Nobody's Child by Austin Boyd

Author:Austin Boyd [Boyd, Austin]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-0-310-59892-3
Publisher: Zondervan
Published: 2011-10-17T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 16

“That lawyer lady bailed her out.”

“Drug money?”

“Not drugs. Men. The paying kind.”

Her ears tuned to the loud conversation of two patrons at the pizza parlor, Laura Ann shoveled in another bite of Auggie’s Old Fashioned sausage and mushroom. The little restaurant was packed for lunch, most of the people showing the effects of the flood. Muddy clothes, water stains on their pants, or knee-high rubber boots — coping with a tragedy that decimated the lower half of town.

Laura Ann dabbed at some pizza sauce on her chin and rolled her eyes.

“What?” Sophia asked in between bites.

Laura Ann nodded her head in the direction of the window, an older woman seated with a man about the same age, both of them outfitted in waders. The woman droned on in a voice loud enough to hear across the crowded room.

Laura Ann whispered, “Don’t you hear what they’re saying about us?” She wagged her head in the direction of the rude lady at the window.

“Every word,” Sophia replied.

Laura Ann smiled, cocking her head to one side. “You don’t show it.”

Sophia shrugged. “I’m an attorney. And a good poker player too.” She shook her head. “Don’t let it bother you. They’re just jealous.”

“Jealous?” Laura Ann asked, polishing off the last bite of her pizza.

“No one’s talking about them,” she said with a big smile. “So they yap about other people just to get noticed.”

“That’s sad,” Laura Ann replied. The pizza, mixed with a stomach full of stress, soured in her gut. She waited for Sophia to finish her last bite, then gathered her things and stood to go.

Main Street of Middlebourne resembled the hybrid of a gold rush town and a national disaster area. Heavy equipment moved into town on lowboys towed behind big tractor rigs, all of them funneling in from the direction of Sistersville on the only passable section of Route 18. State emergency vehicles, news vans, and a Salvation Army food truck belched exhaust as they clogged the town’s main artery. Mud tracked everywhere … red clay slinging off tires and flat chunks of mud squashed on the pavement like earthen cow pies. Up and down Main Street, people moved fast, a hive of bees determined to shovel out of yet another flood. A community knit together by dogged West Virginia determination.

“Does it bother you?” Sophia asked after lunch when both were out of earshot of Auggie’s. “All that talk?” The two wove their way down the crowded sidewalk, loaded with groceries, two bags of jeans — and a receipt from the bank. A three-quarter mile walk lay ahead of them, headed out of town to the Par-Mar gas station, and the cab stand for the town’s part-time taxi.

“Sure it bothers me,” Laura Ann replied. “Especially now. With Daddy gone.”

“Is that typical? These rumors?”

“Folks gossip. You’re a new face and they probably wonder what you’re up to, spreading business cards around town and all.”

“We saw a banker, Laura Ann. That’s hardly newsworthy.”

“It’s big news for some. Uncle Jack’s friends love salacious rumors.

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