Girls Like Us (8 page)

He left outside the front door. I could breathe inside my chest again. I felt like I might fall in a heap on the ground. My legs felt so squishy.

“Biddy,” Miss Lizzy say. “Stephen is a nice boy. He would never hurt you. Has a boy ever hurt you, Biddy? Is that why you were so afraid of him?”

Miss Lizzy can’t know my secrets. She won’t never let me live in her princess house no more. “I ain’t scaredy. I just don’t mess with no boys. That’s all.” I went back to scrubbing my pots.

All afternoon, people looking at me like I done sumpin’ wrong. Hard to believe Biddy didn’t take a whipping stick to folks that look at her that way all the time. But then, Biddy, she done sumpin’ with them boys. I mean, I know sumpin’ gots done. I’m thinkin’, maybe, since she seem so scared of boys . . . I don’t know what I’m thinkin’. All I know is I didn’t do nothing but try to get my apron.

I wonder if Biddy done met Stephen or if she was able to keep shut of him all day. I shake my head and wonder why I care what ole Buffalo Butt doin’ and if she wearin’ that raggedy coat. No business of mine.

Miss Lizzy call me to help her with her exercise. I found out that Miss Lizzy don’t want me to tie no cheese. Tie cheese sound like cheese. But it ain’t. It’s the name of Miss Lizzy’s exercises.

Miss Lizzy come out her room. She wasn’t wearing no suit like she done the day we met her. And she wasn’t wearing pants and a long shirt that’s still real dress-up looking, like she wore yesterday. She had sweatpants and a T-shirt. Miss Lizzy go into a room nextside the living room. Wasn’t nothing inside there except a big soft-feeling pallet thing on the floor. And a long pole running alongside one of the walls.

Miss Lizzy say she gonna hold on that “bar” and do her tie cheese. All I had to do was stand close. So if she lose her balance I help her. She say I’m there as a “caution.” If she fell doing her exercise while nobody was there, she’d might not could get up. And that would put her in a pickle.

I nod my head like this make sense. Cheese wasn’t cheese, so I don’t guess she means she really get put inside a pickle.

Miss Lizzy put her walker by the door. She go onto that mat and hold on the sideways pole for a minute. Then she lift up her arms and look like she was holding a big watermelon in front of her stomach. “This is centering the chi,” Miss Lizzy say. I listened. She didn’t say “cheese.” She leave off the end and just say “chee.”

Then she done other stuff. About holding up the heavens. Breaking up waves. And holding back the tiger. Little silver-headed lady putting her hands out funny and kinda squatting don’t look like she’s holding back a tiger. But Miss Lizzy was already talking about dragon dance or dragon stand or something. I watch and listen. Wait to see if she was going to tump over.

She get done and said she need to put her hand on my shoulder so she could get to her walker.

“Thank you, Biddy. Have you ever seen anyone do tai chi before?”

I shake my head.

Miss Lizzy laugh. Not a big laugh like with Quincy. “It must seem odd to you, then?”

I don’t know what “odd” mean.

Miss Lizzy look at my face. “ ‘Odd’ means strange, puzzling. It’s odd that a little old lady waves her arms around like a crazy person.” She laugh again like she was inviting me to laugh with her.

I laugh back. Now Miss Lizzy done laugh twice. I don’t feel bad now.

Then there was a knock on the back door.

“That will be Stephen, I think,” Miss Lizzy say. “Will you get that, Biddy?”

I go to the door all scaredy. But Miss Lizzy coming along behind me. So it’s probly all OK. I open the door and Stephen’s smiling real big. “You two wanna see something pretty?”

I chop and mix and did my job without talking for the rest of my shift. My mind was boiling. These people don’t know me and they do know Robert and they know he’s no count, but they still be looking at me like . . . well, like people look at Biddy.

I clocked out and left without no good-byes and stomp down the street like I was squashing bugs. That got a little of the mad outta me. I got to Lizabeth’s and thought I’d pick a tomato or two and some basil. I head to the garden and, boy, did I see me a sight.

Biddy was lying on her fat stomach, wiggling her fingers at a patch of rosemary and singing. The girl had finally gone insane-crazy.

“Biddy, what you doing wallering in that dirt?”

She poke her head up, smiling big as you please. “Quincy, shush and come see this.”

