Read Online Who Asked You? by Terry McMillan - Free Book Online Page B

appreciate all you have to offer. Which is why I’m by myself. A lot of them just want a trophy. I ain’t hanging on nobody’s arm like I’m a tennis bracelet. There’s some stuff inside me that deserves to be checked out too. I ain’t no black Barbie. Besides, I’m only thirty. So I think I’ve still got a few good years left to catch. Ain’t no doubt about it, I was wild as hell in my twenties, but I’m all about cruising now. My granny’s been bugging me for years about when I’m gon’ have a baby, since where I come from a husband is just a bonus. She’s got high blood pressure and her cholesterol is off the chart, and I thought she might have a heart attack when I said, all proper, “I am not having any kids, because I don’t want any.” She looked at me like I was joking and then realized I wasn’t. She couldn’t think of a good comeback so she just said, “Thank God I got grandsons,” and walked away. She didn’t speak to me for almost a whole month, and then finally outta the blue she said: “Everythang ain’t for everybody,” and we went to see
The Mummy Returns,
since we both like scary movies ’cause they don’t scare us, but we sat through it and ate popcorn out the same bag. She fell asleep on my shoulder.

    I’m also a snooper. I like to go through the people I work for’s shit so I know who I’m really working for. People act like they’re one thing and then you find out they’re somebody else. Everything in their house, especially the stuff in drawers and under the mattresses, tells you who they really are and what they might be hiding. And everybody’s hiding something. Sometimes it’s just bullshit and I can’t figure out why they even bothered. I have never stolen a thing, ’cause that would make me a thief. When I first started working here, I started under Miss Betty’s side of the mattress and I found some very interesting shit:
    A book called
The Prophet
by Kahlil Gibran. (It was too deep for me.)
    A juicy love letter from some dude named Parnell “C” dated all the way back to 1974. (Wasn’t Miss Betty married to Mr. Lee already? I will forget I saw this.)
    A .22 with two bullets in it. (But everybody got at least one of these.)
    A box cutter. (In case you ain’t got time to get the gun.)
    A Gladys Knight and the Pips cassette:
About Love
. (What’s that about?)
    A dried rose (pressed inside some wax paper).
    A black shoestring.
    A man’s blue-and-white pinstriped tie.
    A pair of black stockings. (What happened to that garter?)
    A letter from Louisiana State University telling her she got accepted!
    On Mr. Lee’s side I only found four things: porn videos, Vaseline, a picture of Dorothy Dandridge, and a picture of some old lady who looked like a slave.
    All of this stuff was tame compared with some of the other weird, stupid shit I have come across under other mattresses at other sick folks’ homes that made me scratch my head:
    Easy-Off Oven Cleaner.
    Two sets of dentures.
    Speeding tickets (paid and unpaid).
    A bag of Gummy Bears.
    A bottle of Louisiana Hot Sauce.
    FDS feminine hygiene spray can (empty).
    A New York Knicks jersey.
    A gram of cocaine. (I did borrow a little of this but never got a chance to pay it back, ’cause I got let go.)
    Sometimes, when I’m bored, I try on Miss Betty’s jewelry and walk around in it all day. She’s got very good taste in jewelry. I don’t know what’s real and what ain’t, but since I have yet to stumble on a safe, it’s probably fake. Who gives a shit? If it looks good, what difference does it make if it ain’t real? I dig all the artwork in here. It livens up this old-ass house. She could stand to update all this beige and gold décor, though. It reminds me of my granny’s crib. The one my older brother just bought her out in Palmdale.
    If I was Miss Betty, when Mr. Lee passes, I would get the hell out of this dump with that insurance money. She’ll be good for a hundred thousand green ones. That