Wife-In-Law Read Online Free Page B

me.”
    Fork poised, Greg voiced the very thought that occurred to me in that instant. “What if they’re drug dealers?”
    “But this is the suburbs,” I protested, still firm in the belief that our location protected us from such awful things. The South has always lagged behind the social cutting edge—maybe because we’re weaned on the Bible and the importance of our heritage—so the “tune in, turn on” movement was pretty much limited to the go-gos down on Tenth Street.
    Greg took a bite of chicken and mulled on that.
    “You’d think drug dealers would want to blend in,” I went on, “but those two are gonna stick out like a sore thumb out here,” I said. “He looks like that hairy guy from ZZ Top.” We in the South knew all about ZZ Top long before the rest of the country caught on. “And he has tattoos .” I took a bite of corn.
    “What’s she like?” Greg asked, assuming there was a she. In our world, single people didn’t buy houses in the burbs.
    “She looks like a kid. Frizzy red hair, no makeup, freckles.” I leaned closer to confide, “I don’t think they’re even married. She said they’d been ‘together’ since they met at a love-in at Piedmont Park when she was sixteen.”
    Greg’s proper Presbyterian genes got in a wad. “I’m gonna kill the developer. And those agents in the sales office. We have covenants to keep out riffraff.”
    Like me?
    I sighed. “I checked the covenants. There isn’t a ‘no hippies’ clause. Or ‘no tattoos.’ And not a word about having bad furniture.”
    “Damn.” Greg slammed his tea to the table with such force, it sloshed onto my white cutwork cloth. “Just damn.” Glaring into the middle distance, he shoved in a mouthful of beans and chewed with excessive force. When he finished, his eyes narrowed. “Well, there’s certainly a restriction about doing anything illegal. One of my clients is a captain with APD. I’ll have a word with him. Get him to check them out.”
    “Great.” Greg was one of the most connected men I’d ever met, so I gladly entrusted the matter into his capable hands. “But in the meantime,” I cautioned, “it’s our Christian duty to be nice to them. They might not be drug dealers, and they are our only neighbors.”
    “I don’t suppose he plays tennis,” Greg said.
    “I doubt it. He’s a plumber. And his beard would definitely get in the way.”
    “Just damn.” Greg fell silent, focusing on his food for the rest of the meal, with only an occasional burp of profanity between bites.
    Maybe dessert would help a little. He loved my devil’s food cake. So did I, which was why I’d gained fifteen pounds since we married, but Greg said it only made me more voluptuous.
    I waited to pick up his plate till he laid his silverware across it, the signal he was done. “Would you like some coffee? I made your favorite for dessert.”
    He lightened up a little. “Tea’s fine.”
    Sure enough, a big slab of my moist, sweet confection did the trick, and he came out of his funk.
    I cleared the rest of the table while he ate it. Greg had never touched a dirty dish, a matter of pride with me. “Why don’t you go stretch out and watch some TV after you finish?” I suggested over my shoulder as I started loading the dishwasher. When I got no response, I turned to find him frowning again.
    “Honey, come sit down,” he said gently. He never called me honey unless it was something awful. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
    My heart contracted to the size of a walnut. Oh, God. Was I going to lose my house? Had they fired him? Was that what had happened at work?
    I don’t remember sitting down, but I did.
    Greg took my hand in his and said, “I had a hell of a day till I opened my mail this afternoon and found out I passed my CPA,” he said as if he was telling me he had cancer, instead of reaching one of his most important goals.
    Thank God, thank God! He hadn’t lost his job. But why wasn’t he