Free A Secret Rage by Charlaine Harris Page B

later, once we’d gotten home and calmed down a little, that his knowing her name might mean a great deal, or nothing at all. If he’d been stalking her (Stalking? In
Knolls?
), he’d have easily found it out. On the other hand, he might be someone she knew well. She seemed sure of it. And that was so unthinkable that we just blotted it out.

6
    TWO MONTHS went by while my thoughts were turned to my books. Those weeks were so full of adjustments and assignments requiring all my concentration that the outer world just had to get along without my participation.
    Alicia dropped by from time to time, and we went to dinner at her house. Ray seemed to like me more now that I was doing something as ordinary as finishing college. Whenever I talked about my life in New York, though, those pale eyes would flicker.
    Mimi and I met Cully at the Houghtons’ for a Sunday brunch. It was an uncomfortable meal. Mimi and Elaine sniped at each other from the underbrush, and Don still had that gleam in his eye that made me uneasy. Cully, too, was at his dryest that day. He said his counseling load at the college was much heavier than he’d expected – a lot of freshman students were already having qualms about attending college at all. They were homesick. He and I seemed to have established some kind of truce. The talk and feel of things between us was easier and more relaxed. I caught him watching me at odd moments, and developed the notion that he was beginning to see me as a rounded human being, not just a beautiful dodo. But that was the only bright spot of the meal.
    I decided to ruin the day good and proper, so I called my mother. She’d been to church, come home, and started drinking. Jay wasn’t there. She tried hard to sound sober, but I knew she wasn’t. However, she was proud of my going back to college, and she managed to ask correctly after the Houghtons and send a polite message to them. Mother also said one curious thing. She told me, quite out of the blue, that she hadn’t told Jay where I was.
    I was going to have to think about that.
    Before I went to sleep that night, I decided that Jay might have dropped a hint to Mother, God knows why, that he’d gotten rough with me all those years ago. It also occurred to me that it had been a long time since I’d known Mother to hold off drinking long enough to get dressed and go to church. I tried to cancel that thought; I pinched myself in punishment. I would not hope.
    Time ran through my fingers as my life with Mimi settled into a comfortable routine. Having two separate floors to live on made that much easier. We didn’t collide in the bathroom, we didn’t keep each other awake with lights or music or studying. Our most serious disagreement was the great debate about when to put the garbage out – the night before pickup was due, so we wouldn’t have to surge out in our bathrobes at the crack of dawn, but the dogs often got it; or early in the morning, in which case the dogs still might get it, but not if we watched to shoo them off. We solved this knotty problem by alternating garbage duty instead of sharing it.
    Because of our lavish cooking I gained four pounds, which Mimi swore became me. I thought I looked like I’d swallowed a cantaloupe.
    Attila became quite possessive. He cuffed Mao un-mercifully when the smaller cat ventured too close to me. I grew used to studying with a heavy load of tabby on my lap. When I was alone, I discussed things with Attila in disgusting baby talk. Mimi overheard me a couple of times and made graphic gagging noises.
    Occasionally I heard from New York friends. Their phone calls seemed like communications from a foreign land. I was sliding back into my own. My speaking cadence slowed. I didn’t wear camouflage on the street. My manners resumed their former polish. My way of thinking reverted (a little) to the labyrinthine.
    But mostly I studied. I had to. If I wasn’t reading, I was writing: not the novels of my dreams, but essays