American Ghost Read Online Free Page B

the Great Hereafter.”
    There was no mockery in his face, just a genuine offer of something. Jolie was too inexperienced at the art of courtship to understand exactly what. But the sensation was far from unpleasant, and after a moment she lifted her glass and gamely clicked it.
    Lena joined them and, once peace was declared, dominated the conversation with her usual élan, till the shrimp was gone and the tea glasses refilled so many times that the waitress began giving them the eye. Lena was flying high on caffeine and white sugar by then, and after they settled their bill and returned to the steaming sidewalk, she linked arms with Jolie on one side, Sam on the other, and announced that she simply must have one final Dilly bar before she left Florida for good.
    So what began as an evening of new faces and adventure quickly took on the languor of a hundred other small-town Friday nights, even ending in the same place as they had all the Friday nights that preceded it—in the oily parking lot of the local IGA, where it was customary to park facing the highway and wave at the passing traffic. With Jolie onone side and Sam on the other, Lena sat perched on the hood of her mother’s car and, between waving at honks and going out to say good-bye to well-wishers, chattered like a magpie, telling them every last detail of her future in Savannah.
    Jolie was used to Lena and her mouth and loved her enough to set aside her own disappointment and let her exalt in this, her last night on the strip. Jolie just lay back on the slant of the windshield and watched the stars, listened with half an ear to Lena’s increasingly far-fetched nonsense till she made one of her curious, magical proclamations, that one day she intended to build a house on the side of a mountain in Colorado and decorate it like the Kremlin, “down to the onion spires and red silk wallpaper.”
    Sam, who had also lain back on the windshield, didn’t laugh or question it, just glanced aside at Jolie and, in a delicate move of communication, lifted one eyebrow in an unspoken acknowledgment that Lena was fun and great and entertaining and lovely—but, hey, was it his imagination, or was she a goof?
    It was the first time in living memory that any man had withstood Lena’s charms long enough to acknowledge this patented truth, making Jolie flash the famous Hoyt grin in reply, one she seldom showed to strangers, which answered, Yes. But we love her anyway.
    Lena was none the wiser, just kept up her steady, stream-of-consciousness prattle till eleven o’clock finally came around and it was time to head back to Hendrix. Even then, she kept talking, Jolie not saying a word on the long ride through the woods, till they stopped at the concession stand to drop Sam off and Jolie turned to say good-bye over the seat, adding in the most natural, reasonable voice, “We’re going to the beach tomorrow, to St. Andrews. Want to go?”
    He said yes without pause, offered to bring towels and sunscreen, blankets and Pepsi; said he could be ready at seven, did they need him to drive or bring ice?
    For the first time that night, there was silence in the car, as Lena was struck momentarily speechless, though she recovered quickly enough,stammered sure, to bring whatever he wanted, that they’d pick him up at nine.
    It made for a quiet drive to the parsonage, Lena not saying a word till she halted in the drive, when she turned to Jolie with a face that was mischievously amused and chanted, “Jolie, Jolie, Jolie—who didn’t want to have supper with no damn Yankee, but went and invited him to the beach for our last run of the summer.”
    Jolie couldn’t deny or explain it, just gave a small shrug in reply. She was gathering her purse to get out when Lena added with teasing smugness, “I assume you’ll want to borrow a bathing suit tomorrow. Which will it be—the red or the black?”
    For a moment, Jolie