Chocolate-Covered Baloney Read online

  “Because. I’m curious. And maybe she’s doing something more serious than it seems.”

  “Oh,” she said, almost tired-sounding, like she thought my notions were lame. “I’m just glad to be away from Lester Purdy’s dumb kids for the day.”

  “Yeah. Let’s go downstairs. When ole Myra has the room clean, we’ll take another look.”

  Before we were all the way down the steps, there was a knock on the front door.

  I opened it and Isabel stepped inside. Without saying so much as a howdy-do, she tugged off her tight black gloves.

  “Where’s your mother?” She shed her coat and handed it to me like I was a maid.

  “Hi, Isabel,” I said, hoping to remind her of Good Manners and Proper Greeting. “She’s in the kitchen.”

  “That woman in there with her?”

  “Yep. And Grandma, too.”

  “Hmph!” And off she marched, her high heels clicking against the wood.

  I wondered if she was gonna put Mimi in her place. Lots of times, Isabel just blurts things out. Hmm. Sometimes I think Isabel and me are a lot alike, except I know when to say hello to people, and when not to be rude.

  Melissa and I sort of slinked along behind her to see what, if anything, was gonna happen in the kitchen.

  You know what we saw when we peeked in there? I’ll tell you. Grandma, Mama, and Mimi were sitting at the table, and Isabel was just standing there, eyeing them. A big pot of soup was simmering on the stove, and the kitchen was warm and steamy from it.

  “Get you some coffee, honey,” Grandma said to Isabel, “then have a seat.”

  Mimi sat sideways in her chair, legs crossed, swinging one foot back and forth. She eyed Isabel up and down and sideways while Isabel filled a cup.

  “You don’t look like you belong here,” Mimi said, then she slurped her coffee, making the ickiest, slurpiest sound you have ever heard.

  Isabel straightened her straight spine like someone had poked her with a sharp stick. She looked down her long, pointed nose at the woman. Boy, oh boy, I’ve seen that look before.

  “I beg your pardon?” she said. I knew as well as I know my name she wasn’t begging any pardon. Mimi must’ve known it, too, ’cause she kinda snickered and sneered and drank her coffee some more.

  “Isabel’s pretty much part of our family now, so she belongs here,” I said from the doorway, surprising everyone, most especially my own personal self. Isabel gave me a smile and a wink.

  “Thank you for saying so, April, dear.” She sat down and turned to Mama. “Lily, how are you doing?” We all knew what she meant, so she might as well have just said, right out loud: How are you holding up since this dreadful plague of a woman crashed into your world?

  Mama gave her a smile. Well, what else would you expect from my mama?

  “I’m fine, thank you, Isabel. And thank you so much for all your hard work yesterday.”

  Mimi eyeballed Isabel’s fancy manicure, her slickedback hairdo, and her elegant, long-sleeved blouse. Isabel ignored her.

  “Darling, it was worth the hard work to give Grace a surprise birthday party. Thank goodness April Grace came along to get her out of the house, as she simply would not leave and stay away long enough for us to get anything done!”

  Grandma plucked her knitting out of the tote bag and got busy with her needles and yarn. “Well, I didn’t know you were trying to plan a party. I thought everyone had forgotten about my birthday and was feeling kinda low about it.”

  “I’m sorry you had to make that trip into town,” Mama said, “but we had to get rid of you somehow.”

  “Yeah, and it was a real experience, let me tell you,” I said without thinking, and that drew the attention of all of them.

  “Hey, Sunshine,” Mimi said. “You gonna introduce us to the little sunbeam you’ve brought along with you?”

  She peered at Melissa from eyes that were blue all over, and by that I mean from just below the painted-on eyebrows down to the thick, blue liner all around the eyelashes, top and bottom. I do believe that old lady wore about three pairs of false eyelashes.

  We took a couple of steps into the kitchen.

  “This is my friend, Melissa.” I dipped my head toward the woman and said, “That’s Sandra Moore.”

  “I’m Mimi!” she declared loudly, with that crusty laugh. “You might as well call me Mimi, too, Sunbeam.”

