Rust On the Razor Read Online Free Page B

Sally, a distant cousin.
    Sally nodded to me. Hiram and Shannon ignored my outstretched hand. They both had Scott’s piercing blue eyes. Hiram was in a gray polyester suit. Shannon wore a long-sleeve light-peach blouse and a calf-length dark-green skirt. She wore absolutely no makeup.
    Scott joined us. “The doctor’s here. We can meet with him.” I held back, but Scott took my arm and said, “You come too.”
    We met his mother in the hall and entered a conference room, full of furniture made of blond wood.
    After we were all seated the doctor said, “I just examined Mr. Carpenter.” The doctor was an attractive man in his mid-thirties. He had a small mustache, a slight stoop, a thin torso, and the most wonderful green eyes, which looked carefully at each of us as he spoke.
    â€œWe admitted him because he was having the signs and symptoms of having a heart attack. He will be in the cardiac care unit while we monitor him and give him some blood tests. We won’t know anything for sure for a day or two, until we get some of the tests back. We have to find out how much damage has been done. At times a person
with mild symptoms has massive damage; sometimes it is the reverse.”
    â€œWill he need an operation?” Mrs. Carpenter asked.
    â€œWe’ll have to see after the tests are in.”
    â€œHe’s not that old,” Shannon said. “He’s always been healthy. Why him?”
    â€œNo one has an answer to that,” the doctor said.
    After the conference, it was agreed that Hiram would take Shannon and the cousin home. They would come back later. Mrs. Carpenter and Mary would keep watch in the hospital.
    Scott said, “I’d like to grab some breakfast and then come back here for a while. Then we’ll go to the house.”
    We walked down to the cafeteria. Scott looked at the watery eggs and stale toast at the breakfast buffet, gazed around at the white-clad hospital workers, and said, “This is more hospital than I need right now.”
    We strolled the two blocks to the Waffle House to eat. As soon as we left the air-conditioned hospital, the humidity struck.
    â€œDoesn’t it cool off at night or in the mornings?” I asked.
    â€œSome,” Scott said.
    I breathed deeply. “Fresh pine,” I said.
    â€œWe’re halfway in the middle of the Jefferson National Forest. Jefferson National Swamp is five miles that way.” He pointed east.
    I eyed the towering trees that lined the street and met above our heads. I knew some were pines and others hardwoods, but that’s as good as my botany gets.
    The headline on the Burr County Clarion outside the Waffle House said, “High School Hero Queer.” I stuck a quarter in and bought a paper. I paid for the two that were left in the stack and tossed them in a pink plastic trash can inside the door.

    Patrons filled half the booths at the restaurant. A row of men sat along a counter. Most of them wore T-shirts or flannel shirts with cut-off sleeves revealing burly biceps. I felt like a stranger walking into a bar in an old western. All talk stopped. All eyes followed us. A waitress in a beehive hairdo and, I swear to God, with a pencil sticking out of her hair said, “Sit anywheres you want.”
    We picked a booth that looked out on the passing traffic. Across the street sat a huge old house with graying paint, several pillars at an angle, and a porch that needed propping up. I couldn’t see anything through its windows. Everything in the restaurant except, I hoped, the food seemed to be made of plastic: chairs, table, salt and pepper shakers, cash register. Even the menus were covered with it.
    The waitress seemed to take an inordinate amount of time to arrive at our table for our order. When she showed up, she smiled shyly at Scott. “You don’t remember me,” she said to him.
    He smiled at her. “Tell me your name.”
    â€œI’m Louise Bottoms.