Rock of Ages Read Online Free Page A

counterphobic. She had always tried to attack, to embrace that which scared her.
    That night, she thought that maybe what scared her was the world itself.
    It took her two days to get everything more or less in order, and on the third day she left. Cathy Rayner was still waving, a little sadly she thought, as she turned a corner.
    Now, eight days later, Georgia lies defeated on her marshmallow mattress.
    She is thinking about Jenny, about Justin and Leeza, about how anyone could possibly want to buy this old house, about yard sales and the strange noise the gas heater is making and Forsythia Crumpler and then back to Jenny.
    She finally gets up in the dark and turns off the artificial rainfall. She sits in a chair and reads by the bedside lamp for another hour, listening to the old house’s arthritic creaking, then rises to shower and make her breakfast.
    She is in the refurbished kitchen, which will always be too small, but at least it has bright counter tops and late 20 th -century appliances, even a dishwasher. By the time Justin comes in, she has made some coffee and is slicing a grocery-store bagel.
    He mumbles a good morning and leans against the counter. He is a handsome boy, except Georgia has to stop thinking of him as a boy. He’s 27 years old, and has lived in what she thinks of as the wild for two years. But with his hair uncombed and the sleep still on him, he might be the fifth-grader she always had to call at least twice before he would rise for school. He has her eyes, bright and full of life, her cheekbones, and her tan, aided by the Guatemalan sun. His hair, unfashionably long, flips up at its ends the way hers does.
    â€œStill can’t sleep?” he asks her.
    â€œNot always. Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t. I can nap.”
    â€œWhat that old lady said …” he begins.
    Georgia pours her son a cup of coffee. “She was right. Hell, I should have done more. I should have nagged you to go see her. I just didn’t know how bad off she was.”
    She looks out the kitchen window. It’s barely dawn now, and individual trees cast long shadows in the golden light. It’s as lovely as East Geddie gets. A rabbit hops—safe for now from Kenny’s beagles—across the back yard. It disappears in the tall grass behind the old shed where clothes once were washed with lye soap.
    â€œWhat was she like?” Justin asks. “I don’t really remember her very well.”
    â€œCousin Jenny? Well, she was quiet, kind of country-seeming, I guess. Her husband Harold was kind of a mean redneck, although I don’t think he ever hit her or anything. I just remember him using the N-word a lot and being kind of a bully.”
    Actually, Georgia admits to herself, she never really cared that much for Jenny, despite (or maybe because of) all that Jenny did for her over the years. She was her first cousin, but she was 27 years older, more like an aunt. She sent Georgia birthday money, no more than five dollars ever, until she was well into her 20s, and Georgia would feel obligated to write her a thank-you note.
    Once, Jenny asked her to please not mention the birthday money to Harold, who was known to be close with a dollar.
    What it came down to, Georgia knows, is that Jenny reminded her of everything she always wanted to leave behind. Jenny had looked after her mother after her father died, forcing the tight-fisted Harold to build a room for her on the back of their house, connected by a walkway. When Century died, Jenny was at her bedside not driving away from East Geddie as fast as she could, damn glad to be out of there .
    On Georgia’s visits to East Geddie before her own father’s death, old neighbors and friends would come by to visit, or—on rarer occasions—Georgia would visit them. Jenny was one of their few common points of reference.
    That Jenny McLaurin, everyone agreed, was a good woman.
    Georgia would nod her head, knowing that the