Chocolate-Covered Baloney Read online

  “Reillys, is that you?”

  “It’s us, Isabel,” Daddy said. “Well, it’s some of us. Myra Sue isn’t here.”

  She stopped near our little huddled mass and wrapped her arms around herself. At least she had long sleeves.

  “Lily, dear, Grace sent me to find you and see if you were all right.”

  “I’m fine,” Mama said in a strong voice. If you’d been standing in the dark and not able to see her very well, and if you hadn’t been in on the conversation, you’d have thought everything was hunky-dory and we were all just hanging around outside because getting our noses froze off is so much fun.

  “In fact,” Mama continued, “we’re just going back inside.”

  “You sure you’re okay?” Daddy asked her as she started to move away.

  “Positively,” she said, and I could hear the reassuring smile in her voice. “I was just surprised, that’s all.”

  “Well, Lily,” Isabel said, her voice as snooty as I’ve ever heard it, “I don’t mean to hurt your feelings, but your mother is perfectly dreadful, and no one would blame you if you simply went somewhere else until she left. I’d be happy to give you the keys to our house, if you’d like to take sanctuary there. A moment ago she lit a cigarette, and when I told her you absolutely did not allow smoking in your home or around your children, she nearly blew smoke in my face as if I were a nuisance and said, ‘Oh, is that a fact?’ As if she did not believe me! Well, I mean to say, forgive me, my dear, but she is completely unrefined. Are you sure she’s your mother?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Hmm. See? I wasn’t the only one who found it hard to believe those two women were related.

  Isabel cleared her throat in the most serious, disapproving manner.

  “I directed her to the front porch,” she said, “but it took Ian and Temple backing me up to get her to go. I know you would never ask her to leave the party, but if you want to slip off to our house, I’m sure everyone would understand.”

  “Thank you, Isabel. That’s very kind of you.” She sighed deeply, as if gathering in strength. “But I have to deal with Sandra at some point.”

  “But, honey, you shouldn’t have to deal with her at a party,” Daddy said.

  “Mike makes a perfect point, Lily. Bursting in the way she did, crashing Grace’s party . . .” She paused, then asked, “You weren’t expecting her, were you?”

  Mama shook her head vigorously. “No! And I can’t imagine why she’s come back after all these years. My mother never was one to take life seriously. For her to just show up this way, unannounced, unexpected . . .”

  A dim image flashed in my head of ole Myra Sue huddled over the mailbox and whispering on the telephone when she thought no one was around. Then a little light seemed to come on in my brain, and I let it shine there for a while as I looked more closely at the mental image of my sister. That girl had been secretive and sneaky and sulky for the last couple of weeks. Daddy had thought she had a boyfriend. Mama, Isabel, Grandma, and nearly everyone else thought she was going through a teenage phase. But maybe it had been something more awful than anyone could have guessed: maybe Myra had invited that awful screaming Mimi into our house!

  Thinking About Things While Freezing Your Brain

  I couldn’t very well mention my suspicions about Myra Sue to anyone just yet. Number one: Why would my sister do something so purely dumb? Number two: She did not even know about Sandra Moore because Grandma had told only me, and I had never, ever breathed a mumbling word about her to one single, solitary person. Number three: That smelly, unkempt, and unrefined Mimi-person would never be on Myra Sue’s list of Preferred Persons, so why would she invite her to our house?

  But I’m telling you something right here and now: that image and those ideas just hung around inside my head, itching my brain until I nearly wanted to claw right through my hair, my scalp, my skull, and all my brain guts just to get to it and scratch.

  “Let’s go inside,” Mama said. “April Grace does not need to be out here in this freezing weather.”

  “Just one thing,” I said before I took a single step, even though I was sure my lips and nose had turned blue from cold.

  “What’s that?” Mama asked.

  “I do not want that Mimi-person kissing me ever again.”

  “Don’t worry, punkin,” Daddy said. “You stick beside me, and she won’t.”

  We trudged back to the house. I’m telling you, I did not want to go in there, but I did not want to stay outside and freeze to death, either. The celebrating voices and laughter had begun again, but from outside it sounded like someone had thrown a thick blanket over the whole party.

