Baby Talk Read Free

fatherly kind of nod
as he glided the huge vehicle into the reserved parking space next
to the front door. Two crimson pom-poms were visible in the car’s
back window. Buford Snell had been some kind of football hero back
when he’d attended University of Georgia. Based on his age and
values, Neal figured it must have been back at the time football
players wore knee socks, striped shirts, and those thin little
leather helmets that looked like bathing caps.
    “Early bird catches the worm,” Snell said
approvingly as he got out of his car. Neal cringed. Snell and the
rest of the his “fambly”—his condescending mother, known as
“Grammy,” his matronly sister, his loud-mouthed brother-in-law, all
his bratty nieces and nephews—disgusted Neal. However, the feeling
was not mutual. Neal was well-liked by all the Snells. This wasn’t
surprising, considering the caliber of most of the other delivery
boys. Even though the old man claimed to want to hire college
students for these jobs, “to hep ‘em out,” most of the other
drivers were pathetically poor, inner-city blacks. The reason, Neal
had soon discovered, was that Snell refused to pay anyone with a
last name different from his own a salary above minimum wage. Most
college students just weren’t that desperate.
    As a result, most of the drivers were the
type who stopped between deliveries to smoke dope, have “quickies”
with their girlfriends, and god only knew what else. The entire
clan, particularly Grammy, was amazed by Neal’s speed and
efficiency. In fact, the first few days his promptness in returning
to the shop made Grammy so suspicious that she called a few people
on his list to make sure that Neal had actually made the
deliveries. Ordinarily, this would have irritated Neal, but it only
amused him. He was glad the other delivery boys had a good time
while they worked and were taking full advantage of the
obnoxious—and oddly naïve—Snell family.
    Neal followed old man Snell into the center
of the shop, the sickly-sweet aroma of flowers at once making him
nauseous. He approached Grammy and started to say good morning, but
hesitated when he saw the sour look on her face.
    Grammy glanced at Mildred, Snell’s aging
wife, and looked back at Neal. “Where’d you go yesterday when you
were supposed to be deliverin’ the bouquet to Miz Foster?”
    Neal looked from one Snell face to the
other. “Why? Is something wrong?”
    Grammy glanced at her daughter-in-law again,
giving her an
I-told-you-so
look. “You might say that. She
never got ‘em.”
    “Well, I delivered them,” Neal said
defensively. “I left them on the porch, by the front door.”
    “Why’d you go and do that fool thing?”
Grammy snapped.
    “Because that’s what the order slip said to
do.”
    “No, sir, it did
not
. Mr. Foster
never wants his wife’s flowers left outside his house—he’s real
particular about that.”
    “I don’t mean to contradict you,” Neal said
carefully, “but I’m almost sure the delivery slip said to leave
them on the porch.”
    “We’ll just see about that,” Grammy said.
She began to shuffle through the mountain of delivery slips from
the day before. “You can’t just deliver ‘em any way you please,
sonny—you got to look at the
slip
.”
    Mildred gave Neal a doubtful glance and
resumed work on a bouquet.
    “What’s the problem?” old man Snell said,
stepping up behind Neal.
    Wonderful, Neal thought, glancing over her
shoulder. Not only had the screw-up come to the attention of the
old man, but all the other Snells in the shop seemed to be
listening.
    “Arggh,” Grammy groaned, waving a wiry arm
at Neal as if he was a troublesome schoolboy. “Miz Foster called up
in a tizzy this morning ‘cause her flowers didn’t get
delivered.”
    Neal started to say something in his own
defense, but then thought the better of it. He would wait until
Grammy located the evidence. He was almost certain that the box on
the slip that said IF NOT