Read Online Getting Mother's Body by Suzan Lori Parks - Free Book Online Page B

lady sits up straight, pulls her wig down hard on her head like it’s a hat, snaps her pocketbook shut and gets off the bus without another word. Wildarado.
    I got a seat to myself. I put my box onto it. It was in my lap all this time making me sweat. I fan my dress, no one sees nothing. No one’s looking.
    A man comes by. Looks at my empty seat. I cough, pretending I’m sick, and he moves on down a row or two.
    We stop at Gomez. Not a town at all but just a small building of whitewashed cement with small windows and nothing around it but dirt and sky and sun. The sign hanging from the building has a cross on it. Must be a church. A lady gets on, big and white, coming down the aisle sideways. She’s got a matching red flowered top and pants both made outa that stretch fabric, running tight acrosst her chest and behind. She’s carrying a paper sack and a round red suitcase held to her wrist by a red loop. Her high-heeled gold slippers got red feathery pompoms on them and the toes out. When she comes down the aisle the sleeping men wake up and look.
    She eyes my seat and I cough. She coughs back, thinking she’s funny.
    â€œThese yr things, right?” Miss Big and Flashy wants to know.
    â€œWhy would they be sitting on the seat next to me if they ain’t mines?” I says.
    The other people on the bus are done staring but the Driver is watching her in the rearview.
    â€œYr personals should be under yr seat or over yr head or in yr lap,” she goes, reciting the bus rules. Mother used to say that the only thing worse than having to share a seat with someone is when you hate your seatmate before they sit down.
    â€œTake your seats,” the Driver says.
    The Flashy Gal puts her hand on her hip and bigs her eyes at me. I big my eyes right back. She hands me her paper sack. The cans inside it cluddle together. She grabs up my dress box. “How bout you let Myrna put this up for you,” she says.
    â€œYou already half done it,” I says. My voice cuts the smile off her face but she disappears the box anyway, in the rack up top on the other side of the aisle where I can see it.
    â€œYou must have something nice in there,” she says.
    â€œA party dress,” I says. “Me and my husband’s going to a party.”
    â€œMyrna Carter,” she says telling me her name and sticking her hand in my face. She got a row of gold bracelets halfway up to her elbows on each arm. Rings on each finger. I shake her hand but don’t say nothing. She sits down. The bus takes off and we go down the road.
    â€œYr feet started swelling up yet?” she asks.
    All anybody ever asked about in Lincoln was who’s the daddy and when was I getting married. “They’re a little swole,” I says.
    â€œWhen I was carrying Dale Junior my feet was so big I couldn’t wear no kind of shoes,” Myrna says, “And my chest got as big as—well it got pretty big, and it was pretty big already.”
    Snipes says my chest’s growd some, but my brassieres still fit.
    I hold my left hand out in front of me. She’s looking at her chest but I wiggle my finger to get her attention. “I lost my wedding ring,” I says.
    â€œWish I could lose mines,” she says.
    Billboards go by. Myrna calls out what they say as we pass.
    â€œStuckey’s five miles! They got world-famous pecan rolls.”
    â€œI can read,” I says.
    â€œIt’s more fun to say it out loud, don’t you think?” she asks.
    I don’t answer.
    â€œLook! A place called the Double R Ranch where you can pick out yr own meat and and they’ll cook it up for you.”
    She’s like one of them tour books except she’s talking. Mother used to do the same thing. I learned to read by her talking out billboards.
    â€œTwo miles off that road there’s the only place in the state of Texas where you will get a fair deal on a used Cadillac,” Myrna