Read Online Folly by Maureen Brady - Free Book Online Page A

down.
    â€œHi. What can I do for you?” she asked.
    â€œI need a piece of liver.”
    â€œAbout a pound?”
    â€œFine.” Martha didn’t bother trying to calculate how big a piece it would be. She knew that Lenore was assuming it would be for her and her mother and would make it come out right.
    Lenore went back through the swinging door. She had the walk of an athlete—a friendliness with her body, a slight bounce in her stride. Martha thought of Cookie, of how she had liked watching her move as she packed a crate of oranges. She brought the liver and displayed it to Martha before she wrapped it. “Looks fine,” Martha said.
    â€œI’ve been hearing about y’all down at the mill,” Lenore said. “How’s it going?”
    â€œNot easy but we’re holding out.”
    â€œI saw Cora’s out of jail.”
    â€œYeah. That much we got done. When it came right down to it, they didn’t really have nothin’ to keep her on. But it took bringing in a lawyer to tell them that.”
    â€œWell, that’s something,” Lenore said. She wanted to say more, to express her admiration for what they were doing, but she couldn’t think of how to say it. And she didn’t know if Martha’d believe she was really on their side. She didn’t know if Martha knew about her mother going in as a scab.
    â€œWe’re staying out ’til we get some kind of policy on taking time off for sickness at home.”
    â€œI imagine it ain’t going to be easy to get anything out of that old Fartblossom, but I sure hope you do,” Lenore said.
    â€œWhat he’s up to now is trying to hire a whole new crew, as if our jobs didn’t take any skill or practice or anything. He’s going out trying to find every woman in this town who doesn’t have a job and stick her behind our machines.”
    â€œThat’s lousy,” Lenore said. “That’s plain lousy.” Martha must not know about her mother or she wouldn’t be talking to her like this. Either that or she was one of those people who realize that you don’t have to be forever after associated with your mother—you can be someone different on your own. Martha had come to her mind when she had been trying to think of someone to pass that Sappho book Betsy had sent on to. She had her suspicions about Martha based on nothing but an inkling, that and the fact Martha had never been married. This was the longest conversation she had ever had with her.
    Martha put the liver in her basket and scanned it for other needs. Lenore had to say something fast, or she was going to leave. “Do you like to read?” she asked.
    â€œI do,” Martha answered. “I read a lot.”
    â€œWhat kind of books?” Lenore asked.
    â€œMostly mysteries.”
    â€œOh.”
    â€œI’d best be gettin’ on,” Martha said.
    â€œIf I can do anything for the strike,” Lenore said, “I’d like to do something, but I don’t know what I could do.”
    â€œI’ll think about it,” Martha said. “I’ll let you know if I can think of something.”
    Victory was a straight and narrow town, Betsy always said. It felt to Lenore as if the town were wearing a belt, tight in the middle, to hold itself from bursting. Or was that just the feeling inside her as she offered to help, while her mother was offering to scab? She drove from the A & P on down Main Street to the diner, only three blocks. She might have walked, but it was in the direction of her room on BackStreet. A stretched out straight and narrow town—Main Street, Front Street, Back Street. Front Street was where the classy buildings were, Main Street was business, Back Street was where the less than high class whites lived, cracked sidewalks along one side of the street. The Blacks lived up past the A & P on a couple of streets running the other way from Main, dirt roads