The Yada Yada Prayer Group Gets Caught Read Free Page A

you want to leave? Parking’s going to be a nightmare.” I’d heard the Taste drew thousands of hungry palates. I shuddered. Didn’t want to think about it.Threading through waves of sweaty flesh. Trying to ignore all the bouncy boobs in skimpy tank tops. Dreading the inevitable visit to the rows of Porta-Potties . . .
    Denny pulled open the back screen door, a droll grin still lurking on his face. “Soon as we can get ready. Don’t have to worry about parking if we take CTA.” The screen door slammed behind him.
    â€œWhat are you smirking about? ” I yelled after him.
    The screen door cracked open, and he poked his head out. “Didn’t want to tell you, but since you asked.” His dimples deepened wickedly. “Willie Wonka slurped up the top third of your iced tea while you were feeding the birds. In case you wondered.”
    The screen door slammed again as I let the plastic tumbler fly.
    I’D FINISHED REFILLING A COUPLE OF WATER BOTTLES and adding them to the sunscreen, sunglasses, and windbreaker in my backpack when I heard someone at the back screen door. “Hey, Jodi.”
    I looked up. “Hi, Becky! And who’s that cutie hiding behind you? Andy Wallace! I see you!”
    Our upstairs neighbor—well, the long-term “guest” of our upstairs neighbor—stood at the back door, still sporting her new haircut and color, a rich brunette with auburn highlights swinging chin length in front of her ears and short and feathered in the back, courtesy of Adele’s Hair and Nails. Behind her, a tousled head of dark curls peeked out from behind his mother’s skin-tight jeans. Little Andy giggled.
    â€œCome on in, you guys.” I held open the screen door. “Denny and I are leaving in a few minutes—kids away, parents play, know what I mean? But I didn’t know Andy was coming to visit this weekend. Is he staying for the holiday? ” I felt like I was babbling, but I often felt like that around Becky, trying to fill in the gaps of awkward conversation.
    â€œUh, that’s kinda why I came down.” Becky cleared her throat. “Didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but with the heat an’ all, I had all the windows open upstairs, an’ I heard you an’ Denny talkin’ ’bout goin’ to see the fireworks downtown. And, uh, I, uh . . .” Becky cleared her throat again. I tensed.Was she going to ask if she could go with us? But she knew better than that! She was on house arrest for another four months, and that electronic monitor thing she wore strapped to her ankle would alert the authorities quicker than Instant Messaging if she left the premises. “. . . uh, was wonderin’ if you guys would mind takin’ Little Andy with you.” Her left hand fell gently on the little boy’s head as she drew him even closer to her side. “He ain’t never seen no fireworks before.”
    A dozen thoughts tumbled around in my brain as I searched for an answer. Becky Wallace had come a long way since she’d first appeared at our front door last summer with a ten-inch butcher knife, desperate for money to spring a heroin fix. Huh. God sure had a weird sense of humor. The woman who’d robbed and terrorized our whole Yada Yada Prayer Group that night was now standing at my back door like any other mom, talking about fireworks and the Fourth of July.
    Well, like any other mom who’d taken a detour through drug rehab and prison.
    I stalled. Dragging a three-year-old along wasn’t exactly what Denny had in mind when he said the two of us needed to just have fun. “Uh, did you ask Stu? ” Leslie Stuart,Yada Yada’s fix-everybody social worker, rented the apartment upstairs and had taken Becky in as a housemate when she’d been paroled. “She’d probably love to take Andy to the Evanston fireworks tomorrow night—they’re closer than the ones downtown. Evanston does