  Melissa actually grinned at her. “How do, ma’am. Mimi.” I thought she was gonna curtsy, for crying out loud. I gave her a dirty look, but she ignored me. “I like your boots,” she added.

  Ole Mimi grinned like a monkey at that and stuck out one foot, waving it around.

  Well, I tell you what. I wanted to smack that Melissa. In fact, I grabbed her hand and pulled her out of the kitchen for the second time that day, saying to the grown-ups, “We’re gonna go look at Eli.”

  “What’s the matter with you?” I hissed as I herded her down the hallway toward Mama and Daddy’s room.

  She yanked her hand free, frowning at me.

  “Nothing! Why?”

  “Why are you being all nice and friendly to that woman when you know how I feel?”

  Her mouth flew open, and she stared at me like she wanted to smack me.

  “I have a right to be nice and friendly to anyone I choose, April Grace. I think Mimi looks interesting, and I think you should be nicer.”

  I bugged out my eyes and coughed.

  “Are you kiddin’?” I said when I quit hacking. “That woman went off and left my mama when she was just a little kid.”

  “That was a long time ago, April. Maybe she’s changed.”

  I crimped my mouth because that was not what I wanted to hear, even though way back in a tiny part of my mind and deep down in my heart, I knew Melissa had a point.

  “Maybe so, but being the child of a child-abandoner caused my mama to have a hard life!”

  Melissa studied me like she was trying to read my whole entire mind.

  “Sometimes, April Grace Reilly, you can be completely unreasonable, and when you are, you’re downright unlikable.”

  She delivered those words in the same tone of voice that she might say, “It is a sunny day outside,” and I was purely offended to my gills.

  I wanted to stomp my foot and holler, but my throat blocked and the words refused to form. That girl just kept talking.

  “I don’t have a grandma,” she said stoutly, “not even one, and you have two of them sitting in there right this minute, and you don’t even appreciate it.”

  “Grandma is my only grandma,” I said fiercely when the block finally shrunk from my throat. “That Mimi-person only came around because she wants something. My mama said so!”

  “April Grace, I love your mama to pieces, and I’m sorry for what happened to her when she was a girl. But maybe, just maybe, your mimi is sorry, and now she wants to be a part of the family.”

  “How can you say that?” I asked, aghast. Then that stupid little voice in my head said my best friend might be right. But I did not want to hear it or think about it. Instead, I shoved that little voice into a dark closet in my mind and slammed the door.

  One thing I realized, though, was that if we didn’t come to a truce, my friend would be calling her mom to come pick her up, and that would be the end of us spending the day together. In spite of her making me feel mad right down to my toenails just then, I still wanted to hang out and have fun. And we definitely had not discovered anything about Myra’s secret yet.

  I gulped in some air to chase out my anger.

  “Let’s check on Eli. If he’s awake, you can hold him if you want to.”

  Melissa gave me a funny look from the corner of her eye, but then she nodded. “Okay. I’d like that.”

  When best friends fight and they can’t agree, it seems to me the best thing to do is not get carried away. Letting things cool off had kept me and Melissa Kay Carlyle from slugging each other more than a few times—which is more than I can say for m
e and Myra Sue.

  That Thievin’ Mimi

  We crept into the bedroom, quiet as anything, and right up to Eli’s little crib. He was making a funny face, like he either smelled something or saw something icky in his dreams, then one little fist batted the air.

  “I think he’s waking up,” I whispered. “He’s the hungriest kid I’ve ever seen in my whole entire life. He eats about every two minutes.”

  Melissa stood there and grinned at him.

  “Look at his nose. It’s the ittiest, bittiest nose I ever saw.”

  I glanced at her nose. “I bet you had the ittiest bittiest nose on any baby ever born in the whole United States, ’cause yours is still little and cute.”

  She wrinkled it, and the freckles that paraded along it curled right up.

  “I’d like to have a Roman nose,” she said, staring straight ahead and making an air picture in the middle of her face.

  “No, you don’t. Isabel St. James has a Roman nose.”

  “Really? I just thought she had a big ole honker. I didn’t know she was Roman.”

