Free The PMS Outlaws: An Elizabeth MacPherson Novel by Sharyn McCrumb Page A

shoveling it in. She can never fill the void inside her with food. And the more she eats the more powerless she becomes.”
    Elizabeth looked down at her plate, at the congealing mashed potatoes and slabs of roast beef drenched in viscous brown gravy. She wasn’t hungry any more. She wondered how Emma O. could manage to eat so heartily, given her obsession with beauty, but perhaps it would be rude to challenge her on that point.
    After a moment’s pause, Elizabeth said to Rose, “I’m new here, so I’m not sure if it’s the done thing to ask people what they’re in for.”
    Rose Hanelon gave her a pitying smile. “You’re officially crazy, my dear. Now you can ask anybody anything you damn well please.”
    Before Elizabeth could put this new freedom to the test, however, Emma O. finished her gelatin, and asked, “You had a session with a shrink today, didn’t you? Which one?”
    “Kindly old Dr. Dunkenburger,” said Elizabeth.
    Emma looked as if she were about to say something, butthen she shrugged. As she got up to refill her water glass, she muttered, “I have Dr. Shokie. Fat lot of good he is.”
    “I hope you’ll be in group with us,” said Lisa Lynn. “You really get to know people in group.”
    “I don’t think I’ll be doing group therapy,” said Elizabeth carefully. “You see, I’m not really—”
    “Crazy.” Rose beamed at her. “Isn’t that what you were going to say?”
    “Not at all,” said Elizabeth, thinking fast. She didn’t want to offend these people, who would be her friends, even if it was for only a month. A month could be a long time. “I was going to say that I’m not able to be helped. My husband is dead, and talking about it is not going to bring him back.”
    “Yes,” said Lisa Lynn. “But the therapy is for you. Not for him.”
    “They’ll insist on assigning you to group,” Rose told her. “It’s a standard part of the treatment here, so you might as well come to ours. We have a session after lunch. Warburton is our group leader.”
    “Well …” said Elizabeth, “I’m not sure.…”
    Rose Hanelon gave her a wolfish grin. “You’d better come to our group. We’re the cool people.”
    T he PMS Outlaw gig had a lot in common with the cocktail party circuit in her old life, thought P. J. Purdue. A lot of lies were told over many little drinks, phony compliments passed, and one way or another somebody was going to get screwed. And then as now it was all strictly business.
    She sipped her drink, watching Carla bat her eyes at an owlish young man with a stained tie and a briefcase in his lap.Carla was a natural at the pickup con. She acted as if she had been doing it all her life, which perhaps she had. Growing up poor with a succession of unofficial stepfathers, Carla had learned early on that love was not something you ever got for free.
    One way or another you pay your way in life, Carla often said. Being pretty is the cheapest way to go. Purdue wouldn’t know about that. Early on she had opted for smart, which wasn’t as cushy a ride as pretty, but it sure beat the hell out of “desperately nice and sincere,” always a popular choice among women. The meek shall inherit the earth, all right, thought P. J. Purdue. One heaping spoonful at a time.
    Carla was indeed a beauty, but she’d needed some guidance from Purdue to dress the part for the caper of the day. Teased hair and raccoon eye shadow were all right for roadhouses, but razzle-dazzle wouldn’t do the job in a rock-bed Republican country club.
    They had found the place by reading the local newspaper, which had given up carrying world news altogether, so hopeless was the prospect of competing against the big-city dailies that everyone subscribed to for “real news.” The purpose of the small-town publication was to keep track of the community’s weddings, births, and funerals (not necessarily in that order); to chart the activities of local government; and to chronicle the social scene for