Living Dead in Dallas

Hoyt, who was a buddy of Jason’s. I sawSid Matt Lancaster, the ancient lawyer, bundled up beside his wife.
    Tara was sitting with her fiancé, Benedict Tallie, who was inevitably and regrettably called “Eggs.” With them was Benedict’s best friend, JB du Rone. When I saw JB, my spirits began to rise, and so did my repressed libido. JB could have been on the cover of a romance novel, he was so lovely. Unfortunately, he didn’t have a brain in his head, as I’d discovered on our handful of dates. I’d often thought I’d hardly have to put up any mental shield to be with JB, because he had no thoughts to read.
    “Hey, how ya’ll doing?”
    “We’re great!” Tara said, with her party-girl face on. “How about you? I haven’t seen you in a coon’s age!” Her dark hair was cut in a short pageboy, and her lipstick could have lit a fire, it was so hot. She was wearing off-white and black with a red scarf to show her team spirit, and she and Eggs were sharing a drink in one of the paper cups sold in the stadium. It was spiked; I could smell the bourbon from where I stood. “Move over, JB, and let me sit with you,” I said with an answering smile.
    “Sure, Sookie,” he said, looking very happy to see me. That was one of JB’s charms. The others included white perfect teeth, an absolutely straight nose, a face so masculine yet so handsome that it made you want to reach out and stroke his cheeks, and a broad chest and trim waist. Maybe not quite as trim as it used to be, but then, JB was human, and that was a Good Thing. I settled in between Eggs and JB, and Eggs turned to me with a sloppy smile.
    “Want a drink, Sookie?”
    I am kind of spare on drinking, since I see its results every day. “No, thank you,” I said. “How you been doing, Eggs?”
    “Good,” he said, after considering. He’d had more to drink than Tara. He’d had too much to drink.
    We talked about mutual friends and acquaintances until the kickoff, after which the game was the sole topic of conversation. The Game, broadly, because every game for the past fifty years lay in the collective memory of Bon Temps, and this game was compared to all other games, these players to all others. I could actually enjoy this occasion a little, since I had developed my mental shielding to such an extent. I could pretend people were exactly what they said, since I was absolutely not listening in.
    JB snuggled closer and closer, after a shower of compliments on my hair and my figure. JB’s mother had taught him early on that appreciated women are happy women, and it was a simple philosophy that had kept JB’s head above water for some time.
    “You remember that doctor at that hospital, Sookie?” he asked me suddenly, during the second quarter.
    “Yes. Dr. Sonntag. Widow.” She’d been young to be a widow, and younger to be a doctor. I’d introduced her to JB.
    “We dated for a while. Me and a doctor,” he said wonderingly.
    “Hey, that’s great.” I’d hoped as much. It had seemed to me that Dr. Sonntag could sure use what JB had to offer, and JB needed. . . well, he needed someone to take care of him.
    “But then she got rotated back to Baton Rouge,” he told me. He looked a little stricken. “I guess I miss her.” A health care system had bought our little hospital, and the emergency room doctors were brought in for four months at a stretch. His arm tightened around my shoulders. “But it’s awful good to see you,” he reassured me.
    Bless his heart. “JB, you could go to Baton Rouge to see her,” I suggested. “Why don’t you?”
    “She’s a doctor. She doesn’t have much time off.”
    “She’d make time off for you.”
    “Do you think so?”
    “Unless she’s an absolute idiot,” I told him.
    “I might do that. I did talk to her on the phone the other night. She did say she wished I was there.”
    “That was a pretty big hint, JB.”
    “You think?”
    “I sure do.”
    He looked perkier. “Then I’m fixing to drive to Baton Rouge tomorrow,” he said again. He kissed my cheek. “You make me feel good, Sookie.”
    “Well, JB, right back at you.” I gave him a peck on the lips, just a quick one.
    Then I saw Bill staring a hole in me.
    He and Portia were in the next section of seats, close to the bottom. He had twisted around and was looking up at me.
    If I’d planned it, it couldn’t have worked out better. This was a magnificent Screw-him moment.
    And it was ruined.
    I just wanted him.
    I turned my