I figure the girl must of found her some candy or sumpin’, she was so happy. I squat down. She point to the back of the rosemary. Through the branches I seen sumpin’ brown. I squint up my eyes and rock over a little and I saw it. A big old Mama Duck sitting on some eggs.

“How you find this ole duck?”

“Stephen showed us.”

“Stephen? He your boyfriend now?” I knew I done wasted my time worryin’ ’bout Biddy and being scared of boys. When they gots somethin’ she want, she . . .

“Quincy, I’m not going to tell you another time to hush about me and boys. He show this duck to me and to Miss Lizzy.” She nod her head in that “I ain’t talkin’ ’bout this no more” way and turnt back to the duck. I swear I don’t understand that girl.

Biddy waggle her fingers closer, and Mama Duck hiss through the hole in her beak and struck her head out like a snake trying to bite Biddy’s fingers.

I jump up. “Biddy, you leave that duck alone. It’s gonna bite you.”

“No, she ain’t. She’s just being a good mama. Telling me to leave her babies alone.”

I couldn’t believe this fool girl. “You keep waggling you fingers at that duck, it’s gonna bite you a good one. Don’t come running to me when you get the duck rabies.” I got me tomatoes and basil and left.

Biddy stay outside singing to that duck.

I got to get corns and a bowl of water. That way Mama Duck can eat and drink right here. She won’t have to leave her babies.

Biddy come in whilst I was washing the tomatoes. She grab her a little bowl out the cabinet.

“S’cuse me,” she say, kind of singy-songy, and shove her bowl under the water.

“What you doing?”

“I’m taking water to Mama Duck.”

I just stare.

“And I need some dry corns. Ducks like dry corns, right?”

“You ever hear me quack?”

Biddy’s face knot up. “Huh?”

“I look like a duck? How I’m s’pose to know what a duck eat?”

Biddy look at me like I’m stupid. “You the one knows how to read. If I could read, I’d make sure I learned things.”

My head start to ache. I couldn’t think of nothing to say. I went back to washing the tomatoes.

“So, can you get me some dry corns at the store where you work?”

“Biddy, I work at a grocery store. I don’t know where to get dry corn. And you don’t got to go feeding that duck. It’s been having babies all by itself for a long time. It don’t need your help.”

Biddy sniff her nose. “That’s what you know.”

Now, what was that s’pose to mean?

We went on over to Lizabeth’s and I roast us a chicken and made a tomato and basil salad with hunks of cheese and olive oil drizzled on top. Biddy watch how Lizabeth eat and use her napkin and did exactly how Lizabeth did.

“Miss Lizzy, do you know where I can get dry corns?” Biddy axt.

“Oh, Lord, here we go,” I say.

Biddy cut me a look and say, “You hush. You don’t even like ducks.”

Lizabeth put her napkin up to her mouth. Look like maybe she be hiding a smile. Now Biddy got Lizabeth thinking I’m a fool.

“Ain’t got nothing to do with liking or not liking ducks,” I said low-like.

“Miss Lizzy, can you get rabies from a duck?”

That napkin too small to hide Lizabeth’s smile now.

“Why, Biddy, I’m not sure. I don’t think I’ve ever heard of”— a little laugh jump out Lizabeth’s mouth —“duck rabies.”

Biddy nod her head at me, like “See!”

“We need to be eating this chicken before it get cold,” I say. I say it loud so Biddy would hush her mouth.

“Miss Lizzy, I need corns to feed that Mama Duck so she don’t leave her babies.”

A look crosst Lizabeth’s face that was so sad and soft I was certain sure right then that Lizabeth knew ’bout Biddy’s took-away baby.

“You could ask Stephen to get you some corn.”

“I can’t be asking no boy for nothin’,” Biddy say, so low I almost couldn’t hear her.

Lizabeth let the clock ticktock a little bit, then say, “I believe you could buy dry corn at a feed store, Biddy.”

“I have to leave here and go get it?” Biddy slunk down. But right away she hitch up her back. “How far is a feed store?”

“We’d have to look it up. We’ll do that another time. As Quincy said, we need to eat this wonderful chicken before it gets cold.”

I thought about saying we oughta roast that duck and make omelets from the eggs, but sassy as Biddy done got, I figured she might stab me with her fork. Fool girl acting so crazy she might have the duck rabies already.