The Improper Life of Bezillia Grove
something not much bigger than a toothbrush. I was the one who suggested the hot soak. I even gave her some of my bubble bath.
    “Oh, yes, I was going to fire her, excuse my French, colored ass right then and there, but Charles wouldn’t let me. She’s been with us since the day Sister was born, and Charles said it wouldn’t be right to fire her after all these years.” Mother sat there nodding her head, agreeing with whatever was being said on the other end of the line. “I know it. She and Nathaniel both have to be reminded of their place from time to time. I think they’ve been listening to that damn Martin Luther King again. Anyway, dear, remember we have a meeting at the club at eleven. The chef hopes to have the menu prepared for a final tasting. I’ll see you then. Bye bye.”
    Mother gracefully placed the receiver back on the telephone base and pulled her ashtray toward her. The smoke from her cigarette was drawn to my face. I closed my eyes and saw my grandfather waving his arms, begging for help. I turned away and hid in the smoke, shielding my cheeks behind the palms of my hands and wondering why my complexion was suddenly my mother’s concern. I had seen only one pimple on my chin, and Mother had grabbed me and squeezed it dry, telling me to hush as she pinched my skin between her nails.
    “Mother,” I said very cautiously, not wanting to upset her any more than she already was, “what happened to Pop?”
    “What? Oh. Yes. Well, it seems, at least according to your grandmother, that your grandfather has had a heart attack—or something like that,” she said flatly, not sounding as though she was truly convinced that her father was ill at all.
    “I know, I’m worried sick about him too,” she added, more out of a sense of obligation, I imagined, than any real concern. Then she pulled another breath through her cigarette. “Your grandmother said he is going to need lots of quiet and rest. Doctor’s orders or something like that. So it seems you girls will not be going to the lake this summer, and Lord knows I have a thousand meetings between now and September twenty-sixth.” Mother stared at the kitchen wall, again blowing smoke in my face, as if she had yet to notice I was sitting there next to her.
    “Honestly, I do think your grandmother is being a bit ridiculous about the whole thing,” she said, as much to herself as to me. “You girls spend most of your days outside anyway. Besides, I just don’t know where all this love and concern is suddenly coming from. I’ve always said she’d be the one to put that poor man in his grave, picking on him the way she does.”
    My mother and I rarely had a conversation about anything. And now it felt as though she was looking to me for some kind of comfort or advice. I patiently listened to every mean and mocking word she had to say about her mother, and then I scooted my chair slightly closer to hers and made her an offer. “I can watch her for you, Mother. Adelaide, that is. I can take care of her. I’m fourteen now. Cornelia started babysitting the Jamesons’ little boys when she was only thirteen. Besides, you know Adelaide, all she wants to do is play with her babies anyway.”
    My mother’s eyes darted from left to right as she considered my proposition. The Iris Ball was, in Mother’s very own words, the single most important event in her life. I truly didn’t understand why she was hesitating to accept, unless, of course, she thought it best to call Mrs. Hunt first.
    “Okay, Sister,” she finally said, pulling the cigarette back to her lips. “If you think you are up for the job, you can have it. You’ll be on your own for the most part. And you have to stay out of sight and out of trouble. Nathaniel is going to be very busy, so you can’t get in his way or ask him to drive you all over town. That barn has to look good, and I don’t think that man can do two things at once and get either one of them right.” She paused for a

Similar Books

Bill Dugan

Crazy Horse

Whatever: a novel

Michel Houellebecq

Trapper and Emmeline

Lindsey Flinch Bedder

House of the Rising Son

Sherrilyn Kenyon

Apocalypse

Nancy Springer

Concrete Evidence

Conrad Jones

Without care

Kam Carr

A Private Haunting

Tom McCulloch

Home for Love

Ellen James