All Bedlam Courses Past (part two hundred sixteen)

All Bedlam Courses Past
Chapter Eight
Things Relative
(part two hundred sixteen)
“He can have them without a warrant. If he asks. But this.” She slid Myra’s from the Buckley folder (whatever her affairs looked like to the casual visitor, they were in order).
Dear Miss Gremot,
I have never written to you, and the sight of my address on the envelope may have caused you to wonder why I should. Or it may be that the bordering of this note alerts you, as your connection to my family existed due to my mother’s fondness for you. I do not know when you and I last spoke personally.
However, it is my sad duty to inform you of my mother’s passing. She suffered an accident while touring on an excursion boat; I mention this only because the newspapers have, and the story may have been seen by you. I recall that my mother once had owned one of the publications in your city of Cookesville. How odd that seems!
I enclose a card, giving details of the funeral, should you wish to attend.
“Arch,” Weem commented.
“She didn’t like me. And you know the Vanguard hasn’t carried the story at all. I ought to tip off Samuel and make a hero of him.”
“Lovely Luce,” Weem read, trying one of Manfred’s. He peered up.
“If I were Maude or Julie, he’d alliterate accordingly.”
I am in a French village. I’ll remind myself when I spot a sign someplace what it’s called, one of those St-Martin-la-Mer or Bains-les-Gaspilleurs, or what-have-yous. I’m at my usual post, a hard little chair on a high hotel porch, an awning overhead. I nurse a cocktail, and pretend to write, so as to be left alone. I ask myself, what amuses? What entertains? Nothing does.
Weem broke off, and Élucide watched him mentally digest a further paragraph. She had recommended to Manfred Ebrach’s second book, The Seven Lies, subtitled “Why We Are Not Good”. Not because Manfred could be entertained by reading, and not because Ebrach’s vignettes amounted quite to entertainment, but because the cover had no titling, only a diagrammatic linkage of seven beasts, silver on red. To be seen with such a thing was to make yourself interesting; it was the best advice she could offer, in counter to the constant complaint. Imagine whose attention you might attract.
“Notice I would not send him one free, because there are livings to be made.”
228
Bedlam
All Bedlam Courses Past (part two hundred seventeen)
(2025, Stephanie Foster)
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