Ring Around the Rosy Read Free Page A

penchant for gossip and
one-sided conversation. Never listened to anyone. Talked to hear herself talk.
Usually, Susan avoided her, but today, she had a little time and wanted to
forget the phone call. Who better to take her mind off it than Mrs. Meliti?
    “Wasn’t it horrible about that
nice man, Mr. Lucas?” Mrs. Meliti tsk-tsked. “He come in here every day. He
only just lives around the corner. Such a nice man, always with a kind word,
never too busy to talk. I save him cannoli, his favorite. He say I remind him
of his grandmamma, even though I’m not old enough.” Mrs. Meliti wiped her eye
with the corner of her apron. “You remember him, no?”
    Susan remembered him, all right,
but right now it wasn’t a pleasant memory. Not the way she’d seen him last
night. She nodded. Mrs. Meliti didn’t expect a response, anyway. Susan looked
around while she pretended to listen. She loved this store. Like many others in
the area, it was a family-owned business. Angelo Meliti ran things. His wife
and old Mrs. Meliti did all the baking. Amanda, Angelo’s daughter, stood at the
register looking bored, and Tony, Angelo’s son, a good-looking guy with wavy
black hair and an infectious smile, looked busy behind the meat counter. Female
customers nicknamed Tony ‘Mr. Personality.’ Susan watched him flirt shamelessly
with a customer.
    “Our Anthony will be going off to
college soon.” Mrs. Meliti changed the subject. “Eh, lookit him, that boy — so
handsome. He gonna break lots of hearts some day. Heh, he probably already has.
But he’s a good boy. He’ll make a fine husband when the time come.”
    Susan couldn’t help but smile at
the pride in the old woman’s voice. She nodded her way through the
conversation, and at the first opportunity, excused herself to finish shopping.
Mrs. Meliti would talk all day if you let her. Susan could only handle so much.
     
    * * *

 
    “Hey, Horace.” Susan waved at the
building’s maintenance man on the way into her apartment. How that man ever got
any work done sure was a mystery. He always seemed nearby when she came in, as
if he guarded the place.
    “Hey, Susan, great story in this
morning’s paper.”
    “Thanks, Horace. How are you?”
Usually, she liked talking to Horace. He reminded her of her grandfather,
although Horace looked nothing like him. Horace, a thin, almost frail-looking
man with a bald head, was the total opposite of her stocky grandfather, who
still had a full head of silver hair. Maybe it was his quiet voice and
easygoing manner. But sometimes he rambled on about this tenant or that one,
and she’d had enough gossip for one day.
    “I’m okay, on my way to fix the
sink in Mrs. Anderson’s kitchen. I don’t know what that woman does, but it
seems I fix it at least once a week. You take care.” Horace picked up his
toolbox and hurried down the hall,
    Of course, it was Mrs. Anderson,
and if truth be known, they were sweet on each other. Mrs. Anderson used her
leaky faucet and other things to lure Horace to her apartment. Susan shook her
head and giggled. Those two were worse than teenagers. Why didn’t they just get
together already? At their ages they sure wasted a lot of time. Oh, well. To
each his own.
    The minute Susan opened her
apartment door, the message light on her answering machine caught her
attention. It looked like everybody and their brother had called. She pressed
the play button and listened to her messages while she put her groceries away.
    The first, a telemarketer, wanted
to sell her a new roof. The second, she replayed twice to make sure she heard
it correctly.
    “Susan, I’m giving the follow-up
on that murder to Dan Hill. He’s a seasoned reporter. I’ll talk to you later,”
Ernie Price, her editor, said.
    “A seasoned reporter!” Susan
stomped her foot and threw the bread on the counter. “He can’t do that! That’s
my story,” she yelled while the third message, a congratulations, from her
aunt,