Polkacide (38 page)

Scattered applause rippled up from the
crowd.

I took a deep breath and steadied
myself. The words kept coming. "Somebody asked me what I'm going to
do next. What are my plans? Where am I going?"

I looked across the stage, where Peg
stood, watching.

"Well, it's time I gave them
an answer."

I smiled at Peg. It had just
come to me. In that moment when I'd looked out over the sea of
faces, the best moment of my life, I'd made up my mind.

When I thought of L.A., I
knew no one out there cared that my life had crashed. No one would
miss me if I stayed away for good.

But here was different.
Here, I might be nagged, teased, gossiped about, loved, or
hated...but I'd never be forgotten. Like it or not, this place had
one thing going for it that no other place in the world could
claim.

"Want to know where I'm
going?" I winked at Peg, then pointed both index fingers down at
the stage. At the ground underneath it. "
Right here
."

It was my
home
. For better or
worse.

"I'm not going
anywhere
!"

My home
. And it always
would
be.

This time, when I looked
back, Peg was running toward me. As the crowd roared and clapped,
she grabbed my face and kissed me on the cheek.

Then she shoved her way in
front of the mic. "You heard my daughter-in-law, people! She's
staying!"

Tears were still pouring,
but they were tears of joy. I thought of Dad, and I knew he'd be
happy for me, and that made me even happier. We'd left so many
things unsaid when he was alive, but maybe this made up for some of
them.

Peg grabbed my hand and
pumped it in the air like I was a champion prizefighter. "Let's get
this polka party started! Hit it, Eddie!"

I heard the drummer's sticks
cracking together, counting out the first beats, and then the band
burst back into gear. This time, they played the polka classic
"E.I.O."

All through the audience,
people whooped and danced and waved hankies and ribbons. As I
watched them three-stepping and spinning in circles, I realized I
was okay with it. Back at Dad's wake, I'd hated the partying so
soon after his death; it had seemed disrespectful. But here was
another party on the heels of death, and it didn't bother me. If
anything, I was glad to be a part of it. Maybe fending off the
greatest grief, closest to the point of losing someone, wasn't so
wrong after all.

And maybe I'd changed enough to see
it. Which made me wonder. And worry, to be honest.

How much more was I going to change,
anyway?

Heck, I was already so far
gone, I danced around the stage with Peg without giving it a second
thought. That was something I wouldn't have been caught dead doing
a week earlier.

And a little later, when
Eddie brought up the bet we'd made, I even played a number on
accordion. Years ago, I'd sworn never to pick up a button box
again, yet there I was, playing it in front of thousands of
people.

But don't get the wrong idea
about me. I'm still the same old Lottie in lots of ways. I played
the
heck
out of
that accordion, it's true. I won the bet with Eddie, and he handed
me fifty bucks on the spot.

But does that mean I liked
playing that song? Does it mean I love polka again? Will I be a
good little polka chick from now on, always trying to fit in, never
making any waves?

Don't bet on it.

*****

About the Author

Samantha Shepherd writes
mystery and crime fiction. For news on her latest projects, visit
the Tsetse Press website at
www.tsetsepress.com
.

*****

DANCING WITH MURDER

Copyright © 2011 by
Samantha Shepherd

www.thefictioneer.com

Published in December 2010 by Tsetse
Press by arrangement with the author. All rights reserved by the
author.

This book is a work of fiction. Names,
characters, places and incidents either are products of the
author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to
actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely
coincidental.

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Press

Johnstown, Pennsylvania

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