Billie Standish Was Here Read Online Free

got an automatic?” Mama had told me we couldn’t have one because Cumberland had no town water line for it to drain into.
    â€œYessir. Best thing I ever bought.” She thought for a minute. “ ’Cept maybe the color TV.”
    I was used to feeling in the way whenever anybody could see me, but just then I felt three times the size of an elephant. “I’m here to help you, not make you do our work,” I told her.
    â€œLand’a livin’, child,” she laughed. “You don’t put the clothes in and set there watchin’ ’em go around for half an hour. I expect we can do both things. Bring your own soap, if it’ll make you feel better.”
    I did seven loads while we worked that afternoon and Miss Lydia seemed pleased watching me fold clean clothes into boxes to carry home. When I came back for the hamper, she asked what I was cooking that night.
    â€œOh, salmon cakes, probably. We’re pretty much down to canned and frozen stuff.”
    â€œYou can fry a chicken, can’t you?”
    I thought so. “But I don’t know how to cut one up,” I told her.
    Her eyes started shining. “Well, you lay one out to thaw tonight, and bring it over here when you come tomorrow at noon. Ain’t had a chicken outsmart me yet.”
    That was the last discussion we had about me coming back. After that we just assumed I would.
    Mama started to bawl me out that night for going near the wringer, but after I explained what I’d really done she didn’t know what to say. All the while she put clean clothes away she kept opening her mouth and then changing her mind, like she was arguing with herself. Open, shut, open, shut. She looked like a big fish that wasn’t happy but wasn’t sure why.
    I had hidden the frozen chicken under my bed before she got home, which felt kind of stupid even as I did it. But I’d never fried a chicken before and didn’t want to be criticized in advance of trying. Mama could warn me not to make a mess, not to waste anything, not to ruin something, not to not do anything with so much authority I sometimes felt like I couldn’t blink without screwing that up.
    So she was positively wary of me the following night when she came home to fried chicken with all the fixings warm on the stove. I hadn’t shown my hand before it was played—and hard as she looked around she couldn’t find anything in the results to complain about.
    I was starting to feel like I was there, even in my ownhouse. Even when my parents were around.
    I was way past knocking at Miss Lydia’s when the day came that I got the surprise of Curtis sitting at the kitchen table. An empty Coke and a full ashtray sat in front of him and he looked up from the newspaper through a stinky blue haze. I stood there just inside the door.
    He said, “Well, hello there,” and his face split into a grin. His teeth were yellow and he seemed to have more of them than most people did. The smell of smoke made my stomach churn.
    I wondered where Miss Lydia was and if I should leave. About the time he said, “What’s a matter? Cat got your tongue?” and started laughing at his genius originality, Miss Lydia appeared at the foot of the stairs out in the hallway.
    When she saw me she hurried in as fast as she could, which meant it seemed like it only took a month. She had some papers in her hand and started swatting at the air.
    â€œLord, Curtis, how many times I told you I don’t want you smokin’ in here?” She quick-hobbled over to the window above the sink, cranked it open, and started fanning her apron like she was scooping the dirty air outside.
    â€œWell, now, Ma, I got to stop taking orders from youright around the time I turned free, white, and twenty-one,” Curtis drawled. He winked at me while he clasped his hands and stretched his arms above his head.
    Miss Lydia harrumphed at the stove, then turned