Chocolate-Covered Baloney Read online

  “Smarts, eh?” I said, before I could stop myself. “How smart do you have to be to abandon your own kid twice?”

  I guess Mimi did not expect that remark to come shooting out of my little sunshine mouth, because she looked downright shocked.

  “I thought you said your mama never said anything about me.”

  “She didn’t.” And I shut my yap tighter than a rusted lid on a mason jar.

  She chewed on her lower lip while she stared at me. I think maybe she thought if she stared at me hard enough I’d crack like a suspect on one of those TV cop shows. But I didn’t. I slathered some jelly on my toast and munched it, meeting her eyes mildly.

  She sat back in her chair and tapped the tabletop with her long, dingy fingernails. Boy, oh boy, Isabel would have a spell if and when she ever saw ’em. I wondered if she’d announce to Mimi that “nails are a decoration, not a tool, dahling,” like she told my sister last year. Which, if you haven’t noticed, is one reason why Myra does as little housework as she can get away with.

  “So I have some notoriety on Rough Creek Road, eh?” Mimi said. She kinda grinned, almost like she wanted to be known for being a rotten person.

  Boy, oh boy, I was gladder than you can believe that Melissa Kay Carlyle was coming to spend the day with me. This woman had to be seen to be believed.

  Melissa’s Tale of Woe

  At midmorning, an ugly, brown minivan pulled into our driveway, and Melissa jumped out. She came running up to the house like she couldn’t get away fast enough from that thing. I threw open the front door and she hurried in, her eyes wide, her short, dark hair windblown and messy.

  “Is that your mom’s boyfriend’s van?” I said, eyeballing it. I wasn’t too impressed since it looked like something an alien from the planet Mergatroid might drive. I guess it was better than the little rust bucket Ms. Carlyle drove, though. About half the time, that old car wouldn’t even start.

  We watched the van disappear down Rough Creek Road, and Melissa sighed from the pits of her very soul.

  “Yeah, he showed up this morning before we were even up,” she said with all the mournfulness you can imagine. “Man, oh man, April Grace, do I need to talk to you.”

  “Boy, oh boy, do I need to talk to you, too! And you might as well keep your coat on, because there is no place in the house where we can talk.”

  Her round eyes got rounder. “Why not?”

  I could hear Mimi hacking and coughing, so I figured it was just a matter of time before she came out of the kitchen and spotted us.

  “Wait for me outside,” I hissed at Melissa, then I galloped up the steps, yanked my coat out of the closet, and flew back downstairs and out the front door faster than you can turn around twice.

  Melissa stood shivering and confused on the porch, right by the front door. I grabbed her hand and whisper-shouted, “Come on!”

  Our feet pounded the frozen ground as we jetted across the hayfield toward Grandma’s house, and when we arrived, breathless and sweaty under our clothes, Grandma was sitting in her nice, soft armchair, sipping coffee.

  “Mercy on us, girls!” she said, spilling coffee down her front as we burst inside. “Is the house on fire?”

  “No,” I panted out, shutting the door and leaning back against it to catch my breath. “But our house might as well be, from the smell of that ole lady’s breath!” I pushed off the door to stand on my own two personal feet and felt a little dizzy. Normally, dashing across the field to Grandma’s would not wear me out like this, but this day was not normal. Number one: It was colder than an icicle outside. Number two: I was wearing a heavy coat, a heavy sweater, thick socks, and winter boots. Number three: I was completely stressed-out. Number four: I was catching a cold, and when you run while catching a cold, you feel like an army is marching through your sinuses and setting up camp around your uvula, which is that little hangy-down thing in the back of your throat. Those four things combined like a thick stew of aggravation.

  “Mimi took over my room,” I said. Then I sneezed about five times. That crazy cat Queenie, who was lying along the back of Grandma’s chair, hissed at me, then streaked out of the room like she thought my sneezing might get on her precious fur. She has sneezed plenty of times, and I didn’t go running. Dumb old cat.

