Look Before You Jump Read Free

saucer like a well-trained
debutante. “What’s been keepin’ you so busy on Sunday mornings you
can’t make it to church anymore? I haven’t seen you there in, what,
a year?”
    More like two, but I wasn’t even going to
attempt a correction.
    “Yes, Victoria .” Janine leaned forward
and batted her baby-doll blue eyes. “Do tell.”
    Before I could voice the smart-aleck retort
bubbling up inside me, a swift kick to my shin lodged a piece of
chicken avocado sandwich in my throat. All I got out was a quick
cough before Mom stole my moment right out from under the table –
literally.
    “She’s still trying to get that boss of hers
to let her off earlier on Saturday nights.”
    My mom was either a more practiced liar than
I’d given her credit for, or she’d convinced herself of its truth
to assuage that pesky mother’s guilt. The pain in my shin, however,
had me leaning more toward the former instead of the latter.
    Mrs. De’Laruse nearly snorted tea into her
lungs. “I don’t see why you feel the need for a job in the first
place. A woman of good breedin’ needs only a good man.”
    Janine’s eyebrows came close to disappearing
into her blonde hairline. “Hear that, Vicki? A good man.”
    If I could’ve untangled my new tangerine
pumps fast enough, I’d have sent a little of Mom’s message to
Janine’s shins. ‘Cept in her case, I’d have gone in with both
barrels.
    Her mom beat me to the punch. “What would you
know about a good man, Janine? You’re wastin’ away chasin’ this
doctorate dream of yours. Look at you. Almost thirty and turned
down every prospect you’ve ever had.”
    “I’m only twenty-six, Mama.”
    “And unmarried still,” Mrs. De’Laruse
continued with nary a breath. “What’s the world come to, my dawling
Audra, when young ladies refuse to marry until they’re beyond
child-bearin’ years?”
    “Mama!” Janine’s face reddened – and probably
not from the heat and humidity this fine Texas summer.
    Mom interceded. “With good health and diet
these days, women are still within child-bearing capacity well into
their thirties and forties.”
    Chalk one up for intelligent, well-informed
mothers everywhere. Part of me begged for my mother to use the word fertile . It kinda has a bit of a sexual tone to it, don’t
you think? That’s something my mother doesn’t like acknowledging.
Hell, neither mother used the term pregnant and instead
referred to women as with child , as if all pregnant women
were as virginal as the Virgin Mary.
    “Speaking of children,” Mrs. De’Laruse
continued like a dog chewing the last morsel from its bone. “Were
you aware that Pastor Dennis’ son, Robert, has returned from parts
unknown?”
    Robert? Did she mean my Robert – er,
Bobby? The man I gave my virginity to who summarily turned tail and
ran away from home, leaving me to face the firing squad alone? That Robert?
    “And,” Mrs. D resumed, “he brings along a
wife with child .”
    What’d I tell you?
    “Why no, Mrs. De’Laruse,” I responded,
raising a brow in Janine’s direction. “No one told me.”
    “Robert is married,” Mom emphasized between
bites of spinach leaf and strawberry salad. “With a child on the
way.”
    As if I was deaf.
    Janine picked up where her mother left off.
“Pastor Dennis wants to start the process of grooming him to take
over the senior pastorate at the church when he retires
someday.”
    That stopped the teacup on the way to my
mouth. Good thing I hadn’t yet taken a sip, because I’d have ended
up spraying it all across the table. Mom tried teaching me good
manners – honest she did. In my case, it wasn’t so much the teacher
as the student.
    “Bobby’s a preacher?” I finally blurted
out.
    “Really, dear,” Mom clucked. “Do you listen
to nothing I say? He graduated from seminary several years
ago.”
    “I thought you said he went to the
cemetery.”
    There were times after Bobby left that I
wanted to personally put him there.