Read Online Drumsticks by Charlotte Carter - Free Book Online Page A

with an object much larger and more solid—more like a scrapbook.
    I opened the folder first. “Look, Justin. Another glam photo of Ida when she was young.”
    â€œGreat dress!” he exclaimed. “Oooh, girl. She looks like Della Reese before the lard took over. If those earrings are still in this house, I’m sorry but they are mine.”
    He grabbed the folder to get a closer look, and a patch of yellowing newspaper fell out. Pictured were Ida and a dashing black man in tails, their straightened hair gleaming like a model’s mouth in a tooth whitener ad. Justin and I began to laugh hysterically, until I remembered where we were and quieted him down.
    â€œMiller (left) and Priest,” the caption read. I checked the top of the page, which was torn. All that remained was the word “Cleveland.”
    â€œThis says her last name is Priest, right?” J asked. “I thought it was Williams.”
    I shrugged.
    The only other photo in there was a two-head shot of the same duo, taken, probably, ten years after the Miller and Priest shot.
    I passed the photo over to Justin. “They’re something, aren’t they?” I said. “What do you think the story is? Why were they in the newspaper? Did they win the Irish Sweepstakes or something? Doesn’t look like a wedding announcement. Looks more like they were in show business—as if that newspaper thing was an ad. Like this guy and Ida had an act—partners. Something like that. What do you think they did—tap dance?”
    Justin shook his head. “Well, at least we know she wasn’t hooked up with Sammy Davis.”
    â€œWe’d better get out of here,” I said. “Let’s just see what’s in this book I—”
    â€œWhat? What is it, Smash-up?”
    It took a minute for me to answer because I was still trying, as my friends in therapy say, to process it.
    â€œIt’s a yearbook,” I finally said, softly. “A high school yearbook.”
    â€œWhat—from 1920?”
    â€œNo. Later than that. Ninety-six.”
    Justin took it from my hands. “Stephens Academy, 1996,” he read. And then he shrugged. “I don’t get it.”
    â€œNeither do I,” I said. “That’s my father’s school. He’s the principal.”

CHAPTER 7
    Fine Brown Frame
    I looked out at the trees, as I had been doing for the last twenty minutes, the yearbook pressed tightly against me.
    The majestic view of Central Park from Aubrey’s windows had always been my favorite thing about her apartment, and now I was drinking that view in, lost in thought, lost in the trees.
    Aubrey came out of the bathroom wearing a towel. Around her head, that is. That was all she wore.
    She sat down on the mile-long sectional—did people who live in high-rises ever buy any other kind of couch—and began to lacquer her toenails.
    She had phoned me earlier in the day to tell me that Leman Sweet, whose sweet tooth for her was no secret, had taken the bait. He’d called Aubrey, said he wanted to meet with me and knew I was staying at her place most every night. It would be convenient, he said, to drop by there tonight on his way home.
    â€œHome—in whatever cave that might be,” Aubrey had scoffed.
    She had had her fun taunting him in the past, leading him on, but she had never forgotten nor forgiven my rough treatment at his hands.
    Luckily I had not yet taken the trash out at my own home. I remembered telling Sweet how it was really Aubrey, not me, who had a thing for Ida Williams’s dolls. So before heading uptown, I plucked the two little hoodoo queens out of the wastebasket beneath my desk and threw them in my knapsack. They now stood on the windowsill, facing out, possibly enjoying the park view as much as I was.
    Aubrey had commented while I was positioning them, “Be sure you take those old raggedy ass dolls outta here when you leave