Moondance Read Online Free

kitchen. Kevin’s windbreaker was draped over a chair.
    After the couple of months they’d had, she really wanted her arrival to be a surprise. She reached for her cell phone, and when she couldn’t find it, had a flash of it recharging on her kitchen counter. Useless.
    She decided to explore. Kevin would be back eventually. If he wasn’t home in a couple of hours, she’d find a land line and track him down. In the meantime, she’d plan dinner. Maybe write him a story. Maybe even a sexy story. The way she saw it, since classes hadn’t started yet, they had no reason not to spend most of the evening, and tomorrow in bed. Finishing last night’s story .
    Instead of taking her car, she decided to walk. Althea loved to walk, especially along the water, and after driving for the last three hours, she felt in need of exercise. She strode by the row of cottages, and turned toward the center of town, trying to recall where she had seen a grocery store. The breeze was a thick breath and the clouds overhead, oppressive. As the clouds opened up and poured their contents down on her, Althea ducked into the entrance of a small gift shop, and was almost knocked down by a frantic, pear-shaped woman brandishing a broom.
    “Get out, get out, you filthy beast, out!” The woman shook, her short, round body moving with alarming momentum into the teaming water outside. A slight young man wearing a wrinkled white shirt stood behind her with a badminton racquet, his head tilted up, looking down occasionally to make sure he stayed out of the woman’s way. He glanced at Althea.
    “We have bats,” he explained, as Althea spotted a black streak coming at her from the back of the store, dipping close, and then swooping up again. Althea jumped as the man hit the bat with the racquet, knocking it to the floor. He looked at her, as if to apologize.
    “Stuns them so we can sweep them out.”
    The woman was back with the broom. They’re a tag team, Althea thought, as the woman swept the stunned bat out of her store. Althea followed her, balancing the idea of getting drenched by rain, with getting swarmed by bats. The woman, her hair falling into her eyes, attacked the newest bat like a champion curler and with a flourish, swept the stunned creature out into the street, returning inside with a wild whoop.
    Outside, the rain was slowing. Althea moved toward the small animal, which was squirming on the glistening pavement, its jaws moving soundlessly. As she approached it, the bat locked eyes with her. It continued to struggle, flapping its wings as if positioning for takeoff, bouncing a bit, then stopping as if it had run out of fuel.
    Althea didn’t like bats diving over her head, but she wasn’t alarmed by them when they were still. Was it injured? She wasn’t sure, and she wasn’t sure what she’d do if it was. She turned back to the store just as the woman swept another bat into the street, and crouched as it flew past her.
    She looked for the bat on the ground, and didn’t see it at first. Maybe it was okay , she thought, then inhaled sharply as it reappeared, jumping toward her. The bat was a foot away from her now, its little mouth moving as if it was trying to tell her something. As it gazed at her, she felt tension, a free-floating anxiety.
    The bat flew up and she jumped back, instinctively covering her head.

    • • •

    AN HOUR AND A half later, Althea walked back to the cottage with a bottle of their favorite Spanish red, Campo Viejo, a six-pack of local beer, two steaks, the ingredients for a Caesar salad, eggplant, peppers and zucchinis to grill, and Haagen Dazs Caramel Cone Explosion for dessert. In her back pocket was an envelope with writing on it. For K: To be read aloud, after dark .
    As she approached the cottage, she smelled wet green and rotting fish, and heard Kevin’s stereo softly playing a track from Nirvana Unplugged . Then Kevin’s voice. She walked quickly, feeling giddy and light-headed, perfect timing