  In the living room, I grabbed hold of Daddy’s hand. The candles still burned, but not as brightly as before. A lot of that cake had been cut and eaten, but it sure didn’t look as yummy as it had thirty minutes ago. Grandma was chatting and smiling with Pastor Ross, but she seemed less happy. You know something? It looked to me like all the fun had gone right out of Grandma’s party, and maybe right out of Grandma.

  You know how Isabel said that old woman had gone out to the front porch to smoke? Well, she wasn’t there. No, sirree! Instead, she was standing inside, all close to Mr. Brett, twirling a strand of her awful red hair with one finger and talking to him. Oh brother. Do you suppose that icky Mimiperson was flirting with Mr. Brett, who was about three hundred years younger than her? He wasn’t flirting back, I’ll tell you for sure. In fact, he darted his eyes all around the room like he was looking for an escape hatch. Of course, Mr. Brett was too polite to run off and find one. Lucky for him, Forest Freebird and Ian came to the rescue. That Mimi-person looked a little surprised at their interruption and kinda aggravated as he got all involved in conversation with them.

  “You know, I haven’t seen Myra Sue for a while,” Mama said, glancing around.

  “Maybe she’s taking care of Eli,” Daddy suggested.

  “No. Mrs. Hopper has Eli now. See? She’s rocking him in Mama Grace’s rocker.” Mama frowned slightly. “I was so busy getting this party ready, and then after everyone came, I told her to take care of Eli for me, so I didn’t worry about it, but . . . actually, Mike, I haven’t seen Myra Sue much at all tonight.”

  “If that girl has been on the telephone this whole night—” Daddy said.

  “I think she’s in her room. I’ll go check,” I said.

  “Okay, honey,” Mama said. “Tell her I said for her to stay off the phone, and that I said to come downstairs. She’s expected to be at Grandma’s party.”

  I figured my sister was up in her room. Besides, I wanted to explore the notion that she was in cahoots with Mimi. Which still seemed dumb to me. If she had been, wouldn’t she be there, hanging around That Woman? Unless, of course, she didn’t want anyone to know she’d cooked up such a harebrained scheme . . . and even if she had, it still did not make a lick of sense. In fact, I could hardly believe my imagination even came up with the idea.

  I edged past that Mimi-person, who was now all wrapped up in conversation with Ernie Beason. He was smiling politely at her. Maybe he did not smell her stinky breath or notice her brown teeth. I shot a glance at Grandma to see if she’d noticed this new development. She had. She was glowering good and proper at Ernie. Or at Mimi. Or both. I skittered right out of the room, unnoticed.

  My sister was not on the telephone in the hallway, so I tore off up the stairs and went straight to her bedroom. I knew she was there ’cause I heard Michael Jackson’s shrill voice piping out from the other side of that door.

  “Hey, Myra Sue!”

  “Go away,” she hollered.

  “I can’t. Mama sent me up here.”

  There was a bit of time before she opened the door slightly and eyeballed me out of the inch-wide crack.

  “Why?”

  “Because it’s Grandma’s birthday!” Any dunce would know that without even being told.

  She huffed at me.

  “Grandma has a birthday eve
ry year.”

  Sometimes I wanted to smack that girl.

  “Yeah, well, so do you. How’d you like it if no one went to your party?”

  She bugged her eyes out at me like she thought I was stupid.

  “I don’t want a bunch of old people at my party,” she said, all snippy. “Besides, there’s a whole houseful of people down there. She is not going to miss me. As if she would, anyway. This entire family is going to regret how they’ve treated me when I’m famous.”

  Oh brother. Sometimes Myra tried to act like she was all pitiful and neglected, and that “when I’m famous” bit was enough to sour my stomach. But I had to persuade her to come downstairs, no matter how big a drip she was.

  “Of course Grandma misses you. Mama and Daddy miss you, and they said for you to come down.”

  She crimped her mouth all prissy and put-out.

  “I have things to do.”

  “Like what?”

  “Homework, if you must know.”

