Alligator Bayou Read Free Page B

my hat. “What can I get for you, ma’am?”
    “Them beans—the ones over there.” She points.
    Rosario throws a giant handful on a sheet of newsprint. He lifts his eyebrows at Mrs. Rogers, asking if it’s enough.
    She doesn’t look at him.
    “Is that enough, ma’am?” I ask.
    “Double that. And okra. The smallest ones.”
    Rosario is already filling the order.
    Mrs. Rogers watches with sharp eyes as the okra pods pile up.
    “Good choice.” I nod. “Tender. And the first zucchini of the season are in.”
    “Zucchini?” Mrs. Rogers wrinkles her nose at the word. I hold one up. “Green squash,” she says. “Newfangled things.” I don’t know what that means, but I can see her eyes change. “Oh, all right. Give me some of them, too.”
    “And lettuce?”
    “Rabbit food.” Mrs. Rogers laughs. “Them bananas there.” She looks at the fruit table. “How is it y’all got pineapples and grapes?”
    “They come from South America, ma’am. Right through the port of New Orleans.” I reach and pull out a spiky leaf from the top of a pineapple. “This one’s perfectly ripe. Would you like it, ma’am?”
    “Perfectly ripe,” she mimics me. “How come you talk so fancy?”
    “I take lessons, ma’am.”
    “From that white Northern teacher in the colored school? The uppity one?”
    “No, ma’am.”
    She pulls back in shock. “Y’all ain’t in the white school, surely?”
    “I don’t go to school, ma’am.”
    “Well.” She fiddles with the gathers on her bodice. “Whoever teaches you sure don’t sound like the good folk around here.”
    “No, ma’am.”
    She narrows her eyes, as if she suspects I’m poking fun at her. But I keep an open face. “So, ripe pineapples. But they ain’t bruised up. And they came all the way from South America. How do y’all get them in such good shape?”
    “We know who to order from, ma’am.” I hold up a pineapple.
    “I bet you do.” Her voice is harsh again. She glares. “Them bananas is all I need.”
    Rosario tucks the newsprint packages of vegetables and bananas into the servant’s basket. She smiles small at him, and then at me. I’ve never heard her name.
    Mrs. Rogers drops coins into Rosario’s hand, careful not to touch him. At least a penny short. Rosario puts a finger on each coin in turn, then looks pointedly at her.
    She adds another penny. And, finally, another.
    I work to hold in a smile; Rosario doesn’t need words to run this stand.
    The women turn to go.
    “Thank you, Mrs. Rogers,” I call. “Good day, ma’am.”
    Mrs. Rogers looks over her shoulder and blinks. “Y’all know me?”
    Everybody knows Mrs. Rogers. And she knows that, of course. I bob my head. “Your husband is an important gentleman.”
    The corners of her mouth twitch. “Ah, you’re the boy used to work in that other grocery.” She half whispers the word other , as though she’s talking about something bad. “You did good to change bosses.” Mrs. Rogers nods. “You got sense. Next time I’ll send Lila alone. You take good care of her now, grocer boy, you hear me?”
    “Yes, ma’am.”
    Off she goes, Lila following.
    I slap my hat back on my head.
    “Yes, ma’am,” comes a taunting whisper from behind.
    I turn. And she’s there, hair drawn into two braids that glisten in the sun. I grin.
    “You ain’t got to kiss her feet, you know.” Patricia takes off her shoes and slips them into her cloth bag. She walks past me on wide brown feet rimmed with pink. “She got nowhere else to buy such nice vegetables and fruits now that her son Willy had that fight with your crazy uncle.”
    So that’s why Mrs. Rogers came here rather than the “other” grocery—Francesco’s store. And everyone’s heard about the fight, and probably knows I visited Frank Raymond this morning, too. Everyone in Tallulah knows everything that happens in Tallulah.
    As she leaves, Patricia looks over her shoulder at me in a way that makes my skin wake up.
    “I’ll be