Perilously Fun Fiction: A Bundle by Pauline Jones (best fiction novels of all time .TXT) 📕

than a lot, she noted with a grin. The aunts must have decided to challenge Imelda Marcos’s position as the Queen of Shoes.

Among the trunks, she found her mother’s. It had sat at the foot of her mother’s bed until they left town so many years ago. She did a cobweb check and was surprised to find her path relatively free of sticky obstructions. The floor was dusty, so she crouched in front of the trunk and teetered for a moment until she found her balance again. Her elbow bumped one shoebox tower and sent it toppling, but she didn’t let the shower of paper that erupted from the boxes distract her.

Now that she was here, she felt a strange reluctance to disturb the past. The musty smell of damp and old assailed her nostrils as her feelings swirled in uncertain patterns. Did she want to do this? She’d been so angry with Lila for deceiving her about her father that she hadn’t stopped to think about how it might affect her. What if she found him and didn’t like him? What if he was as annoying as her mother? What if—

She stopped, trying to avoid the thought, but it came anyway.

What if he didn’t like her?

“This could be such a bad idea,” she told the boxes.

She could walk away now. She hadn’t crossed any “points of no return” yet. Once she saw a face, had a name, it would be harder to walk away. Unless she’d already passed that point? She looked at the lid and knew she couldn’t leave it alone. If she did, her aunts would take her choice away. For whatever reasons their busy and confusing brains had conjured up, they didn’t want her to know who her father was. It was her right to know—even if she didn’t act on that knowledge.

The trunk wasn’t locked, but it resisted opening after so many years. She had to hold it with one hand while she shone the light in.

On top was a framed picture of her mother and a man. Luci reached for the picture with hands that trembled, then let the lid close again. She took a deep breath, then looked at the photograph. It was old and a bit fuzzy. Whoever had been holding the camera wasn’t good with it. Their clothes—Lila’s the worst the sixties had to offer, and her companion’s the uniform Miss Hermi had sighed over—were in the light, leaving their faces in shadow. His was even harder to see than Lila’s because of his hat. Only his jaw line, strong and well-defined, gave any sense of his face.

Luci traced that jaw. “Are you my father?”

In the distance, she heard Miss Weena call again. Luci sighed, then turned her attention to the papers she’d knocked over.

“Dollar bills?” A shoebox full of dollar bills? A quick check of a few more boxes indicated they all contained bills, not shoes. “What? Now they’re afraid of banks and large bills? Oh my.”

She finished and turned to leave, the photograph tucked under her arm. Later. She’d deal with it and all those unsettling feelings it stirred up...later.

It was easy for Mickey to persuade his partner, Kevin Delaney, to take their break at Cafe du Monde. Delaney was always happy to go where the fat content was high.

Open twenty-four hours to locals and tourists, it served its famous cafe au lait, a strong chicory and milk-laced coffee, and beignets, square doughnuts fried in oil and liberally doused with powdered sugar. Sitting under the canopy, there was always the chatter of people to provide counter-point to the plaintive ballads of the jazz musicians plying their trades for tips, while overhead, slowly spinning fans moved the humid air enough to provide an illusion of cool.

“You want the last beignet?” Delaney asked, his hand hovering over it.

Mickey shook his head, his hand cupping the cooling coffee as Delaney snagged a lone golden square. Idly Mickey wondered how coffee could cool when it was so damn hot. It was easier, more comfortable to think about coffee than to dwell on last night.

“I guess that means you don’t want another order?” Delaney made it a hopeful question. He was a big man with a large, shaggy head of hair, a barrel chest and gentle brown eyes.

Mickey looked at him in resignation. “What do you care? You know you’ll eat them all anyway.” Delaney gave him an injured look and Mickey sighed. “Fine. I’ll take another coffee.” He’d need to keep the caffeine level in his blood high if he were going to get through the day. The headache had survived the night.

Delaney placed their order, then turned to look at Mickey. “You really need to lighten up, Ross. You’re gonna have a heart attack.”

A gleam of humor lit Mickey’s glum expression. “You’re telling me to lighten up? After you just scarfed six beignets?”

Delaney patted his bulk. “I have a large frame to maintain. Unlike you, my anal retentive friend. You worry the details too much. Get some perspective, step back and look at the big picture once in awhile.”

“I tried. But you were blocking my view.”

Delaney grinned, his good humor unfazed. He might have retorted, but the food arrived. He leaned forward, trying to ease his wallet out of his back pocket. It was wedged.

Mickey sighed, extracting his wallet from the inside pocket of his last good suit. He tossed a few bills onto the waiting tray and watched as the waiter left without returning any change. Maybe he’d sensed Mickey’s building financial crisis and had decided to make sure he got his tip.

“I’ll get the next one, Ross.”

“You’ll have to. By the time I buy a new car and new suits and pay the rise in my insurance rates—that’s if they don’t drop me—” He shook his head.

“Too bad about your wheels.”

“Yeah, that’s what my agent said. Right before he reminded me that I chose not to get rental car coverage. I asked him how I’m supposed to get to