Read Online What Looks Like Crazy on an Ordinary Day by Pearl Cleage - Free Book Online Page B

politician ahead in the polls. “I’m Gerry Anderson,” she said. “The pastor’s wife.”
    Of course she was.
I smiled and shook her hand.
    “Didn’t Joyce tell you I was coming by?”
    I shook my head.
Of course she hadn’t.
    The Reverend Mrs. Anderson smiled brightly, but she was clearly annoyed. When I started to explain that Joyce had been spending a lot of time trying to get things straight with Eartha’s new baby, she nodded and clicked her tongue.
    “I forgot all about that poor little fatherless child,” she said. “Such a shame. Babies having babies without any thought to how they’re going to care for them. I keep telling Joyce these girls need some old-fashioned lessons in how to say
no.
All that other just confuses them. We need to teach them how to cross their legs and keep their dresses down. It’s a shame is what it is.”
    I agreed it was definitely a shame, but I kept getting distracted by the elaborate construction of her hair. I was wondering how much of it she had grown and how much was cash and carry. I probably should have invited her in, but I was looking forward to a quiet afternoon alone. Entertaining the preacher’s wife was not on my agenda. She waited another beat to see if I’d break down and offer her a glass of iced tea, but I just couldn’t do it.
    I looked over her shoulder down to the dock where the kid I assumed to be her grandson was smoking what looked like a big, fat joint and tapping the ashes into the water. He took a final, deep drag, then pinched the fire out and put the roach back in his pocket. Wasn’t he afraid she’d smell it on his clothes when he climbed back into the car beside her?
    “Well, let me leave something for her then,” she said finally, handing me a large envelope. It was addressed to Joyce, in care of the church, and it was open. Gerry wagged her finger, frowning. “You tell Joyce the Good Reverend is not happy about this. Your big sister’s been a bad girl.”
    A bad girl?
Joyce was forty-two years old. No wonder this woman got on her nerves. I wanted to say,
Don’t you know opening mail that isn’t addressed to you is a federal offense?
But I had a feeling that would make me a bad girl, too, and one per house is usually plenty.
    I just smiled again. “I’ll be sure and give it to her.”
    She looked at me hard for a minute and I had the feeling that she knew exactly what I was thinking because when she smiled her good-bye, this time it never got beyond the corners of her mouth.
    “Tyrone!” She called his name just as he came up behind her and reached for the door. The boy was high, but he was definitely on his J.O.B. “That’s a good boy,” she said. “Tyrone, honey, this is Mrs. Mitchell’s sister, Mrs.…?” She looked at me.
    “Ava Johnson,” I said.
    He mumbled something that I guessed was supposed to be a greeting of some sort and took his grandmother’s elbow, half helping, half pushing her into the car. She jerked her arm free and her look drew him up sharp before she pretended to soften it with that cold smile. “Slow down, son. Grandmother’s moving as fast as she can.”
    He slammed the door and she handed him the keys when he slid in beside her.
    “We look forward to having you in church on Sunday,” The Reverend Mrs. said. “Both you and your sister. The title of the Good Reverend’s sermon will be
‘No Hiding Place Down Here.’ “
    I felt like I should say
amen
or something, but Tyrone’s patience was at an end and he turned the car around quickly and was gone. It wasn’t until later that I wondered what Frank had been doing driving the minister’s car to the liquor store.
     
     
• 13
     
    i was sitting on the dock with a drink in my hand and my toes in the water, enjoying the last of the sun, when Joyce finally pulled in, blowing the horn and waving out the window like there was any possible way I might miss her entrance. I knew that meant the hospital had agreed to let her bring the baby home and