1980
Louella
emerged from the Piggly Wiggly and stopped outside the entrance long enough to
situate her purse in the toddler seat of the grocery cart.
“Miss
Harper. Miss Harper. Miss Louella Harper.”
Louella up
to see who was calling her name and was somewhat startled to see a late middle-aged
black man hobbling toward her from across the parking lot. Her first instinct
was to pull the cart back into the store and hope the staff could offer her security,
but she forced herself to remain still by reminding herself that this was a
public place in which she could expect a reasonable measure of safety. Besides,
while the man did not fit the profile of her average reader, the fact that he
knew her name showed that he was not some random criminal.
When he
finally reached her, the bent over and rested his hands on his thighs while he
caught his breath. Louella took the opportunity to move her cart out of the
path of the sliding glass doors that would be spitting out shoppers every few
minutes.
“Excuse me,
Miss Harper. I’m sorry to bother you,” the man said, still panting. He took off
his fedora and used it to fan himself. He looked to be in his late fifties. He
was bald, with wrinkled skin that stretched around the back of his head.
“Well,
you’ve already done so. My heart is beating a hundred miles an hour. You might
as well tell me who you are.”
Judging by
his expression, the man was disappointed at having been forgotten. “It’s me,”
he said, “Evan Waverly.”
“I’m afraid
I don’t know that name.”
“You came
to my house, Miss Harper. I was Reverend Baxter’s next door neighbor.”
Louella’s face
wilted into an expression of supreme distaste. She checked for traffic and then
pushed her cart into the parking lot without another word. Mr. Waverly fell in
alongside her.
“I’m sorry
to be contacting you this way. I reached out to Jim Easton, but he wouldn’t
give me your number.”
“My friends
no better than to give out my private information,” Louella said, “or they
won’t be my friend much longer. As I recall, the last time I saw you, you
wouldn’t speak to me.”
Waverly
smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry for that, Miss Harper. I didn’t want to threaten
a business arrangement. I hope you understand.”
“Oh, I
understand perfectly. You were negotiating with a television producer as I
recall. The fact that I’m speaking to you now makes me assume the deal has
fallen through.”
Waverly
shook his head sadly. “Yes ma’am, it did. I never should have trusted that man.
I’m sorry about that.”
“You aren’t
the first person to pin his hopes on a Hollywood fantasy. It’s a bitter lesson
to have to learn.”
“I know
that’s the truth.”
“The fact
that you’re here, dogging my tracks, makes me thing you’ve changed your mind
about telling me your story. Is that also the truth?”
“Yes ma’am.
I’ve given it a lot of thought. I said to myself, ‘Evan, you should have talked
to that nice lady when you had the chance.’ What I did was downright
inhospitable, and I apologize.”
Louella
stopped the buggy behind her black Lincoln Continental and slid the key into
the trunk lock. “Well, I suppose after you help me put these bags in my trunk,
you can fill me in on what you know.”
“Yes, of
course.” Waverly scrambled to move the woman’s bags from the buggy to the trunk.
Afterwards, they stared at one another across the empty grocery cart, each
waiting for the other to speak.
“Well,”
Louella said.
“What? You
mean, here? You want me to tell the story right here in the parking lot?”
“Well, it’s
not the lobby of the Ritz Carleton, but it’ll do in a pinch. Now, hurry it up
if you don’t mind, before the milk curdles.”
“But, we
haven’t even discussed the conditions of our arrangement.”
“Okay, here
are the conditions. You tell me your story and I’ll listen, or else I’m going
back to my hotel. Are these conditions satisfactory?”
“No, Miss
Harper. I meant financial conditions.”
“Good day,
Mr. Waverly.” She pushed her empty buggy towards the nearest shopping cart corral.
Waverly
hustled after her. “Wait, Miss Harper. You’ll want to hear my story and all
it’ll cost you is three thousand dollars.”
Louella abandoned
her cart in the corral and turned back toward her car without looking at him.
“Two
thousand,” Waverly said.
“I believe
our business is concluded, Mr. Waverly. As I said, I have to attend to my
milk.”
“Okay, one
thousand, but that’s as low as I can go.”
“At this
point, I find that hard to believe,” Louella said. She opened the door and slid
into the driver’s seat. Waverly
continued to speak to her, but his voice was muffled and she did not understand
him. As she pulled out of her parking spot, his tone grew louder and more
menacing, but she drove away without another glance in his direction.
About
This Novel; Chapter 1 ; Chapter 2; Chapter 3; Chapter 4; Chapter 5; Chapter 6; Chapter 7; Chapter 8; Chapter 9; Chapter
10; Chapter
11;
Chapter
12;
Chapter
13; Chapter
14; Chapter
15; Chapter
16;
Chapter
17; Chapter
18; Chapter
19; Chapter
20; Chapter
21;
Blood
Cries at the Half-Way Point; Chapter
22;
Chapter
23; Chapter
24;
Chapter
25; Chapter
26;
Chapter
27; Chapter
28;
Chapter
29
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