Rachel Caine - Duty

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2024-11-24 0 0 49.54KB 7 页 5.9玖币

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DUTY

anoriginal short story by RachelCaine

Miz Grainger had trouble fitting the key in the lock, not because of any problem with either one. Her

hands were shaking so bad thatOlida had to stop herself from reaching out and grabbing the big brass

keyring away from her.Miz Grainger had some kind of a silver bell on the ring that chimed and kept

chiming like Santa’s sleigh, which did not lessen the heat of themidsummer day or make any of them

believe for a second it was Christmas.Miz Grainger bit her lip with enough force to drag tooth-furrows

through the field of her shiny peach-colored lipstick, muffled the bell with her palm, and finally got the

brass key into the hole.

Olida and Rita-Mae breathed a sigh of relief.Zenobia just rolled her eyes in theirracoon -holes of dark

green shadow.Miz Grainger hesitated a second, long enough to makeOlida tense up again,then turned the

key. They all heard the oiled snick as the deadbolt slid back.

"Mary Mother of God,"Miz Grainger whispered shakily, and turned the doorknob. It was a new one,

shiny brass. Her fingers left damp prints on it as she released it and the door opened with a softshhh of

weatherstripping . "Oh. Oh. Oh, I can’t go in there, I can’t."

The three of them looked at each other.Olida felt the weight of responsibility settle and stepped

forward to tapMiz Grainger on the shoulder; she jumped with enough of a snap to dislodge stiff strands

of hair from her carefully sprayed-together beehive.

"Land!" the woman blurted, face as pale and gray as a corpse’s. Her eyes glittered with panic. "I told

you, I can’t go in there. You go on, go do what I’m paying you to do. I’ll just wait here by my car. I’ll

have your money ready when you’re done."

"Ma’am,"Olida said patiently, "It’ll be some hours. There’s a lot of work to things like this.Lotta

cleaning. Now, we all done this before, and our new one didn’t show, so you don’t worry none and just

go get yourself a cold drink. Sit and rest. You come on back in three hours or so and I’ll come out and

tell you what we’ve done. That fair?"

Miz Grainger,Olida knew, was not about to disagree with a five-foot-ten black woman. It only helped

thatOlida was about ten shades darker than any other black woman inParker County,Nebraska, and

therefore ten shades more frightening.Olida didn’t mind that at all.

Miz Grainger nodded at her, a convulsive jerk that let loose some more of herbeehived silver hair. She

nearly backed off the steps untilOlida caught her elbow and steadied her.

That sent the woman immediately and hurriedly down the driveway to her Bonneville and peeling

rubber out ontoMontrainStreet.Olida grinned. Rita-Mae andZenobia grinned back.

"Well, lay-dies, wegonna sit around and stealMiz Grainger’s money or wegonna do some work?"

Olida asked. Rita-Mae promptly set her white trash butt down on the steps and lit up a Camel.Zenobia

checked her eye makeup in a little cracked hand mirror. "You two are just as useless as ever. Rita-Mae,

suck that thing and get in here. You, Miss War Paint, pick up that box."

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