Read The Davis Years (Indigo) for Free Online

to boys. And she’d found out from their nosy neighbor that Jemma had snuck Emily Rose and Wendell over one night while she was out clubbing. That had only happened once. Even though Jemma and Wendell had just been friends and absolutely nothing was going on, Lynette had of course assumed the worst.
    Lynette’s assumption had led to the first and one of the few times she’d hit Jemma. Lynette yelled and screamed all the time, but hitting was rare. At least until she met Smooth. She lost her temper more often and with increasingly violent results after she met him.
    The thing that had finally landed that man behind bars was the thing he’d used to destroy her mother. He’d been convicted of drug conspiracy. They hadn’t been able to get him on anything else because of issues with the evidence. But at least they got him on that.
    The day after Wendell and Em Rose had come over to watch movies, Jemma worried that somehow Lynette would know. She’d dropped things all day and stammered when she talked to Lynette, but other than that, things had been normal. Still, Jemma was tense.
    Then her mother followed her into the kitchen when she went to clean up the dinner dishes. Her heart sank. Lynette hardly ever followed her into the kitchen after dinner.
    “Had a boy over here last night, didn’t you,” Lynette said so close to her ear that Jemma jumped. There was no way that was a question, although it had been phrased as one.
    She gasped, putting her hand over her heart. “Mom, you startled me,” Jemma said, her mind racing, searching for an answer to give Lynette.
    “Thought you was slick.” Lynette sneered as if Jemma hadn’t said a word. She took a cigarette out of the pack and tossed the pack onto the kitchen table. Jemma hated cigarette smoke.
    “I want to know why there was a boy here last night. When you was s’posed to be watching ’Monte. What kind of example is that for him?”
    Hypocrite! Jemma screamed in her head. But she took a deep breath. That kind of attitude would get her nowhere good with Lynette.
    “Um, all I was doing was watching TV,” Jemma said.
    “With a boy all up on you.” Lynette blew cigarette smoke directly into Jemma’s face. “Don’t you lie to me. Junie saw him sneaking and creeping back and forth through the woods.” Lynette’s voice was calm. Too calm.
    Junie. One of Lynette’s friends. Of course, that woman hadn’t had anything better to do than spy on Jemma. She thought they’d been careful, but apparently they hadn’t been careful enough.
    Lynette was harder on Jemma about boys than anything else. The one time Jemma had asked Lynette about sex, Lynette had told her that she could catch AIDS just from kissing a boy and she didn’t want to know what could happen if she did more. Jemma vaguely remembered horror stories involving elements of leprosy and Ebola. Lynette had also told Jemma that she wasn’t getting an HPV shot “so she could go running around, lifting her skirt up all the time.” Whereas other parents might ask their children if they had a boyfriend or girlfriend, Lynette gave Jemma the evil eye and told her that “she better not be talking to none of that little trash out there.”
    “What you doing bringing boys in my house?” Lynette said. She had Jemma backed up against the sink.
    “We were watching TV. That’s it. I promise.” Jemma cringed as the glowing cigarette butt came near her arm. Lynette had never touched her in anger, but Jemma knew she was really pissed. Lynette ground the butt out on the side of the sink. She was afraid to bring up the fact that Emily Rose had been there, too. Lynette would have probably considered that back talking.
    “Hmph,” was all Lynette said. She then backed away, calling over her shoulder, “Come with me.”
    Jemma reluctantly followed Lynette into living room. Lynette sat on one end of the couch and she sat on the opposite end.
    “I know I don’t always do right by y’all, you, your sister, your