  “Oh, I’m so sure! Myra Sue, you have never been a homework hound before in your whole entire life. Why are you so all-fired obsessed about doing it now?”

  She slammed the door right in my face. You know what I did? I’ll tell you. I opened it right up and walked in. I thought she was gonna whomp me, but I got out of the way in time. Wearing her best blue dress and shiny black flats, she ended up falling over a pile of dirty laundry in the middle of the floor.

  “Get out!” she screamed at me. “You are such an intruding . . . intruding intruder.”

  I ignored her and looked around that filthy room. “Aren’t you afraid you’re gonna catch the bubonic plague?” I asked my goofy, messy sister.

  “Be quiet!” She kicked and scrambled, trying to get loose from all those dirty socks and underwear and shirts and jeans and stuff.

  “How can someone as prissy as you be such a slob? You reckon something is gonna come crawling out of all this trash someday and carry you off?”

  “Turn blue, April Grace Reilly! And get out of my room!” She finally stood up.

  She looked like she was gonna throttle me, so I skittered to the other side of the room. Well, as best as I could skitter through magazines, crumpled notebook pages, a history book, a math book, a science book, and an English book scattered across the floor like she’d thrown them away for all time.

  I would have dearly loved to confront her about that weird little list I found, and tell her I knew she was up to No Good, but in her current state of mind, I knew if she knew I had it, she’d rip my gizzard right out. For the time being I shoved all thoughts of the list out of my head.

  I stopped that girl dead in her tracks when I said, “Did you invite that awful ole Mimi-person to Grandma’s party?”

  She looked genuinely surprised.

  “What? What’s a Mimi-person?”

  “Sandra Moore.”

  “Who?”

  “Did you invite her?”

  She huffed at me and stomped her foot. “I did not invite anyone to that party! Why would I invite anyone to a boring old party full of old people, especially someone I’ve never heard of?”

  “So you’re saying you didn’t invite our other grandmother to this party?”

  Her eyes got bigger than two full moons.

  “Our other grandmother?”

  “Do you mean to tell me you weren’t down there when they brought out Grandma’s cake?”

  She narrowed her eyes at me. “What do you mean our other grandmother?”

  Suddenly I knew how to fix that Myra Sue so she’d never run out on a party for Grandma again.

  I grabbed her arm and said, “Come with me.”

  Myra Sue Meets Mimi

  “There’s Myra!” Mama said as we got to the bottom of the steps.

  Mama stood nearby, holding the baby, and I figured that by the way he was squirming like a little worm, she was gonna go feed him. That kid eats about every two hours. I wondered how much he’d eat when he was as old as me. Daddy would probably have to get an extra job in town just to buy extra groceries for Eli.

  “Honey, where have you been?” she asked my sister.

  “I have homework, Mother,” Myra said, all prissy.

  Mama gave her a Look, and I wanted so bad to holler, “Oh brother, I’m so sure!” but I didn’t. One thing Mama did not need right then was to worry about something dumb my dumb sister was doing. Didn’t she have enough to worry about with that old woman who’d barged in?

  “April Grace said ‘our other grandmother’ is here. What’s she talking about? We don’t have another grandmother.”

  Mama looked upset, but Eli started squalling so loud, all she said was, “Go let Grandma know you’re helping her celebrate her birthday, Myra Sue. Then come to the bedroom and I’ll explain the rest to you. ”

  Myra Sue shoved out a sigh like you can’t believe, but she said, “All right. But if I fail history for attending a party, don’t blame me.”

  Boy, oh boy, I reckon I got a big mouth sometimes, and I stick my foot right in there, shoes, socks, and all, but my sister did not have a Single Clue about when to keep her yap shut. Eli was screaming fit to be tied, so Mama pinned a hard look on ole Myra, and I knew there was gonna be consequences if my sister kept being all snitty and snooty.

  While Mama hurried off toward her bedroom to feed the baby, Myra Sue grabbed my arm so hard, I yelped like a pup and yanked myself free.

  “Did you drag me down here just to get me in trouble, you big, fat brat?” she snarled.

