A Twist of Hate by Crystal Hubbard Page A

with kissing, groping, and other forms of flesh handling. Over the past few days, Chrissie behaved as if he were diseased when he tried to touch her.
                  “Where’s your mom?” He leaned over to finger the top button of her shirt. “Do you think she’ll be gone long?”
                  She flung his hand away. “She’s with Moms Against Murder Always. They picketed the Planned Parenthood downtown today. I’m sure she’ll be home soon. It’s close to dinner and Mom works up an appetite after a day of butting into other people’s business.”
                  Scrubbing his hands through his hair, Michael shifted to the opposite end of the sofa. “Has the Twin Lakes membership committee voted yet?”
                  “Yes.” She kept her eyes on her phone, her thumbs rapidly composing a text message.
                  “Well?” he prompted.
                  “I’m not supposed to tell,” Chrissie mumbled, her mind on her text.
                  “They were invited to join, weren’t they?” he asked petulantly.
                  “Why do you care?” she demanded, exasperated. “It’s just a stupid country club.”
                  He hurled one of the needlepoint sofa pillows across the room. “Just give me a straight answer!”
                  “Yes,” she snapped, finally looking at him. “The vote was unanimous! The committee drooled over Damon Curran and they can’t wait to get Siobhan on the Twin Lakes Tournament Team. She beat two of the house pros after you left Sunday, did you know that? Twin Lakes can’t wait to welcome Siobhan and her father!”
                  Michael paced a tight circle in front of the television. He banged his fist against the screen, temporarily pixelating the picture. He kicked the leg of the accent table beneath the television, felling the framed photos of Chrissie the debutante at the Daughters of the Gateway Cotillion.
                  He turned to Chrissie and pitifully barked, “Why?”
                  She instinctively shrank away from the grim realization glimmering in his pale eyes.
                  “Because they’re black?” he shouted. “That’s so damned unfair! They don’t deserve to be there!”
                  Chrissie clutched a throw pillow to her chest. “What difference does it make? You spend more time at the club than any of the real members anyway.”
                  The real members? The words seared his brain. “You are such a stuck-up, spoiled little bitch.”
                  “I didn’t invite you here,” she calmly reminded him. “My personality flaws obviously bug you, so why don’t you go whine to one of your other girlfriends? Maybe Karen Jefferson, that Maplewood High School girl you met at the bowling alley. Or Maleah Ayers, the girl from the frozen yogurt shop.” Chrissie cracked her knuckles. They sounded like gunshots. “Veronica Armistead probably at home just crying out her eyes, waiting for you to go back to her.”
                  Michael paled.
                  “Did you really think I wouldn’t find out about your ‘brown sugar?’ Does your grandpappy know about her? That’s a conversation I’d love to hear. I’d call and tell him myself, but the old bastard makes my skin crawl.”
                  With a satisfied smirk, Chrissie turned to her music videos. Fate, in the form of Emma Medeiros, the Abernathy’s portly Portuguese cleaning woman, had spilled Michael’s secret about Michael and Veronica. Emma took the bus to work every day with Virginia Armistead, Veronica’s mother and the Littlefield’s housekeeper.
                  The two women occasionally spoke by phone during the day. Chrissie, home from school early one afternoon, stumbled upon one of