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

really, no sidewalks on either side. Victory was supposed to be peacefully integrated, but integration was a word that didn’t mean much anymore—politicians spoke it with quiet drawls, trying to make it sound something like nutrition, and it certainly had little to do with neighborhoods. Beyond Colored Town was a long, flat swamp extending far back on either side of the road, then a couple of hills and beyond them, the trailer parks that had come in when they had opened up Victory Mills.
    You could sit out there by the marsh at night and turn your engine off and listen to the swamp noise. Lenore and Betsy had done it together sometimes. The noise would start out quiet, almost distinct. Crickets rubbing their legs, a hoot owl far off, the glog of a bullfrog. Then everything would start mixing together and the noise would grow and grow in your ears. Screeches, saws, haunting calls. They would hold hands, sharing their fascination. Lenore had tried once after Betsy left to do it alone, but she had not been able to enjoy it. She had been nervous and felt too much like a spectator.
    Lenore bounced up the entrance steps to the diner. It had once been painted bright yellow but now was back to an almost pure silver look since most of the paint had worn off. Sabrina looked up and nodded a greeting as Lenore rounded the corner at the end of the counter and sat on the last stool. This stool was more home than Mrs. Henry’s room to her. The slits in the vinyl of the seat were covered with strips of black tape, as they had been for all the years since Lenore had gotten her first pocket knife. Her mother had been waiting the counter then, and absentmindedly, without even knowing who she was mad at, Lenore had cut two slits along where her thighs had straddled the stool, her dime coke sitting idle in front of her.
    â€œWhat’ll you have?” Sabrina asked.
    â€œApple pie and a small coke.”
    The next day Evelyn had come home from work and told Lenore and Angie about discovering the slits in the stool. “Some folks ain’t got no respect for other people’s property,” she’d said, elevating herself into the category of those who did. Lenore had reddened with shame, looked out the window, smiled behind her mother’s back at the sense of possession she had of that stool, and for once, kept her mouth shut.
    She had a regular habit now of checking in, reaching down without looking and feeling the edges of the tape. She watched Sabrina set out the pie and cut her piece. Many a day she had sat here with her papers spread out in front of her, pencil clenched by her teeth, supposed to be doing her homework, but watching her mother work instead. Watching her estimate an eighth of the pie, the knife drawing tentative lines so she could still redo it if her first guess was off, then the cut, the pie spatula sailing to the plate, Evelyn’s index finger swiping the lip of the pie pan, into her mouth with the crumbs the same sec her eye checked the customer to make sure he or she wasn’t watching. Lenore had seen her divert her finger, almost miraculously, to the apron, when she had found the wrong eyes upon her.
    If Sabrina had snuck the crumbs, she had been too fast for Lenore’s eye, and Lenore had been vaguely watching her even as her mind wandered to her memories of her mother. Now she realized Sabrina had been waiting for her eyes to say yes to the scoop of vanilla ice cream she held poised over Lenore’s slice of pie. Sabrina came toward her. “Trying to give you a bonus,” she said.
    â€œThanks, looks good.”
    Sabrina’s eyes danced, and Lenore smiled at her as she walked away. They were both the same age. Sabrina looked solid, stern about the mouth. She had dark brown skin, an Afro short enough to make her skull look close to a perfect shape. Lenore found herself constantly drawn to staring at it. It was in Sabrina’s deep brown, playful eyes that she had seen