Here we go again. And on my birthday! This little wench done hung up the phone in my face one too many times. Al musta done something really low, ’cause she’s tripping hard.

“Dag,” Shanice says. “She tripping real hard.”

“You still on this phone, girl?”

“Yep. This is better than the soaps, Granny. What’s up with Aunt Charlotte? She was totally out of line.”

“Do this. Don’t mention her name in this house until I tell you to, okay?”

“Okay.”

“Now get your mama on the phone and be quick about it.”

“Okay.” I hear her dialing the number from in here, but when I pick up the phone, it’s Suzie Mae. How’d this happen?

“Vy? You there?”

“Yeah, Suzie, I’m here.”

“I just was calling to say happy birthday. At first I couldn’t remember whose birthday it was, and then it hit me. It’s yours and Charlotte’s. Both on tax day.”

“Thanks for calling, Suzie, but can I call you back later?”

“Sho’. I wasn’t planning on talking but a minute no way. Rates is sky-high this time a day. You feeling all right?”

“Feeling fine.”

“You got your papers in order?”

“What papers?”

“You know, in case you die or something.”

“Ain’t nobody doing no dying around here no time soon, Suzie Mae.”

“You never know. Better to be safe than sorry.”

I don’t know how she got to be my sister, I swear I don’t. “Anyway, my papers is in order.”

“You don’t want the kids fighting over all your personal belongings, now, do you?”

“Not like yours will, huh, Suzie?”

“I ain’t got no kids.”

“You also ain’t got no personal belongings.”

“I heard Cecil’s gone.”

“So you do watch the six o’clock news, huh?”

“It’s about time,” she says. “He wasn’t worth all them years, but you didn’t hear it from me.”

“Bye, Suzie.”

“Bye, Vy. I’ll call you again on Sunday, when the rates is low. Wait a minute! You heard from our sister?”

“Don’t mention that dizzy bitch’s name to me right now, okay? I’m sick of stupid women, and I don’t know who’s on the top of my list right now.”

“Long as it ain’t me. Bye.”

I chuckle, and then dial Janelle’s number myself.

“Happy birthday, Mama.” She sound groggy and tired.

“What’s wrong with you, Janelle?”

“I’m just having cramps.”

“Since when did you start having cramps?”

“I get them from time to time, depending on the season.”

“And what season is this?”

“Spring, Mama. It’s spring. Where’s Shanice?”

“She’s in the kitchen. We going bowling in a little while, if I can ever get my nap in.”

“I want her to come home.”

“That’s nice, but she ain’t ready to come home yet.”

“But I need her to.”

“Look, Janelle. You done already put the girl through a whole lot of unnecessary bullshit. Now, she ain’t been here but a few weeks and she doing good in school, she on the track team, and we done signed her up for a week at sleepover camp with some girls she met at Victory Baptist that she hit it off with, and it just so happen it’s the same week as my cruise. Now. School’ll be out the first week of June, and I ain’t taking her out. You just gon’ have to wait till we both get back. How that sound?”