A Place Called Wiregrass Read Free Page B

for a few weeks, and Patricia insists on getting me some help.”
    Richard was just beginning to take a seat on the padded chest at the end of the bed. “Richard, you go now. You’ve got that appointment with the dentist, remember.” He tucked his head and babbled something undetectable when he bumped into the hallway wall. The Queen Mother, just as I guessed.
    I tried to cross my legs and look ladylike. Then I saw theblack lace-up shoes on my feet. The pair Cher called Grandma Walton shoes. I quickly hid them under the chair and settled on looking ladylike with my hands folded in my lap.
    “Richard’s a nerve patient,” she said in a stage whisper.
    “Once a big-deal lawyer in Birmingham and now…” She raised her arms and opened empty palms. “That’s why I need help. Got his own apartment. Lives by himself, just over yonder above my garage. But as far as lifting or anything like that, well he’s just as worthless as teats on a boar hog.”
    My eyes widened. I tried not to look surprised, but I always was the world’s worst at hiding my expressions.
    “I’m just talking plain now. And as for Patricia, well she’s so busy tending to that schoolhouse and all her parties, I never can get her to do a thing.”
    “Who helps you with the cooking and cleaning?” I refused to let her think I was some mousy something or another she could lecture.
    “Sugar, you’re looking at her. Bertha worked for me thirty-two years. When the Lord took her, I decided I would do it myself. And then I had to go fall. Oh, gracious, enough about my mess. You got any children?”
    “Yes, ma’am. A boy and a girl. They’re all grown now. But I’m raising my granddaughter.”
    “Does your husband help out with raising the granddaughter?”
    I looked down at the Oriental rug and then, thinking I might seem pitiful, I looked back into her forgiving eyes. “We been separated for the past few months now. He’s back in Cross City, you know in Louisiana, where I come from.”
    “I don’t guess I know that place. Near Monroe? I got a third cousin who lives in Monroe.”
    “No, ma’am. Near New Orleans.” Maybe this was getting better after all .
    “Well, tell me about your granddaughter.”
    If a thermometer had been set up to measure my confidence level, it would have overheated. “She’s thirteen. Well, soon to be fourteen. She’s a good girl. Good with her school work. Likes to read. I told her she must’ve read every horse book this library has.” I tried to chuckle.
    Mrs. Tyler propped the blue-veined hand on her chin. “She sounds precious. What’s her name?”
    I was hoping to skip that part for the time being. Older folks like Mama never understood why anybody would name a child after Sonny’s partner. The words rang in my mind as clear as they had the day Cher was born. “Why couldn’t Suzette give that baby a decent name?” Mama had asked. “Cher, like that singer? Don’t you remember how that trashy thing showed her belly button on TV? And had to drag that young ’un of hers on TV too. You sure don’t see somebody with a decent name like Carol Burnett dragging her kids on stage.”
    “Her name’s Cher,” I said with eyes closed.
    “What a pretty name. And how about her mama and daddy?”
    She adjusted a pillow, and I hoped had not seen my cheek flinch. The question struck me as too personal and something she had no business asking this early on. “Well, her mama, my daughter, is…uh…a nerve patient like your son. She’s in the state hospital up in New Orleans.”
    A lie was the first thing I jumped for. I couldn’t very well say Suzette was in the Louisiana Correctional Institute doing time for drug trafficking and child abandonment. She’d throw me out on my ear for sure. And before I made it out the driveway she would’ve called that principal daughter of hers too, probably interrupt one of the woman’s parties and really make her mad. Then I’d lose the cafeteria job on top of everything.