Free A Secret Rage by Charlaine Harris

garage apartment to Barbara Tucker just called me, and the police are over there. Barbara Tucker got raped tonight.’
    ‘But she was just here,’ I said stupidly.
    All the party drained out of my system. I found myself staring at the ring on the painted wood as if it were proof the news wasn’t true. ‘Maybe she just got burglarized?’
    ‘No. There’s an ambulance,’ Elaine said crisply. ‘Besides, the police told my friend Marsha. I’m quite sure. Goodbye, now.’ She hung up.
    I was close to the improvised bar just inside the living room. Cully was there, for once making himself a drink. I wobbled over to him and put my hand on his back. He turned sharply.
    ‘What?’ Then, more urgently, he said, ‘Nickie! What’s wrong? Who was that on the phone?’
    ‘Oh, Cully. Oh, Cully,’ I said out of a fog of alcohol, exhaustion, and shock. ‘Poor Barbara. He’s gotten Barbara Tucker.’
    Mimi had sensed trouble with her built-in hostess antenna, and she arrived at the bar in a swish of red, her face stern at the spectacle of two people being upset and serious at a party. So I was able to tell them both what Elaine had said.
    I thought of the woman on the sidewalk in front of my apartment building in New York, and wondered what was so different here, after all.

5
    EIGHT O’CLOCK in the morning was a horrible time to schedule anything, much less Chaucer. I was almost stumbling on my way to the English building, trying desperately to wake up and look alert. I wanted to start briskly and keep the momentum going.
    All the dreariness of registration, fee payments, orientation, book buying, had led to this first full day of classes. I was actually beginning the completion of something I’d quit years before.
    Since the registrar’s office was situated on the ground floor of the English and Administration building, I passed Theo Cochran’s open door on my way down the hall. The fluorescent light was gleaming on his bald head. He looked up as I passed and gave me a little wave. It was nice to see a friendly face among the herd of strangers, all depressingly younger than I.
    To say I was nervous was an understatement. Mimi had been giving me rah-rah speeches for days, after I’d finally admitted how scared I was about learning to study all over again, being pitted against younger minds, handling the workload poor Barbara had so cheerfully assured me I could bear.
    Right classroom? I checked the room number on the door against that on my schedule. Right classroom, yes indeedy. I hesitated for a second. Then I grabbed my courage with both hands and pushed open the door – to be met by an audible gasp from a little guy wearing a Led Zeppelin T-shirt who was sitting in the first row of desks. That exaggerated gasp focused everyone’s attention on me. I stared back at their smooth faces. Had I done something wrong?
    ‘Wow!’ said cocky little Led Zeppelin just as loudly as he had gasped. ‘You are some
kind
of woman, woman.’
    From sheer relief I started laughing, and after a second the others joined in. Even Stan Haskell chuckled from his post by the desk.
    I sobered when I saw him. My amusement disappeared abruptly, as did his when he saw me watching him. He was grayer. The summer had gone from his face as surely as it was fading in Knolls. In a week, Barbara’s shy lover had passed to the other side of middle age, too early and too fast.
    I pitied him and I was angry with him; but I had resolved that on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays from eight to nine he was going to be Dr Stanley Haskell, my professor in Chaucer, period. I had to take this class. I had my own life, I told myself. My own goal. I had to stop thinking about Barbara Tucker. So I slid into a desk, whipped out a pen, and opened the virgin notebook I’d labeled ‘Chaucer.’
    * * * *
    Mimi, bless her heart, was ready with a glass of wine when I got home. I’d been studying in the library until five-thirty, when hunger rousted me out. Mimi’s big