Shadow Notes by Laurel Peterson (cool books to read txt) 📗

we were dating junior boys. I mean, your mother was, and she got me a date with his best friend. Roy and Ray.”

“Make up better names, at least.”

She snorted…or was it Horace?

“After the dance, Roy and Ray took us to a hotel where six of them had rented a suite and pirated in a bunch of alcohol. I don’t remember what we drank, some combination of every liquor they could get their hands on, I imagine, with a little pineapple juice thrown in.

“Anyway, about three in the morning, I noticed Constance kept disappearing from the room, and each time she left, she left with a different girl’s date. At the moment, my date was missing. About fifteen minutes later, she came back from the bedroom all disheveled and flushed, plopped herself down, and commanded another drink. Every boy there, even her own date, rushed to fill her cup. She was shameless, Clara. She is not a good woman or a moral one—but then, you already knew that.”

If Mary Ellen had a grudge to play out, this ugly story would certainly be a good way to do it. I marveled a bit that I could remain so cool-headed, but Mother’s statement about Mary Ellen’s rumor-mongering stuck with me. I thought about my mother charming the entire police station to do her bidding, and I thought of the friends at her Christmas fête kissing the air around her cheeks in greeting. I thought about Nat and my mother’s first kiss, and his gentle stories of her, about the chief’s statement that the investigation hadn’t really yielded anything.

Then, I remembered Mother’s telling me at the lawyer’s office after my father’s funeral that everything was not as it seemed, which strangely echoed her warning about the Winters. I ducked another branch, and, when I looked up, the woods were ending and a snow-covered meadow opened before us, a few dried summer stalks of grass poking through the snow cover.

“And you, Mary Ellen? Are you a good woman? Or did you kill Hugh so Mother couldn’t have him all to herself?”

Without warning, Mary Ellen let out a loud “HA!” provoking both her horse and mine into a gallop. Juvenal and Horace took off across the meadow at a rate of speed well beyond my capabilities. Snowflakes stung my face, even as I clung, low across Horace’s neck, not only to the reins but to his mane, clamping my thighs to his sides, and occasionally peering between his ears to be sure he wasn’t headed for something to jump, like a stone wall. Horace didn’t seem to care that I was grabbing him as hard as I could, nor did he slow at my command; he was having too much fun running with his buddy, and Mary Ellen didn’t intend to stop Juvenal.

We were approaching the edge of the meadow, and I could see that the ground dropped sharply away and back into woods. I hauled as hard as I could on the reins, feeling the muscles in my arms vibrate with the effort. Horace slowed an iota, but then Mary Ellen hauled on Juvenal’s reins, bringing him to a shuddering halt. That stopped Horace in his tracks at the top of the trail.

“I won.” She looked at me, sardonic and composed.

“Fuck you,” I was breathing hard. I nudged Horace around her toward the path. Every limb was jelly, and I hoped I could affect an exit without falling off the horse.

She called after me. “Clara. I told you for your own good. I like you, and I don’t want you to follow your mother’s path. I wanted you to understand the rumors around town about your mother’s affairs and the affair with Hugh. I wanted you to understand where the rumors came from.”

I looked back at her. “Oh, I know where they come from,” I said. “And I know that people don’t forget when they are regularly reminded. I don’t need to know every detail of my mother’s history, real or imagined by you.” I stopped, startled that what I had said was true, and that I’d said it before I knew it was true. Then the anger returned. “And what the hell do you mean by ‘follow my mother’s path’? Are you warning me off? I’m not good enough to date a Winters? For god’s sake, Mary Ellen, it was dinner. I’m not engaged to Andrew, although, if you must know, he did ask me to marry him.” I threw it at her, unthinking, fueled by the rage and fear she had provoked.

Her face went white as the steam from the horses’ nostrils. “He what?”

I studied her, calming down now that I had regained some control, however fabricated. I clucked to Horace and started down the trail, ignoring her question. I heard her move in behind me.

We rode in silence. I would have to explain that Junior was only flirting, or I could imagine the conversation that would take place around the dinner table that evening. I had his cell number; I would call and warn him after Mary Ellen clapped herself into her Beemer. I hoped I wasn’t causing him a lot of grief; even if I didn’t think I could trust him, I did like him. It wasn’t his fault he was a Winters.

While she was on the defensive, I decided to spring my own questions on her about the photographs, but before I could get one formulated past the thickness in my brain, Mary Ellen started talking again, this time about her brother’s campaign—or rather about his opponent. “It’s a woman, you know. Leave it to the Democrats to find one. She’s got decent credentials, if you don’t count the fifteen years of raising her kids when she wasn’t working at all, except in volunteer organizations, like the PTA or Big Sisters. She spouts all these liberal ideas about how to spend money—our money—that’s your money, too, Clara, and you’ve got to protect it—if you want that business your father