Written in Stone (A Books by the Bay Mystery)
sing on and never be still. Willis was like that. He was so full of life, so full of energy. But now that I’m reading the whole poem, that line feels negative. Like the song is a restless spirit. A ghost that can’t find peace.” Her hands curled around the edge of the paper and she swallowed hard. She wanted to rip it to shreds, but that would do nothing but relieve her of a fraction of her anger.
Millay sighed in relief when Dixie skated over with the coffee carafe and an extra mug. “Your food will be out in a sec.” She held up a warning finger and wagged it at Millay. “And don’t tell me you’re not hungry, missy. Your face is almost as green as your hair. You need to fill up that flat belly and get some pink in your cheeks.”
“I hate pink,” Millay grumbled.
Dixie covered her ears in mock horror and zipped off to the kitchen.
Olivia poured coffee for Millay and refilled her own cup. “Did you research this after giving up on sleep?”
“Yep.”
Olivia studied her friend. “Were you upset about Willis?”
Millay was quiet for a long time. She sipped her coffee and gazed out the window. Without turning to face Olivia, she began to speak softly, almost inaudibly. “What happened to Munin really got to me. I didn’t even know her, so it doesn’t make sense, but this stuff with the KKK makes me so angry I can’t see straight . . .” She drew in a deep breath. “Look at me. I’m a mutt. A potpourri of races.” She snorted. “That will be the only time you’ll hear me use the word potpourri in a sentence.”
Sensing she needed encouragement, Olivia said, “Do you think Munin was an outcast? Do you identify with that?”
At first, she didn’t think Millay would reply, but she finally met Olivia’s eyes and nodded. “Do you know what it was like to be in a southern school with my skin tone, my eye shape, and my hair color? Harris had it right when he said high school was hell.”
Olivia was stunned. “But you’re gorgeous. You could be on the cover of any beauty magazine. Are you telling me that being exotic caused you pain?”
“Yeah, and you nailed the reason why. Exotic isn’t in when you’re a teenager. Tall, blond, bouncy, and white is in. I’ve been called everything from a gook to a spick to a towel head. Those dumb-ass bitches in my school actually thought I was Middle Eastern. To them, anything different was bad. Worthy of punishment. I got notes in my locker, had people get up and move if I sat at their lunch table, and heard my name whispered seconds before the whole class bust out laughing. This lasted for four years. I wasn’t invited to parties, I had no date for the prom, for homecoming, for anything. That’s why I ended up with older guys. They didn’t seem to mind that my skin was the color of café au lait or that I could curse in Filipino. Of course, my being with those men provided the blondies with fresh fodder. They added ‘slut’ to my long list of flattering nicknames.”
“That’s awful, Millay,” Olivia said. After her grandmother had whisked her away from Oyster Bay and placed her in an elite boarding school, Olivia found herself on the social fringes too. In the eyes of both the teachers and students, a family’s lineage carried the upmost importance, so when it became known that Olivia’s father was a lowly fisherman, her classmates excluded her from activities and complained about the presence of rotten fish odor whenever she was around.
She shared this with Millay. “I guess that’s why we get along,” Olivia said to her friend.
“And I guess that’s why we write.” Millay moved her coffee cup to make room for platters of blueberry pancakes and sausage and watched as Dixie put a dish of eggs scrambled with ground sirloin on the floor for Haviland.
“Get that down your throats, gals,” Dixie ordered and skated over to the
Cats
booth.
Olivia doctored her pancakes with butter and syrup and then began to cut them up into bite-sized pieces. “After I finish critiquing Rawlings’ chapter, I’m going to call the Locklears’ attorney. I’d like to see if there’s anything I can do for Talley, but I also want to find out more about their family. Especially Natalie. And then I’ll track down the Lumbee chief. If there were any hate crimes directed toward her people, she’d know.”
Millay swallowed a mouthful of sausage. “The chief’s a woman? That is so cool. But why would she tell you anything? You’re a total
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