Too Far to Say Far Enough: A Novel Read Online Free

her bony back to me, arms hugging her own feather-thin body. I felt a grab at my gut.
    “It is not working out at C.A.R.S.?” I said.
    “Daddy’s having issues.” Sherry shrugged. “It’ll be all right.”
    “So what’s the deal?”
    She turned to me, eyes pale. “Mr. Chief is right. Nobody is gon’ take Desmond from you, Miss Angel.”
    “You’re talking about Sultan.” I said.
    She didn’t answer. She didn’t have to.
    “Nick Kent just told me things are still cool,” I said. “The last news we heard was that Sultan—”
    “Just never mind.”
    Sherry took the steps in one long lurch and marched across the yard, once again hugging her body as if she were trying to hold herself together.
    Whatever she was carrying made my own arms ache. That was the down side of being a prophet.

    By the time I got inside, I knew the crowd had probably already eaten its way through the antipasto and was working on Hank’s matchless lasagna. Square, dark-haired, and wise-eyed, she greeted me in the kitchen with a forkful of noodles and sauce already pointed toward my mouth. A string of steaming cheese clotheslined from plate to tines.
    “I know you won’t stop to eat, Al,” she said, “so open up.”
    As my spiritual guide and Harley-riding teacher, Hank was surprisingly light-handed with the instructions, so when she told me flat out to do something I did it. Especially if it involved her cooking.
    It would be an insult not to take a moment to appreciate a D’Angelo special. She’d even improved Desmond and the Sisters’ palates, though granted, anything beyond what they could cull from alley trashcans would have been a step up.
    “I will be back for more,” I said.
    “I’ll hide some for you for after the ceremony. We’ll start in ten.”
    “Where’s Chief?” I said.
    “He grabbed a paper towel and went out on the front porch.” Hank’s lips twitched. “I heard him blowing his nose.”
    I slid around the bistro table, which was completely taken up by an enormous basket of the kind of garlic bread that cleared your sinuses, and pointed myself in the general direction of the dining room. With any luck I could slip out to the front porch and finish what we’d started.
    “Am I too late for the salad?” said a voice from the side door.
    I turned around, straight into a bouquet of lettuce larger than both my head and the one behind it, which belonged to next-door neighbor Owen. The man was nothing if not green-thumbed. I tried not to think about him having something “going on” with Ms. Willa.
    Hank tilted a now-empty basin toward him.
    “I’m always a day late and a dollar short,” Owen said. “Sometimes I get so far behind I meet myself coming back. I’ll probably be late for my own funeral.”
    “You’re fine,” Hank said. “I’m sure if I make another salad it’ll get eaten.” She cocked an eyebrow at me. “Don’t you ever feed your kid?”
    “He’s growing like a weed, isn’t he?” Owen said. “It’s like he has a hollow leg—”
    I left Hank to untangle the usual Owen-string of similes and nearly plowed into Mercedes, who was deftly hoisting a tray of licked-clean dishes with one hand and steering Desmond by the back of the neck with the other. It struck me that he was almost as tall as she was now, a fact that did not make her any less capable of cowing the boy better than most of us. Though he was grinning, his eyes were definitely seeking an escape route.
    “What did you do now?” I said.
    “I didn’t do nothin’,” he said. “Mercedes Benz just always up in my business.”
    “It’s not your business to be telling Gigi and Rochelle how to get away with slackin’ on they responsibilities.” Mercedes gave him a shake that wobbled his head, but he beamed her the smile he claimed put every woman in the palm of his thirteen-year-old hand.
    “Ain’t nobody responsible as you, M.B.”
    “Then don’t make me responsible for smackin’ you up the side the