“Say what?”

“You heard me. Charlotte ain’t speaking to me, and I suggest you try calling her, ’cause I’m through with her ass. I mean it. Your son is in jail again. I think they said he might get up to a year for beating up Donnetta’s husband with a sponge mop handle.”

“Say what?”

“And Paris still over there in California trying to be superwoman, popping pills like them women did in Valley of the Dolls to keep that fast pace up, but she don’t thank nobody know it.”

“Say what?”

“If you say ‘say what’ one more time, I’ma slap you into next week. Now, get outta my way, ’cause we ain’t got no more kids to discuss. And don’t touch my lawnmower or take nothing that don’t belong to you. Goodbye.”

I just stand there and watch her lock the front door that I had the keys to for twenty-some-odd years. But my keys don’t fit this door no more. I walk over to the carport and turn around and watch Viola get in her new car. She just don’t look younger, she look happy. I ain’t seen her look like this in years. I wonder, as she wave to me backing out the driveway, if it’s because I’m here, or because I’m gone.

A New Life

“I still can’t believe Jackie Onassis is dead; can you, Loretta?”

“I can’t believe I’m not dead,” Loretta says, laughing.

“She was too damn young to die. And as pretty as she wanted to be. You remember when President Kennedy was shot?”

“Of course I do, Vy. Everybody remembers that day. Okay, let’s not talk about dead people right now. We’re alive and kicking right here in your brand-new condo, and it’s beautiful! Just beautiful, Vy!”

“It is, ain’t it?” I say, looking around. It certainly is. And far enough from my old house that I get to go to a different grocery store, bank, and post office. “Thank you, Loretta. I told you you would love it.” It took all the patience I had to hold off showing her till now, but I wanted to wait till after they put in the new carpet and painted it, so she could get the total effect. But with Memorial Day and everything, they couldn’t do nothing till this week, and they took their sweet-ass time. They just finished two days ago, and we go on our cruise a week from today—on the sixteenth, and I got a million and one things to do between now and then.

Since I can’t move in for another few days, I wanted to bring something over here so it feel like I’m gon’ live here, so me and Loretta stopped by Target and picked up two $7.99 houseplants. She also helped me bring over my good towels and sheets and glasses that I keep hid. I’m trying to decide if I wanna put one of the plants in the kitchen window and the other one in my master bathroom. I don’t know. Hot damn! If I don’t like the sound of that: master bathroom. But if there ain’t no master, can I call it a mistress bathroom? Naw, ’cause I ain’t nobody’s mistress neither. Hell, it’s my big bathroom. That’s good enough. I got two sinks! So I can take my pick which one I wanna brush my teeth or wash my face in. They look just like marble even though they ain’t, but, hell, I don’t care. I still can’t believe it. “Don’t you just love this dark teal I picked out for the carpet, Loretta?” I say, and then I sneeze.