  Grandma set down her cup and saucer with a clink on the little table next to her chair and handed me the box of tissues she kept there. I used about 593 Kleenexes to blow my nose and wipe my eyes.

  “Good morning, girls,” she said, with all the good manners I had not bothered to use. “Melissa, how are you today, honey? I missed you at the party last night.”

  “Good morning, ma’am. I wanted to go, but my mom had other plans for us. I hope you had a happy birthday.”

  “I see. And I did. Thank you, honey.” Grandma smiled at her, then turned to me. “You say Sandra has taken over your room?”

  “Yes! And I had to spend the night in Myra Sue’s gross, old bedroom, and just in case you were wondering, she still hogs the covers, and her bedroom is dirtier than a two-edged sword.”

  Grandma was silent for a minute then she shook her head.

  “I was afraid of something like that. It’s not like your folks to turn someone away,” she said.

  “I know!” I said with considerable distress. “Even if it’s that creepy Mimi-person.”

  Melissa followed our conversation, looking from Grandma to me and back again like she was watching a tennis match.

  “Who’s Mimi?” she asked.

  I sucked in a deep breath. “She’s Mama’s mother.”

  Melissa put her hands on her hips. “I didn’t know your mama had a mother.”

  “Well, she does,” I said glumly, coughing a few times.

  She grinned. “So you have two grandmas! That’s so cool, April Grace.”

  I gawked at that girl like she had lost her mind, but all her grandparents had passed away before she was born, so I reckon I understood why she wanted a couple of grandmas all her own. But believe you me, she would not want Mimi.

  “Girls, take off your coats,” Grandma said as she got up, “I’ll make us some biscuits and chocolate gravy.”

  “Oh boy!” Melissa and I said together, forgetting about Mimi for a little bit.

  I’d had breakfast not long ago, but I imagined poor ole Melissa was hungry. Ms. Carlyle is a lousy cook. Besides, you don’t need to be hungry to enjoy chocolate gravy and hot biscuits.

  We carried our coats into Grandma’s bedroom and laid them on her bed. I loved that room. It was full of framed photographs of Daddy when he was little and of Mama and Daddy way back when they were young, and all the school pictures of me and my sister. One of my most favorite pictures is of Grandma and her husband, Voyne Ray Reilly, back when they were first married. I never knew my grandfather, and the only vision I have of him is from this very picture, when he was a handsome young man in an army uniform from World War II. I picked up that photo in its old brass curlicued frame and eyeballed it hard.

  You see, even though I have red hair, green eyes, fair skin, and freckles like Mama, I sometimes think I look a little like Grandma, too. And now here comes this Mimiperson who says I look like her. I stared at that image of my grandma.

  Melissa stood so close, she was breathing on my neck as we looked at that photo. Her breath was kinda stinky, like she’d eaten a banana not long ago.

  “Do you think I look like her?” I asked, tapping Grandma’s young, smiling face.

  Melissa tipped her head to one side, then to the other as she studied that picture.

  “Yeah, kinda. When you smile. And the shape of your face. And your nose. And your eyes kinda look like that. It would help if this picture was in color instead of black-and-white.”

  “They didn’t have color back then,” I declared. “Okay, so my eyes look like hers, and my nose looks like hers, and my mouth looks like hers, and my face is shaped like hers, so yeah, I guess I look like my grandma. Right?”

  She sq
uinted and eyeballed me, then the photo, then me again, and finally nodded. “Right!”

  I grinned real big and put that picture back on its special doily on the dresser.

  “That crazy Mimi tried to make me believe I look like her, which I would never want to do in a thousand million years.”

  Melissa trailed me back into the living room, and we flopped onto the sofa. I picked up the old photo album Grandma kept on the coffee table and started looking through it, taking special note of all my relatives, which are few in number. My mama and daddy, grandma, sister, and one aunt. No cousins or uncles. No grandpa, either, ’cause Grandma’s husband died a long time ago, and I’d never heard of Grandpa Earl Joe, who I reckon was my other grandpa. I reckon he died, too. In fact, after looking at that photo album and thinking about relatives, I was kinda curious about him. What kind of man would want someone like Mimi?