  Now, that right there was a comment worthy of someone as dumb as my sister, not someone as smart as my best friend, but then I noticed she was grinning, and it was all a big joke. I guess it was her way of breaking the tension that had been between us.

  Eli bleated out a little cry that sounded just like a baby lamb. His face was so scrunched that it made me think of a dried-up potato.

  “He’s gonna set up to bawling any second,” I told Melissa. “Go ahead and pick him up ’cause he’s awake.”

  Even though she had held him a few times before, I still watched like a hawk, ready to rescue that boy in case she handled him like a bowling ball or something. She had him all cuddled up, and he was twisting his mouth around, a sure sign he was hungry. He whimpered again.

  “Here, let me have him.”

  She turned away.

  “No! You have a cold. You’ll give it to him.”

  She had a point.

  “Well, if you’ll just pat his back and bottom real gentle, he likes that.”

  He grunted and wriggled in her arms, and for a minute I thought he’d gone back to sleep, but then came that squinchedup face and flying fists, and he began howling.

  “Guess we better take him to Mama,” I said, but just as we turned to go out of the room, in swooped Mimi, her long, skinny arms stretched out and her bony fingers reaching like the witch in The Wizard of Oz. She took that boy right out of Melissa’s arms like we weren’t even there.

  “Now, now,” she said, soft as anything, “here’s Mimi’s good boy. Yes, he is.” She kept murmuring as she stroked his cheek and touched the tip of his nose, and I was amazed at how sweet that old woman was right then. He hushed and did not make another peep, though he was looking at her in that unfocused way babies look at people. I do believe Eli liked her. You know who else liked her? Good ole Daisy, that’s who. Right then she came into the bedroom and nosed Mimi, then wagged her tail like she totally approved of the whole scene.

  “Well, hi there, doggie,” Mimi said. “You are one beautiful dog, you know.”

  I was starting to warm up to her, and I didn’t want to do that, so I said, “I think Eli’s hungry.”

  “You’re probably right, Sunshine. Want to run and get his bottle?”

  “He doesn’t have a bottle. He has Mama.”

  She glanced at me.

  “I see. Well, shall I take him to her, or will she come and get him?”

  Mama rushed in right then, like she’d been called.

  “Did I hear the baby?” She gave Mimi a worried look, like she thought Mimi might offer Eli a cigarette or something.

  Mimi handed him over just as slick and gentle as you please. Just like she’d handled lots of babies in her life, though I don’t hardly see how someone who’d abandon her very own daughter twice would have the heart to take care of babies. But as much as I hate to admit it, I’ve been wrong before.

  “Thank you, Sandra. If you and the girls will go back to the kitchen, I’ll join you directly.”

  I followed Mimi, watching her red-and-white ponytail swing back and forth as she walked. From the back, if it weren’t for all that white hair merging into that purply-red, you’d never know she was an old lady.

  Grandma and Isabel were whispering when we walked in, but they hushed immediately. Mimi picked up her cigarettes and lighter off the table.

  “Lily won’t let me smoke in the house, so I’ll brave the cold.” She eyed Isabel. “You’re a smoker. You want to join me?” Isabel’s expression turned all uppity.

  “How do you know I smoke, pray tell?”

  “’Cause you got the look, lady.” She pulled on her coat.

  Isabel jerked.

  “The look? What look?”

  “Like me. My look. But I don’t look so bad, do I?” She laughed that crusty laugh, showing her brown teeth.

  Isabel’s eyes got bigger than I have ever seen them in my life, and for a minute there, I thought she was gonna hurl.

  “You comin’?” Mimi persisted. “I’ll even give you one of my smokes.”

  “No, thank you,” Isabel croaked out.

  Mimi shrugged and sashayed through the kitchen and service porch and on out the back door.

  “I look like that?” she asked, staring in alarm at the back door.

  No one said anything for a minute, then Grandma said, “Of course not! Don’t listen to that woman.”

  “Yeah, but you know what, Isabel?” I said because I couldn’t help myself. “If you keep smoking, you might end up with brown teeth and brown fingers and a discolored tip on your nose, not to mention brown lungs.” She blinked about twenty times, then I added, “If you live long enough. Have you heard Mimi cough? And I don’t think she has a cold.”

