Murder in the English Department Read Online Free Page A

indeed. Protectiveness. Where did she get this protective streak? Was it because she didn’t have kids of her own?
    â€˜Christmas only comes once a year,’ Shirley said firmly. ‘One time when you can pull yourself away from the books to be with your family.’
    With that, Northanger Abbey was closed for the day, and the three women proceeded into the living room.
    Lynda and Debbie were sitting on their husbands’ laps, looking far more like sisters than Nan and Shirley. Both young women had newly permed hair. They wore complementing long dresses, one pale green and the other pale blue. It had taken Nan months to distinguish between them, to remember that Lynda was married to Tom and Debbie was married to Bob. Nan wondered how much of this was her own resistance. Debbie, with her quiet humour, was very different from earnest Lynda. She tried to be kind to the younger women, to ask about their interior decorating and their plans for children—which, from the looks of Debbie, were right on schedule. But somehow the conversation always finished with that cloying sensation, like teeth pulling on Turkish Toffee, leaving grotesque pastel strings hardening in the silence.
    Joe lifted his cutglass punch cup. Nan remembered when Lisa had bought her parents the set at Penneys, a twentieth anniversary gift.
    â€˜Here’s to the queen and her court,’ Joe slurred, ‘a Christmas toast.’
    â€˜Who won the game?’ asked Nan, trying to divert the centre of attention.
    â€˜The Packers,’ said Joe.
    The eggnog was mollifying everyone.
    â€˜So how about a little yuletide music?’ Shirley asked, in a voice Nan would have sworn was their mother’s. Easy on the old nog, she reminded herself. Shirley squatted down on her thick haunches, rummaging through a collection of old Lawrence Welks for the Bing Crosby ’78.
    As Joe was pouring a second ample round, El Bingo joined the party.
    â€˜Now that’s the way “White Christmas” was meant to be sung,’ smiled Nan, pleasantly enveloped in this safe, familiar ambience. ‘You should have heard the racket coming from the Superway Center.’
    As always there was too much dinner on the big oak table. Too much turkey, sage dressing, chestnut dressing, cinnamon yams, turnips, parsnips, creamed onions, mashed potatoes and plenty of hot gravy. Too many sweets from Shirley’s mince pie to Lynda’s pumpkin pie to Debbie’s black and white fudge. Far too much booze, what with all the wine Nan had brought and all the rum Joe had dumped into the eggnog. Shirley and Joe usually went broke for months after the holidays, but they would never dream of serving less. Not at a big family celebration.
    Nan didn’t notice the fight begin.
    â€˜Whaddaya mean, you want to live at Berkeley,’ Joe was saying through a mouthful of mince pie.
    â€˜It’s hard, Dad, the commute. I don’t have any time for my college friends.’
    â€˜What’s wrong with your Hayward friends, Lisa? They were good enough for the first eighteen years. Those girls from the high school are still around. You told me yourself that Darlene is working at Capwell’s. And isn’t what’s-her-name-Annamarie at the Alameda County Hairdressers’ College? What’s wrong with your Hayward friends—and with your family, for that matter?’
    Valiantly Lisa held back the tears.
    Shirley nodded caution to her husband. She agreed with Joe about Berkeley, but she knew he wouldn’t make his point this way. Nobody won when you lost your temper.
    â€˜Naw,’ he waved away his wife’s hint, ‘don’t you go giving me none of your “keep it private” looks.’ He swallowed the last piece of pie as if it were Milk of Magnesia. ‘Naw, I say this is family business, whether Miss Priss is going to leave home and live with all those street junkies and queers and weirdos.’ He glanced at