I didn’t want to be where them nasty hoochie-coochie women done their business nohow. But I didn’t have no problem with Aunt Mattie and her girls coming to drink at our house. They always spent a heap of money and left good tips. At the end of the day, life for me and Milton was all about getting paid.

CHAPTER 4 - ODELL

CHAPTER 4

ODELL

“SUGAR, I FORGOT TO TELL YOU THAT I SAW THE LIGHTS ON IN Yvonne and Milton’s house last night when I got up to go use the bathroom,” Joyce said before we left for work this morning. We was still eating the lavish breakfast she’d cooked.

“Oh? I hope nothing else serious happened over there.”

“Maybe it was their landlord nosing around. Anyway, I didn’t think it was important enough to wake you up and tell you.”

“It was probably Willie Frank. I seen his truck over there yesterday evening and a few times before that. I guess he’s keeping a eye on the house,” I said, buttering my third piece of toast.

“I didn’t see his truck last night.”

“Joyce, maybe he forgot to turn off the lights when he left. Or maybe he parked down the block so nobody would know he was over there. You know how nosy and meddlesome some of our neighbors are. They might start up a rumor that he was over there stealing stuff.”

“When I got up to go to the bathroom again a couple of hours later, the lights weren’t on.”

I swallowed a chunk of my toast and drunk a few sips of my coffee before I replied. “What’s the big deal? Willie Frank could have come back and turned them lights off while we was sleeping.”

“Maybe so.” Joyce looked at my almost empty plate. “I’ll be glad when my appetite is back to normal. I don’t think my stomach is going to settle until we know how Yvonne and Milton are doing. I’m glad to see that nothing has affected your appetite . . .”

My breath caught in my throat. I had to keep reminding myself to put on a miserable face so Joyce would stop making comments about how I was acting. And it wasn’t easy. I’d been so giddy last night, I’d drunk two glasses of whiskey and snapped my fingers as I listened to music on the radio until she gave me a funny look. I’d immediately changed my demeanor. “Um, that whiskey got me acting like a fool,” I’d claimed.

“Then why did you drink it?”