  Next to me, Melissa sighed real loud and kinda slouched down like she was feeling poorly.

  “You catching a cold, too?” I asked her.

  “No. But I need to talk to you.”

  Then I remembered Melissa had a problem, too. My problems were bad enough, but I wasn’t the only one in that room. I snapped shut the photo album, put it aside, and grabbed a few more tissues out of the box. Facing my friend, I pulled my legs up under me and rested my elbows on my thighs.

  “What’s going on, M. K.?” I sniffed back my runny-nose stuff.

  She imitated how I sat, and we faced each other.

  “That man, Lester Purdy? The guy my mom likes?”

  I nodded. “Yeah?”

  “He’s got kids.”

  “I didn’t know that!”

  “Yeah, me neither, until he came to pick us up last night in that awful van thing he drives and brought them with him. He’s got four kids, and they live in Brixey, so they don’t go to school in Cedar Ridge.”

  “Four kids! Wow!” I thought about that for a bit. “Did your mom know about them before last night?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. Anyway, he has three boys and a girl, and they are awful. Jeremy is thirteen; Jason is twelve. Paul is eight and DeeDee is seven. They are so noisy and they fight all the time, and he just lets them. Last night at McDonald’s—”

  “You went to Blue Reed last night?” I guessed this because the closest McDonald’s to Rough Creek Road is in Blue Reed.

  “Yeah. He was going to take us to Red Lobster, but his kids threw a hissy fit for McDonald’s. I was kinda disappointed because Mom and I don’t go out for meals very much, and both of us were looking forward to a nice place, especially as we had to miss the birthday party. Mom even bought herself a new outfit. Well, those dumb kids of Lester’s acted like the Tinker twins, only worse.”

  Oh, that was not good.

  “They used fries like slingshots to hurl ketchup all over the place, and they ruined Mom’s new dress. And they made fun of my hair, and they made fun of our house and how small it is and how old our furniture is.”

  “Golly,” I sighed in sympathy. “And your mom likes this guy?”

  She sighed, too, and looked down at her hands as she picked at a cuticle.

  “I guess. I mean, she never goes out with anyone, and now all of sudden when she does, it’s with this guy and his four bratty kids.”

  “Do you like him?”

  She shrugged. “He’s kind of a dork. I mean, he says things like, ‘Hey, Melissa, did you have a rad day at school?’ Or like last night, he said, ’This Big Mac is totally awesome.’”

  “Ugh.” I said. There is nothing worse than a grown-up trying to be cool. If they’re cool, it’s because they don’t even know they’re cool. They just are. If they aren’t, there is no amount of “cool” talk that’s gonna make them cool.

  “Have you told your mom how you feel?” I asked, sniffing. I thought for a minute I was gonna sneeze, but I didn’t. Instead my eyes watered like tiny little spigots.

  “No. I mean, there’s not been much of an opportunity. Lester and his kids hung around until late last night, and they showed up way early this morning. So I haven’t really been alone with my mama.” She sighed and gazed out the window for a few seconds, then bit on that cuticle, just like Myra does when she’s nervous and upset.

  “Me and my mom aren’t like you and your mom, April Grace,” she said. “We don’t visit and talk much. She’s always so tired and stressed-out when she gets home from work, and she just wants peace and quiet. At least that’s what she’s always telling me.”

  Boy, oh boy. How sad would that be if you couldn’t talk to your very own mother? I wanted to make Melissa feel better.

  “Your mom is really nice,” I said, and she nodded. “It’s real obvious that she loves you.”

  “Yeah. She does.” She smiled. “We have a little tea party every Tuesday.”

  “You do?” I wasn’t sure Melissa had ever told me that.

  “Yeah, she makes a pot of tea, and we have buttered toast and cups of tea, then we watch Who’s the Boss? and Growing Pains.”

  I grinned, seeing an image of them sitting at the table, having tea and toast. “That sounds like fun.”