  At that remark, I got all uppity my own self. “I did not get you in trouble, Miss Smarty Pants. You got yourself in trouble because you have a big mouth and no couth. And anyway, you aren’t doing homework, and you know it, and I know it, and you know I know it, and I know you know I know it, so just drop it.”

  She looked confused for a minute. That girl cannot think when she’s standing, because all the blood that should be supplying her brain has drained clear down to the far edge of her pinky toe. Then she squinted her eyes at me, but I did not give her a chance to slap, pinch, or grab.

  “Let’s go in the other room and get some cake before you get in more trouble,” I said to her, as if I cared whether or not she got grounded until she was forty-two years old, or if she had to scrub the service porch with her very own personal toothbrush, which Mama would never suggest, but it would serve that girl right.

  She did not budge.

  “I want to know about our other grandma!”

  “Mama just said she’ll tell you about it.”

  “You tell me now, you brat!”

  Boy howdy, that girl could be unreasonable. If she did not want to wait until Mama explained it to her, then so be it.

  “Come with me,” I said, “and you’ll see for yourself.”

  She shmooshed up her lips, but she did not do the Isabelblinking business. Instead she looked at me like she was examining my brain for worms and/or warts, but she followed me into the other room.

  Grandma was surrounded by some of our guests, but she noticed when Myra and I walked in. She smiled, kinda tight and forced, but I was glad she saw my sister had made An Effort. She and Myra waved to each other, then Myra said, “Okay, so now Grandma knows I’m here. Show me this other grandmother.”

  I glanced around and saw that Mimi-person eating cake and sitting on the sofa with her bony, white legs crossed. One foot wiggled back and forth like crazy in its red boot.

  “Follow me,” I said to Myra, and believe it or not, she did.

  We stopped near That Woman. In one hand, she balanced the biggest hunk of birthday cake you ever saw, and in the other hand she had a cup of Mama’s good cloud punch. She was guzzling it down like she’d been in the Gobi desert for the last thirteen decades and hadn’t had a drop to drink in all that time. When she lowered the cup, she spotted me. She had a foamy, red mustache and she wiped it right off with her sleeve as if she had no manners, which she did not, I’m pretty sure.

  “Well, there’
s my little carbon copy!” she said, grinning at me and showing those stained teeth.

  I did not shudder this time, at least not right out where you could see me do it. I’ll tell you one thing right now: if I was gonna look like her when I got old, I think I’d shave my head and move to the moon.

  “Ma’am,” I said, polite as all get-out, “this is my sister. She’s fourteen.” Then I turned and said to Myra, “This is Sandra Moore. She’s Mama’s mother.” Please take note that I did not say she was our grandmother. Somehow I just could not hack out those words in an introduction.

  You know what? I think I turned invisible right then, because that woman did not look at me again. She stared and stared at Myra Sue, then she grinned real big.

  “Well, my goodness, I did not know I had a glamour girl for a granddaughter. Precious thing, you are a regular little princess, aren’t you? My word, you look just like Princess Di!”

  I nearly choked when she said that, and Myra just stood there, gawking at her.

  “What’s the matter, princess? Cat got your tongue?”

  “No, ma’am,” Myra Sue squeaked out.

  I wasn’t sure if she was so tongue-tied because that Mimi-person was just so awful, or if she actually believed she looked like Princess Diana and was grateful someone finally noticed. If ole Myra Sue took the woman’s words seriously and started acting like she was some kind of Royal Person, I figured sooner or later someone would have to lock her up in a princess tower somewhere because there would be no living with her.

  “Come to me, darlin’ girl. What’s your name?”

  Myra Sue just stood there as if she really had lost her tongue somewhere.

  “Her name is Myra Sue Reilly,” I said. “Me and Myra are named after our grandmother.”

  “Oh?” Still staring at Myra, she said, “Neither of you has a Sandra or a Kay in your name?” She sounded kinda miffed.

  “No, ma’am.”

  “Well, I don’t think that’s very nice.” She put her cake plate on the floor, caught my sister’s hand, and pulled her closer. Then she started grinning again and studied Myra some more. “I b’lieve you’ve got your Grandpa Earl Joe’s eyes. His were bluer than the summer sky, too. He was a handsome feller.”