Read Online This One and Magic Life by Anne C. George - Free Book Online

really tickled at something she just blubbers.” Naomi pours water into two cups and puts them in a small microwave on the counter.
    â€œHave you checked your batteries lately?”
    â€œWhat batteries?”
    â€œIn the pager.”
    â€œThey’re fine, Mariel. Slip, slide, or twinge and every rescue squad in Mobile and Baldwin County will be beating on my door. Quit worrying about me.”
    â€œBut I do. You’re so isolated out here.”
    â€œThank God.” The microwave dings and Naomi takes the cups out and spoons instant coffee into them. “Here’s the sugar.”
    Mariel should refuse. Instead she takes two teaspoonfuls as well as a generous amount of milk. “Cookie?” her mother asks. Mariel shakes her head no. At least she has some willpower.
    â€œLet’s go out on the porch.” Naomi takes a handful of cookies and leads the way. “Your brother Jacob called yesterday. I told him about Artie. He said he used to be in love with her when they were in high school. I never knew that, did you?”
    â€œI couldn’t keep up with everybody.” Mariel can’t keep up with Dolly. She can’t imagine what it was like for her mother with six children to feed and dress and try to teach some social graces to. Especially with so little help from their father.
    Her mother laughs. “Neither could I. I remember that terrible crush Elizabeth had on Pete Spencer and that’s about all.”
    â€œI remember that one, too. She nearly drove us crazy. I wonder whatever happened to him.”
    â€œI’ll bet your sister knows.” Naomi bites into a cookie. “Here,” she says, pushing some magazines from the couch with her elbow. “Sit here.”
    Mariel sinks into the soft pillows. A ceiling fan cools her face. She closes her eyes and thinks she has never been so tired in her life. She wants to stay here and let her mother take care of her, her alone; she wants to be her mother’s child. She doesn’t want her mother to be eighty years old and frail. She doesn’t want to worry about her falling or having a heart attack.
    â€œHow’s Donnie doing?” Naomi asks.
    â€œOkay, I guess. He seems to be all right.”
    â€œAnd Dolly?”
    â€œI guess she’s okay, too. She stayed out at Artie’s last night. I’m surprised she’s not over here to see you yet. She’s getting the house, you know.”
    â€œI figured she would. I wonder what she’ll do.”
    â€œI have no idea.”
    â€œShe’s a good girl.”
    â€œShe’s not a girl, Mama. She’s twenty-seven years old and doesn’t have a clue what she’s going to do with her life. And she won’t even talk about Bobby. All she’ll say is that the marriage just didn’t work out. Well, my Lord, Mama, how could it? The man was hooked on every pharmaceutical known to mankind. I mean I’m talking Elvis here, Mama. And Dolly knew it when she married him. That’s what I can’t understand. Why latch on to someone who’s headed down the toilet?”
    â€œPeople do it all the time, Mariel. They think they can rescue them.”
    â€œI guess so. And like I was telling Donnie last night, in spite of his problems, Bobby is one of the most likable people in the world.”
    â€œAnd it took strength for Dolly to put him out. Think of it that way, Mariel.”
    â€œAnd dumbness to have let him in. Those Sullivan genes. No common sense.”
    Naomi reaches for another cookie. “Well, they’ve done pretty good. Look at Artie, famous all over the world, and Hektor, rich as Croesus. Donnie’s always done fine, too.”
    â€œHektor’s pure luck. And speaking of being stoned out of your skull, you should have seen him last night.”
    â€œDrunk?”
    â€œI don’t know what he was on. Probably something exotic his company is importing from Latin America.” Mariel