Read Online Part of Me by Kimberly Willis Holt - Free Book Online

hard on getting up the nerve to convince Tommy to ask Lily Bea for him that he’d forgotten he didn’t know how to dance.
    The dance was two days away and he still hadn’t cracked open The Tango and Other Up-to-Date Dances. He’d checked it out of the bookmobile a couple of weeks ago. He didn’t go with his family as he usually did on Tuesday nights. He waited until they returned, then he walked the two miles with Blue hobbling behind on his three legs. The almost full moon was big and low in the sky that night. Merle Henry was grateful for the light it provided since he left his flashlight at home. Except for the giant longleaf pines, it seemed like he and Blue were the only things out there.
    Arriving at the Hilltop Baptist Church parking lot, he waited until no one was in the bookmobile. Later when he handed Miss Erma the book, she’d said, “Your daddy sure could dance. Whoo-ee! You ought to ask Luther how to cut a rug.”
    His face warmed and he said, “It’s for a report I’m doing.”
    â€œWe didn’t have any classes like that when I was in school with Luther. Say, isn’t that Sweetheart Dance coming up soon?” She winked at him like she knew exactly why he was checking out that book.
    He walked home with the book hidden under his jacket, wondering all the way back how Miss Erma knew Luther could dance so well. She was kind of pretty, but he didn’t like thinking of anyone dancing with his daddy except his momma. He looked down at his hound. “You’re lucky, Blue. No she-dog will ever expect you to cut a rug.”
    Blue did know how to twirl around in a circle, something he’d never done until he’d lost that hind leg.
    *   *   *
    Merle Henry’s aunt Pie would be visiting this afternoon from Alexandria. She was only five years younger than his momma, but she seemed a lot younger.
    â€œI’m a grass widow,” she was fond of saying when people asked her about her husband.
    â€œThat’s another way of saying divorced,” his daddy explained to Merle Henry the first time he’d heard Aunt Pie say it. “They’re separated by miles and miles of grass. Pie is like a stray cat, always looking for a better fish.”
    Merle Henry thought Aunt Pie was pure-d fun. She’d taken him to the Louisiana State Fair last year in Shreveport. They rode every ride three times and gawked at all the sideshows. She even entered the watermelon-seed spitting contest and won. Aunt Pie had a round face and a little rump that twisted side to side when she walked. And when she laughed, her whole face laughed, including her eyes, which grew tiny and reminded Merle Henry of a cute little possum’s. He hoped he could have a girlfriend like Aunt Pie one of these days. For now, he’d make do with Lily Bea. That is, if he didn’t lose his shot with her by not knowing how to dance.
    In the afternoon, Merle Henry waited for Aunt Pie’s arrival, while chopping wood out front. He wore a T-shirt, hoping to impress her with the new muscles he’d noticed in the mirror recently. Now the damp shirt stuck to his skin from sweat. He was thinking about changing when Aunt Pie rode up with a red-headed fellow in an army jeep. Merle Henry wanted to escape inside the house. He hadn’t liked her last boyfriend, Buck, a car salesman from Lake Charles who told stupid jokes, then socked Merle Henry’s shoulder as if to emphasize the punch line. “Get it?” Buck would say.
    Merle Henry’s arm hurt an entire week following their visit. When they’d driven off, his mother had said, “Mercy, Pie can surely do better than that.”
    And when Aunt Pie showed up alone the next weekend with a black eye, she decided she could do better.
    â€œWhat did he do to you?” his mother had asked, handing Pie a dishcloth filled with ice chips.
    â€œYou should see him, Rose,” said Aunt Pie. “Mr.