
The old Bellefleur mansion, Belle Rive, was a beehive
of activity, even on a cold and ugly day. There were
vans from the pest control company, a kitchen design
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firm, and a siding contractor parked at the kitchen entrance to the antebellum home. Life was just humming for Caroline Holliday Bellefleur, the ancient lady who
had ruled Belle Rive and (at least in part) Bon Temps
for the past eighty years. I wondered how Portia, a lawyer, and Andy, a detective, were enjoying all the changes
at Belle Rive. They had lived with their grandmother (as
I had lived with mine) for all their adult lives. At the
very least, they had to be enjoying her pleasure in the
mansion's renovation.
My own grandmother had been murdered a few months ago.
The Bellefleurs hadn't had anything to do with it, of course. And there was no reason Portia and Andy would share the pleasure of this new affluence with me. In fact, they both avoided me like the plague.
They owed me, and they couldn't stand it. They just didn't know how much they owed me.
The Bellefleurs had received a mysterious legacy from a relative who had "died mysteriously over in Europe somewhere," I'd heard Andy tell a fellow cop while they were drinking at Merlotte's. When she dropped off some raffle tickets for Gethsemane Baptist Church's Ladies' Quilt, Maxine Fortenberry told me Miss Caroline had combed every family record she could unearth to identify their benefactor, and she was still mystified at the family's good fortune.
She didn't seem to have any qualms about spending the money, though.
Even Terry Bellefleur, Portia and Andy's cousin, had a new pickup sitting in the packed dirt yard of his double-wide. I liked Terry, a scarred Viet Nam vet who didn't have a lot of friends, and I didn't grudge him a new set of wheels.
But I thought about the carburetor I'd just been forced
to replace in my old car. I'd paid for the work in full, though I'd considered asking Jim Downey if I could just pay half and get the rest together over the next two months. But Jim had a wife and three kids. Just this morning I'd been thinking of asking my boss, Sam Merlotte, if he could add to my hours at the bar.
Especially with Bill gone to "Seattle," I could just about live at Merlotte's, if Sam could use me. I sure needed the money.
I tried real hard not to be bitter as I drove away from Belle Rive. I went south out of town and then turned left onto Hummingbird Road on my way to Merlotte's. I tried to pretend that all was well; that on his return from Seattle--or wherever--Bill would be a passionate lover again, and Bill would treasure me and make me feel valuable once more. I would again have that feeling of belonging with someone, instead of being alone.
Of course, I had my brother, Jason. Though as far as intimacy and companionship goes, I had to admit that he hardly counted.
But the pain in my middle was the unmistakable pain of rejection. I knew the feeling so well, it was like a second skin.
I sure hated to crawl back inside it.
Chapter Two
I tested the doorknob to make sure I'd locked it,
turned around, and out of the corner of my eye glimpsed
a figure sitting in the swing on my front porch. I stifled
a shriek as he rose. Then I recognized him.
I was wearing a heavy coat, but he was in a tank top; that didn't surprise me, really.
"El--" Uh-oh, close call. "Bubba, how are you?" I was trying to sound casual, carefree. I failed, but Bubba wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed. The vampires admitted that bringing him over, when he'd been so very close to death and so saturated with drugs, had been a big mistake. The night he'd been Generated by ABC Amber LIT Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abclit.html
brought in, one of the morgue attendants happened to be one of the undead, and also happened to be a huge fan. With a hastily constructed and elaborate plot involving a murder or two, the attendant had
"brought him over"--made Bubba a vampire. But the process doesn't always go right, you know. Since then, he's been passed around like idiot royalty. Louisiana had been hosting him for the past year.
"Miss Sookie, how you doin'?" His accent was still thick and his face still handsome, in a jowly kind of way. The dark hair tumbled over his forehead in a carefully careless style. The heavy sideburns were brushed. Some undead fan had groomed him for the evening.
"I'm just fine, thank you," I said politely, grinning from ear to ear. I do that when I'm nervous. "I was just fixing to go to work," I added, wondering if it was possible I would be able to simply get in my car and drive away. I thought not.