The Back Building Read Free Page B

gonna splatter all over your clothes and you can’t get no grease stains out, girl. Blood hard to get out too.” She was teaching me to cook but I was only vaguely paying attention.
    She flinched when she said ‘blood’, and then she told me about the time her daddy cut his hand real bad and couldn’t prepare the chicken for dinner. Her brothers were out working so she had to wrangle the bird, snap its neck, and then pluck it dry. The next part was the worst, skinning the bird nearly made her pass out.
    “It was like holding a baby child in my arms, when it was all naked like that. I ain’t never doing that again, nuh-uh. No, sir, I’d rather be hungry.”
    I laughed out loud envisioning Hetty with her head turned sideways away from the chicken, her nose turned up while she plucked the bird one feather at a time.
    The next day was my first scheduled ‘social engagement’. My mother entrapped her dear friend, Judith Taylor, to invite us to enjoy tea and scones with her daughter. Her daughter, Anne, was a year my senior and one of the girls that shunned me at school. (I lost count at two thousand paces from our door to theirs.)
    When we arrived at Judith’s spacious village home Saturday afternoon for our visit, we rang an ornate doorbell. True to my mother’s expectation, a maid answered the door and saw us to a room that was adorned with two settees facing one another with a coffee table in between. (Ten paces from the entrance to the davenport.) When our hosts appeared they were both dressed lavishly in floor length skirts and freshly pressed lace blouses with silver embellished buttons. Judith wore a brooch at her neck that my mother fawned over and her daughter, Anne, played the role of gracious hostess with ease.
    “Iona, do tell us how your school work is coming along. You are in the ninth grade, correct?” Mrs. Taylor inquired.
    “You know I am in ninth grade…..” I started to say with too much attitude.
    My mother cleared her throat and nodded at me in such a way that told me I had better rethink my answer.
    “Why yes, Mrs. Taylor, I am doing well in school. I can only hope to be as bright and well liked as your Anne is someday.” I blinked excessively as I spoke.
    “Iona, you are quite lovely yourself. I have no doubt everyone agrees.” Mrs. Taylor sipped Earl Grey from her dainty tea-cup, her pinkie extended outward. Then the cup was placed back on its saucer and she edged it away from her as if one sip were appeasing enough.
    Our conversation continued on with me being sickeningly sweet and praising Anne at every turn. My goal was to make Anne be nice to me at school and get my mother off my back.
    Anne did invite me to join the girls in their circle the next day at recess. She made a point to invite me right in front of our teacher, who seemed very impressed with Anne’s thoughtful gesture. As I approached the circle (eighteen paces from my desk to the girls) clutching my lunch pail by my side, she quickly turned her back to me, closing the circle’s gap. Anne snickered to the group and once again I was cast out. This time I felt humiliation worm its way into my cheeks coloring them with a blood rouge.
    Every day henceforth this game ensued. Anne pretended to be my friend when the teacher was in view, but as soon as she was otherwise engaged I was mocked and treated poorly.
    “You’ll never have any friends, you little brat, and neither will your mother if she keeps begging you off on her acquaintances.” Anne spat the horrific words at me one day in front of the other girls and I could feel the blush rise in my cheeks.
    “Who would want to be friends with you anyway? You’re nothing but a spoiled, rich girl. Have fun at your sewing circles,” I replied.
    I would get her back and I knew just how. She could taunt me all she wanted but when she made fun of my mother I had a prickly sensation creep up my back that I couldn’t let go. After school that day I checked my trap; I snared a