"Winter-MoonGarden" - читать интересную книгу автора (Winter Laurel)

They scrammed. Before Susan's spilled water could reach the edge of the table
and trickle into her lap, the only evidence of family was the sound of the car
leaving the driveway.

She didn't even put the encrusted pan in the sink to soak. Tears ran down her
cheeks and into her mouth, tainting each swallow with salt water. When she
couldn't stand another bite -- or another look at her family's four gleaming
plates staring at her like eyes, she pushed her chair back and headed somewhere,
anywhere, banging the door behind her.

The May air made her hug herself. She strode down the sidewalk, turning left and
right at random, crossing in the middle of the block, cutting through alleys. By
the time her walk had mellowed into a stroll, she was a goodly ways from home in
God knew what direction. The exertion made the temperature perfect. If she just
let her feet move, she could pretend that she didn't have PMS and a family of
picky eaters --rude, picky eaters -- and dirty dishes waiting.

She walked past a garage sale.

A garage sale? On a Tuesday evening? Even though Susan didn't "do" garage sales
-- she detested them, really -- she reversed direction.

The narrow, cracked driveway led to a sagging detached single garage almost
buried in morning glories, Boston ivy, and two or three other types of vines
that Susan didn't recognize. In an ancient lawn chair with half the webbing
drooping underneath sat a woman with steel-gray hair that looked as if it were
trying to fly away, despite the fact that there was no wind.

Susan tried to adopt the casual "look things over and ignore the fact that
you're standing in the midst of a stranger's possessions" attitude of garage
sale patrons everywhere. She failed miserably. "Hello," she said to the woman.
"Why are you having a garage sale in the evening? On Tuesday?"

The woman looked up from the solitaire game she had laid out on a rickety TV
tray. "Can't stand to get up early," she said. "Just having my breakfast now."

Susan gulped. Also on the TV tray was a mug of beer with an egg floating in it.
"Oh," she said.

The woman eyed her. "Can't stand crowds, either. That's why I never hold my
sales on weekends." She took a long swig of beer; the egg slid down her throat.

"Ah," she said. "You've got a dab of paprika sauce right by your mouth."

Susan automatically put her tongue out and started swiping it around.

"Other side," said the woman. "Lower. Got it." She bent back to her solitaire,
leaving Susan to wonder how someone could have distinguished paprika sauce at
five paces in the graying light of the May evening.