Usher's Passing by Robert R. McCammon

finger beneath her chin. "My God, I'm looking like an old woman, aren't I? I should sue that last doctor who tucked my chin. I should sue him right out of business. Aren't I just the ugliest old woman you've ever seen?"
    "You look fine."
    She regarded herself and smiled wanly. "Oh, you don't remember what I used to look like. Do you know what my daddy always called me? The prettiest girl in the whole of North Carolina. Puddin' thinks she's pretty, but she doesn't know what real beauty is." Margaret mentioned the name of Boone's wife with an undisguised disgust. "I used to look like Katt. I used to have fine skin, just like hers."
    "Where is Katt?"
    "Didn't your brother tell you? She's gone down to the Bahamas somewhere on an assignment for a magazine. It was something she couldn't get out of. She hoped to get back either tomorrow or the day after. Do you know what they're paying her now? Two thousand dollars an hour. They're going to put her on the cover of Vogue next month. I used to look like Katt when I was her age."
    "And what about Puddin'?"
    "What about her?" Margaret shrugged, uninterested. "She's up in her room, I suppose. She sleeps all the time. I've tried to tell Boone his little beauty-queen wife is beginning to drink a bit too much, but will he listen? No. He goes running off to the stables to clock the horses." She picked up the Lysol can and misted the air again. "At least you're a free man. Your brother's made a mess of his—"
    The doors slid open and Boone entered, carrying a pale gold sweater. The way Margaret immediately closed her mouth and stiffened her spine was a clear message that she'd been discussing him. Boone wore his toothy grin like a mask. "Here's your sweater, Momma." He draped it around her shoulders. "What mischief you two been talkin' about?"
    "Oh, nothing that concerns you," Margaret said sweetly, her eyelids at half-mast. "Rix was just telling me about all the ladies in his life. He's playing his cards right."
    Boone's mouth stretched wider, and Rix could almost hear the flesh crack. In his eyes was a familiar warning glint; Rix had seen it many times when they were children, just before Boone attacked him for some imagined slight. "What Momma means to say, Rixy, is that I'm the disgrace of the family—next to you, that is. Because I've been divorced twice and I've married a young chickie, Momma seems to think I ought to go through life carrying a ball and chain. Isn't that right, Momma?"
    "Don't make a fool of yourself in front of your brother, dear."
    "Know why Rixy's got so many ladies, Momma? 'Cause none of 'em go out with him a second time. His idea of a fun date is to amble over to the nearest graveyard and hunt up the spooks. And let's don't forget that little lady of Rix's who decided to take a nice warm—"
    Rix wheeled toward him. He felt the rage contorting his face. Boone stopped dead. "Don't say it," Rix whispered hoarsely. "If you say it, you bastard, I'll have to kill you."
    Boone stood like stone. Then he laughed, the note sharp and short—but there was a tremor in it.
    "Boys," Margaret chided softly. "Is there a draft in this room?"
    Boone ambled over and warmed his hands before the hearth. "Know what, Momma? Rix says he's finished another book."
    "Oh?" Her voice was stiff with frost. "I presume it's another disgusting bloodfest. I swear, I don't know why you write those things! Do you actually think those books of yours please people?"
    Rix had a headache. He touched his temples, fearing an attack. My God, why did I come home? he asked himself. Boone's reference to Sandra had almost sent him over the edge.
    "You've got to understand Rixy, Momma," Boone offered, his gaze flicking back and forth between them. "He was always scared of his own shadow when we were kids. Always seein' the Pumpkin Man under his bed. So now he writes horror books so he can kill off the bad ol' demons. And he thinks he's Edgar Allan Poe. You know, the sufferin' art—"
    "Hush!" she said sharply.