Read Online I Hope You Dance by Beth Moran - Free Book Online Page A

Brazilian housekeeper from the Big House. She jumped up and kissed me on both cheeks, engulfing me in tropical perfume that wafted out from the folds of her bright maxi dress. The others Lois introduced and they smiled and said hi. Lois then said grace.
    â€œHi God. Thanks for tonight. Thanks for great food and the chance to eat it with women who chew with their mouths closed, don’t empty their bowl onto their own – or anybody else’s – head, and break wind discreetly, not with a prior announcement. It is wonderfully refreshing, and I am already blessed. Thanks especially that Ruth was able to join us. Please help her to find this evening restorative and fun. Amen.”
    The other women said Amen and started to pass around the plates and load them up with food. One of the women, Emily, lifted every container that Lois passed her up close to her nose andexamined it, before either scooping some onto her plate or passing it straight on to me. She used careful, deft movements and it was only when she spoke to me I realized why.
    â€œIs this chicken or pork?”
    â€œUm…” I leaned in. The light was beginning to fade and we were in the shadow of the cottage wall. “I think it’s chicken.”
    â€œIs the pepper red or green?”
    â€œThere’s both. Red and green.”
    â€œCould you pick me out some red, and some meat?”
    I lifted some onto her plate.
    â€œThanks, Ruth. I hate green peppers. I don’t understand why anyone eats them. Aren’t they just unripe red peppers? We don’t eat green bananas or green strawberries. Or green tomatoes. Except for in that film. Which was a great film, don’t get me wrong, I sobbed like a pregnant woman, but it was wrong about the green tomatoes. Don’t you think green peppers are just a big con? I reckon it’s a whole emperor’s new clothes situation and the supermarkets are laughing their heads off at us while banking on nobody ever saying anything. Well, I’m not fooled. I’m not playing their game. Only ripe vegetables pass these lips.”
    Ellie, a forty-ish woman with a man’s haircut and dressed as though she expected to be riding a bucking bronco before the night was over, hollered across the table, “Is she going on about peppers again? Let it go, woman! Give it a rest! Ruth does not need to spend her first evening with us being hit over the head with your pepper speech. You need to find yourself a life.”
    â€œI have a life!”
    â€œWell, you need to look for a better one.”
    â€œThat’s offensive.” Emily folded her arms in mock outrage. “You just told a partially sighted woman she has a poor quality of life, and then taunted her about how she can remedy her miserable situation. What are you going to do next? Pass me nasty notes I can’t read? Maybe Ruth would rather discuss peppers with me than listen to a cowgirl bullying a person about their disability.” Emily pointedher fork in Ellie’s direction. “I need to get a life? And that from a woman whose best friend is a horse.”
    â€œI love you, Em,” Ellie shouted back.
    â€œLove you too, sister. If you were a pepper you’d be totally scarlet.”
    As the light faded and the shadows crept further across the lawn, bringing with them the evening insects, the guests continued to shout, laugh, mock each other, throw advice across the table – welcome and unwelcome – eat more than a fireman after a double shift, tell stories and share the honest ups and downs of their up-and-down lives.
    I listened to Emily tell us about how she had barged in on a strange man in a restaurant toilet cubicle when her kids sent her into the men’s for a joke, laughing so hard she choked on a prawn cracker. I watched Ellie and Ana Luisa hold their friend Rupa’s hands as she cried because another round of IVF had failed and she was broke, and felt broken, and was trying so