A Place Called Wiregrass Read Online Free Page A

impression. “If you was to give me all her money, I wouldn’ttake it. No, ma’am,” she said. “She’s got so many problems, bless her heart. Money ain’t gonna buy you happiness.”
    She didn’t move from her position when the man with a ruddy complexion and an orange cap with the word Caterpillar opened a mailbox. What I didn’t hear her tell the man as I drove off was how sorry she was for me and my poor little granddaughter. But I didn’t have to hear her words. I knew her type and could’ve written the lines for her. Old or young, black or white, bitter spirits speak the same language.
     
    The blaring sound of screaming turned my attention away from tales about Miss Claudia to the inside of the metal frame box I called home. I jogged to the silver handle and tried to picture the tragedy unfolding. Bozo, I first thought. But he would never lay a hand on Cher. Not unless he’s wasted out of his mind and decided to beat information about me out of her.
    “Cher!” I bolted inside the trailer. The TV blasted, and I surveyed the room to make sure nothing was out of order. I saw the white phone cord spring behind the kitchen wall. Cher leaned against the pantry door.
    Just as two women began to fight over their lesbian cousins, I turned the talk show off. “I could hear that mess screaming all the way out to the car. You like to give me heart failure with that thing.”
    Cher tucked a strand of brown hair back behind her ear. She created a breeze when she swept passed me and picked her book off the red-and-white-checkered couch. If it had been my furniture back in Cross City, I would’ve gotten after her for plopping down so hard. She sat Indian style, pulled her bare feet under the couch cushion, and tried to retreat into a world of fiction. I never did know why she liked reading so much. Halfway through any romance book I ever tried toread, I’d jump on to the end. Just say what needs to be said, too much rattling for my tastes.
    The end of the phone cord was lightly swinging against the kitchen wall. “Who was on the phone?” I asked and put the lid back on the jar of peanut butter.
    “I wasn’t on the phone.” Without opening her eyes, she turned back to her book. Its cover was bright and cheery, with a young blonde-headed girl holding the rope to a horse. The white cord on the kitchen phone was still bouncing.
    With my own kids, I’da blistered their tails for sassing me. But I tried to be more patient with Cher. Counting to ten in my mind always helped. She deserved special measures. Especially with me and Bozo splitting up.
    “Did you get that math test back yet?” I asked, laying the car keys on the kitchen countertop.
    “Ninety-three. And it’s algebra, not math.” She chewed on the ends of her brown hair, never looking up.
    Opening the refrigerator door, I chose again to ignore her pissy attitude. “Miss Claudia said she wants to meet you. I was thinking maybe this Saturday we could…” I turned to the sink, which looked out over the living-room area, and she was gone. The slamming of her bedroom door reminded me that she was stuck between a child’s world and a teenager’s.
    Hormones, I decided. I stood at the closed pine door, but decided not to knock. She’d started her period when we first got to Wiregrass. She’s got a lot going on inside that little ninety-eight-pound body of hers, I reminded myself. Trisha Yearwood’s voice oozed out of the space between the pine door and the gold linoleum floor. I figured she was daydreaming of a boyfriend or dreaming about riding a big horse like the one on the cover of her book. It was only while she was taking a shower that I discovered her dreams were more ridiculous than any schoolgirl fantasy. A fantasy that Cher needed to dismiss from her mind.
    The picture was torn at the edge and a little faded. She had hidden it from me inside her pillow. I would’ve never found it unless some of the pillow stuffing had not been hanging out the