  Isabel was quiet for the longest time, just staring at that back door. Then she brought herself back to the rest of us with a shudder.

  “I have an announcement,” she said, looking around as if she was speaking to an audience of five hundred instead of just us. “I am going to quit smoking. If I have to go to a doctor and get shots or patches or that awful nicotine gum, I’m going to do it. I absolutely refuse to look like that woman in a few years.”

  “Isabel, I think that’s wonderful!” I said, clapping my hands. “Yes, honey,” Grandma added, grinning. “It will be so good for your health if you’d stop smoking, and I know Ian will give you all the support he can.”

  “She was just trying to be nice,” Melissa said suddenly.

  Grandma stopped knitting, and Isabel paused with her cup midway to her mouth.

  “What’s that?” Grandma said.

  “Mimi invited you outside, and she even offered you one of her cigarettes,” she said to Isabel. “She was trying to be friendly.”

  Isabel set her cup down with a clunk, and Grandma thunked down her knitting. They both stared at that girl. I stared at that girl, but given what she’d said earlier, I wasn’t as surprised as Grandma and Isabel.

  “She’s not someone with whom I choose to associate,” Isabel sniffed.

  “Me, either!” Grandma said.

  Melissa just sat there, looking kinda lost. Now, I readily admit I agreed with Grandma and Isabel, but I didn’t like seeing my friend look uncomfortable in my very own house. I spoke up.

  “Melissa says that just because Mimi was a rotten person years ago, it doesn’t mean she’s still rotten.”

  The two women kept looking at Melissa, then Grandma picked up her knitting and made a few stitches.

  “A leopard doesn’t change its spots,” she said finally.

  “No, indeed,” Isabel murmured, and sipped her coffee.

  And no one else said another word. But I’m telling you there was something inside me that shifted and turned in my stomach. There had been some major spot-changing going on from those two women sitting right there at that table. And if those spots could change, so could other spots.

  Mama
came into the kitchen with Eli. He was all brighteyed and content.

  “Oh, give him to his Auntie Isabel!” Isabel said, grinning all over herself as Mama placed the baby in her arms. Eli belched like a long-haul trucker. Boy, oh boy.

  The phone rang, and Mama, who was wiping off her shirt where Eli had spit up a little, said, “Get the phone, will you, April honey?”

  I reached the phone a split-second before Myra Sue landed on the bottom step. I reckon her feet must’ve sprouted wings to get there that fast without breaking her neck on the trip down, but I still beat her.

  I picked up the receiver, and we went through a second episode of that grabbing and dodging business. I reckon we’d go through it ten thousand more times or until Myra Sue got smart. The ten thousand seemed more likely.

  “Hello?”

  “Let me talk to Myra Sue,” said Jennifer Cleland. Or maybe it was Jessica. Those girls sound just alike to my ears. Whoever it was, she was snotty and bossy.

  “Hang on,” I said, then covered up the mouthpiece and told Myra Sue, “You should tell your friends to learn telephone etiquette. Here.”

  She yanked the receiver right out of my hand and gave me a dirty look, then she turned her back on me. That girl and her friends were all so rude, it’s a wonder their toenails didn’t curl backward and grow fur.

  “Come have your lunch, girls,” Mama called from the kitchen. “The potato soup is done.”

  Right then, all thoughts of Myra Sue’s rudeness and Mimi’s weirdness and Melissa’s soft-hearted comments went flying right out of my head because even though I was still full from all the biscuits and chocolate gravy I ate at Grandma’s, Mama’s potato soup is the best ever, and I wanted some of it. The chunks of potatoes are soft and tasty, and the soup part is thick, flavored with plenty of melted cheese and crumbled, smoked bacon. Onions and garlic give it plenty of kick.

  Melissa and I settled down at the table, and Grandma ladled generous helpings into everyone’s soup bowl, even Mimi’s.

  “Too bad Mike and Ian aren’t here for lunch,” Grandma said. “Lily has the knack when it comes to potato soup.”

  Mama poured milk for Melissa and me as Mimi walked back into the kitchen and sat down at the table.