The Southern Book Club's Guide to Slaying Vampires - Grady Hendrix Page 0,4
lingered around the dessert table making chitchat. Patricia lurked in her chair until no one seemed to be watching, then darted out of the house.
As she cut across Marjorie’s front yard, she heard a noise that sounded like Hey. She stopped and looked for the source.
“Hey,” Kitty Scruggs repeated.
Kitty lurked behind the line of parked cars in Marjorie’s driveway, a cloud of blue smoke hovering over her head, a long thin cigarette between her fingers. Next to her stood Maryellen something-or-other, also smoking. Kitty waved Patricia over with one hand.
Patricia knew that Maryellen was a Yankee from Massachusetts who told everyone that she was a feminist. And Kitty was one of those big women who wore the kind of clothes people charitably referred to as “fun”—baggy sweaters with multicolored handprints on them, chunky plastic jewelry. Patricia suspected that getting entangled with women like this was the first step on a slippery slope that ended with her wearing felt reindeer antlers at Christmas, or standing outside Citadel Mall asking people to sign a petition, so she approached them with caution.
“I liked what you did in there,” Kitty said.
“I should have found time to read the book,” Patricia told her.
“Why?” Kitty asked. “It was boring. I couldn’t make it past the first chapter.”
“I need to write Marjorie a note,” Patricia said. “To apologize.”
Maryellen squinted against the smoke and sucked on her cigarette.
“Marjorie got what she deserved,” she said, exhaling.
“Listen.” Kitty placed her body between the two of them and Marjorie’s front door, just in case Marjorie was watching and could read lips. “I’m having some people read a book and come over to my house next month to talk about it. Maryellen’ll be there.”
“I couldn’t possibly find the time to belong to two book clubs,” Patricia said.
“Trust me,” Kitty said. “After today, Marjorie’s book club is done.”
“What book are you reading?” Patricia asked, groping for reasons to say no.
Kitty reached into her denim shoulder bag and pulled out the kind of cheap paperback they sold at the drugstore.
“Evidence of Love: A True Story of Passion and Death in the Suburbs,” she said.
It took Patricia aback. This was one of those trashy true crime books. But clearly Kitty was reading it and you couldn’t call someone else’s taste in books trashy, even if it was.
“I’m not sure that’s my kind of book,” Patricia said.
“These two women were best friends and they chopped each other up with axes,” Kitty said. “Don’t pretend you don’t want to know what happened.”
“Jude is obscure for a reason,” Maryellen growled.
“Is it just the two of you?” Patricia asked.
A voice piped up behind her.
“Hey, everyone,” Slick Paley said. “What’re y’all talking about over here?”
CHAPTER 2
The last bell of the day rang somewhere deep inside the bowels of Albemarle Academy and the double doors opened and disgorged a mob of small children strapped beneath bulging, spine-bending book bags. They hobbled to the car pool area like elderly gnomes, bent double beneath three-ring binders and social studies books. Patricia saw Korey and pecked at the horn. Korey looked up and broke into a loping run that made Patricia’s heart hurt. Her daughter slid into the passenger seat, hauling her book bag onto her lap.
“Seat belts,” Patricia said, and Korey clicked hers in.
“Why’re you picking me up?” Korey asked.
“I thought we could stop by the Foot Locker and look at cleats,” Patricia said. “Didn’t you say you needed new ones? Then I was in the mood for TCBY.”
She felt her daughter begin to glow, and as they drove over the West Ashley Bridge, Korey explained to her mom about all the different kind of cleats the other girls had and why she needed bladed cleats and they had to be hard ground cleats and not soft ground cleats even though they played on grass because hard ground cleats were faster. When she stopped for breath, Patricia said, “I heard about what happened at recess.”
All the light went out inside Korey, and Patricia immediately regretted saying