Dead to the World

deposit at the bank. He was looking tired but pleased.
    He flicked open his cell phone. “Kenya? You ready to take me to the bank? Okay, see you in a minute at the back door.” Kenya, a police officer, often escorted Sam to the night deposit, especially after a big take like tonight’s.
    I was pleased with my money take, too. I had earned a lot in tips. I thought I might have gotten three hundred dollars or more—and I needed every penny. I would have enjoyed the prospect of totting up the money when I got home, if I’d been sure I had enough brains left to do it. The noise and chaos of the party, the constant runs to and from the bar and the serving hatch, the tremendous mess we’d had to clean up, the steady cacophony of all those brains . . . it had combined to exhaust me. Toward the end I’d been too tired to keep my poor mind protected, and lots of thoughts had leaked through.
    It’s not easy being telepathic. Most often, it’s not fun.
    This evening had been worse than most. Not only had the bar patrons, almost all known to me for many years, been in uninhibited moods, but there’d been some news that lots of people were just dying to tell me.
    “I hear yore boyfriend done gone to South America,” a car salesman, Chuck Beecham, had said, malice gleaming in his eyes. “You gonna get mighty lonely out to your place without him.”
    “You offering to take his place, Chuck?” the man beside him at the bar had asked, and they both had a we’re-men-together guffaw.
    “Naw, Terrell,” said the salesman. “I don’t care for vampire leavings.”
    “You be polite, or you go out the door,” I said steadily. I felt warmth at my back, and I knew my boss, Sam Merlotte, was looking at them over my shoulder.
    “Trouble?” he asked.
    “They were just about to apologize,” I said, looking Chuck and Terrell in the eyes. They looked down at their beers.
    “Sorry, Sookie,” Chuck mumbled, and Terrell bobbed his head in agreement. I nodded and turned to take care of another order. But they’d succeeded in hurting me.
    Which was their goal.
    I had an ache around my heart.
    I was sure the general populace of Bon Temps, Louisiana, didn’t know about our estrangement. Bill sure wasn’t in the habit of blabbing his personal business around, and neither was I. Arlene and Tara knew a little about it, of course, since you have to tell your best friends when you’ve broken up with your guy, even if you have to leave out all the interesting details. (Like the fact that you’d killed the woman he left you for. Which I couldn’t help. Really.) So anyone who told me Bill had gone out of the country, assuming I didn’t know it yet, was just being malicious.
    Until Bill’s recent visit to my house, I’d last seen him when I’d given him the disks and computer he’d hidden with me. I’d driven up at dusk, so the machine wouldn’t be sitting on his front porch for long. I’d put all his stuff up against the door in a big waterproofed box. He’d come out just as I was driving away, but I hadn’t stopped.
    An evil woman would have given the disks to Bill’s boss, Eric. A lesser woman would have kept those disks and that computer, having rescinded Bill’s (and Eric’s) invitations to enter the house. I had told myself proudly that I was not an evil, or a lesser, woman.
    Also, thinking practically, Bill could just have hired some human to break into my house and take them. I didn’t think he would. But he needed them bad, or he’d be in trouble with his boss’s boss. I’ve got a temper, maybe even a bad temper, once it gets provoked. But I’m not vindictive.
    Arlene has often told me I am too nice for my own good, though I assure her I am not. (Tara never says that; maybe she knows me better?) I realized glumly that, sometime during this hectic evening, Arlene would hear about Bill’s departure. Sure enough, within twenty minutes of Chuck and Terrell’s gibing, she made her way through the crowd to pat me on the back. “You didn’t need that cold bastard anyway,” she said. “What did he ever do for you?”
    I nodded weakly at her to show how much I appreciated her support. But then a table called for two whiskey sours, two beers, and a gin and tonic, and I had to hustle, which was actually a welcome distraction. When I dropped off their drinks, I asked myself the same question. What had Bill done for me?
    I delivered pitchers of beer to two tables before I could add it all up.
    He’d introduced