Read Online Small Blessings by Martha Woodroof - Free Book Online Page A

true love, Godot—who knew? Rose didn’t like these moments at all. They smacked of the kind of pointless, existential quest for meaning that Mavis’s customers had carried out through the bottom of a glass.
    How funny life was, Rose thought. Two months ago she’d been living in Charlottesville with everything rolling merrily along. Now here she was awash in unknowns again. The only remaining constants were her furniture, her books, and her boyfriend, Ray. And Ray was a constant only because he lived in Washington, and their relationship was a commuter one. Rose was certain the two of them wouldn’t have lasted six weeks in the same town. If they were separated by only a couple of Metro stops, Ray would have almost certainly wanted things from her she’d always assumed she didn’t have to give and didn’t want to have.
    Rose looked down at her jar of blossoms. She’d picked them from the overgrown bush that sprawled along the cottage’s back fence, not wanting to arrive at Marjory Putnam’s house for dinner empty-handed. They were old-fashioned roses, blooming single and double on the same stem, the color of a baby’s ear. Their lush scent was tinged with clove.
    The protectiveness Rose had felt for Marjory in the Book Store came back to her. She immediately lifted her free hand to ring the bell, but then stopped and listened with her finger poised and pointing at the door. How quiet it was. There was no music, no sound of laughter. If this was a party, it must be a very dull one.
    Ring the bell, she told herself sternly. This is your life now, these are your people, and this is what passes for a party. Get on with it …
    The door was quickly opened by Russell Jacobs—tall, bushy browed, with a silver leonine mane of carefully styled hair.
    He struck a pose. “Rose, my dear. How nice of you to come!” In spite of the pose, Russell seemed unnaturally constrained. In the Book Store, he always took stage like an old actor. “I didn’t expect to see you here tonight,” he went on in this new, queer, quiet way. “I stopped by the Book Store today just to say hello, and Mr. Pitts said you were moving.”
    â€œI did move,” Rose said, conscious of her jar of roses and her wrinkled dress—Russell was nattily turned out; Tom Wolfe, gone provincial. “That’s why I’m such a mess. But Marjory was kind enough to invite me, and so here I am.”
    Russell’s jaw dropped. “ Marjory invited you?”
    â€œYes. The day before yesterday. She and Professor Putnam came into the Book Store together.”
    â€œInvited you to what ?” Russell spoke sotto voce like a TV golf announcer.
    â€œWhy, to this!” Rose gestured at the parked cars. “I’d thought it was to be a casual dinner for the three of us, but from the cars and from your answering the door, I can see it’s a party.”
    Russell stepped outside and firmly took her arm, drawing her to the edge of the tiny stoop as though there they were to have some kind of chummy tête-à-tête. Rose looked at him closely. Was he drunk? She couldn’t smell any booze, and he didn’t seem drunk, just peculiar, even for Russ. “You don’t know, do you?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.
    â€œKnow what?” Rose looked up at him blankly.
    â€œMarjory is dead,” Russell said softly. “I’m sorry. I guess nobody knew about your invitation to dinner tonight, and so nobody thought to find you and let you know.”
    Rose stared at him. People overuse the word “sudden,” she thought. It should be saved for times like this, when something comes at you so quickly it smacks the sense out of you. Russell was looking down at her solicitously, his eyes politely sad and concerned, but not really distressed. “My goodness! I had no idea,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
    â€œI know you are.” Russell