  “It’s real nice. But if she and Lester get together . . .” She shuddered.

  I thought about it for a minute then I said, “You know what? If I were you, at the next tea party, I’d tell her how I felt about Lester and all his kids.”

  “Really?”

  “Sure!” Then I coughed a bunch of times.

  “But what would I say? April Grace, my mom does not like for me to talk about serious things. When I do, she says I’m stressing her out, and she gets grumpy. And you know she gets grumpy a lot.”

  I knew that. Boy, did I know that. Ms. Carlyle was not the most patient person in the world. But, maybe, if Melissa approached her gently . . .

  “Just be honest,” I suggested, “but don’t blurt it out like I’d probably do and ruin everything. Your mom is really nice, even if she gets grumpy a lot. She’ll listen.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  Then something occurred to me that nearly made me fall off the couch.

  “Hey! You know what?”

  She looked about half-alarmed, and when Melissa gets alarmed, her eyes look like saucers.

  “I just thought of something! Your mom is tired and stressed-out most of the time, and all she wants is peace and quiet. Right?”

  “Right. Of course. You know that, April Grace! So?”

  I sneezed twice, wiped my eyes, and blew my nose.

  “So she’s not gonna get any peace and quiet with those four kids of his running around, squirting ketchup and stuff,” I said.

  She stared at me, and then it was like the sun came up in her brain.

  “You are so right, April Grace! Those kids would drive my mom right up the wall. Sometimes she won’t even let me have the television on because the sound gets on her nerves.”

  “If she’s all starry-eyed over Lester, she might not have even thought about it her own personal self. Tuesday evening, at your tea party, just tell her that.”

  Light and hope dawned on her face. Melissa clasped her hands to her chest and closed her eyes like she was praying.

  “Oh, thank you!” she breathed.

  I wasn’t sure who she was thanking with her eyes closed that way, me or God. Who knows? Maybe she was praying. Maybe she’d asked God to help her find a way out of a bad situation and He’d used me to answer her prayer.

  I grinned all over myself, even though my cold symptoms were getting worse.

  Plans Made over Chocolate Gravy

  “Girls, the biscuits and chocolate gravy are on the table,” Grandma called from the kitchen. “Come help yourselves.”

  Now, I’ll tell you something. Mama makes wonderful biscuits, but I think Grandma’s are every bit as good. They are tall and light and flaky. You put soft butter on one while it’s hot, and that butter will sink into the tenderness of that biscuit, then you bite down through the crunchy outside and into the sof
t, buttery middle, and you will think you’re eating a biscuit made in heaven. But if you spoon that sweet, silky-smooth chocolate sauce over those hot, buttery biscuits . . . yum.

  It was nice in Grandma’s cozy, warm kitchen, and normally I would enjoy eating that magnificent treat and drinking tall glasses of cold, fresh milk, but today it tasted only okay, not as good as usual. It hurt a little to swallow, but I would never mention that right out loud in case someone decided I should not eat if it hurt.

  “Tell me about Mimi,” Melissa said, and spoiled the whole atmosphere. Of course, she did not know she was spoiling it, so I did not get aggravated at her.

  So I told her about Mimi, and how she was so pushy.

  “You should see her, Melissa,” I said. “She’s as skinny as Isabel and has stringy purply-red hair and thick, blue eye shadow and red boots.”

  “Wow.”

  “Well, you know you’re going to have to spend time with her, honey,” Grandma said, surprising me. She had brought her knitting to the table, and while we ate, she sat there clicking her needles together faster than you can blink.

  “Actually, Grandma,” I said, “I was hoping I could just stay here with you until she goes away.”

  Grandma did not say a word, and I waited, polite as all get-out, because I thought she was counting stitches. But she had time to count 586 stitches, and she still did not respond.

  “Grandma?”

  “That will be up to your mother,” she said finally.

  “She’ll say no,” I sighed. “And in the meantime, that old woman has taken over my whole entire room, and I have to stay in Myra Sue’s. It’s like living with Oscar the Grouch. Only he’s neater. And friendlier.”