“Odell, I am not talking about using the church money. I’m talking about our personal fund. So what if Yvonne and Milton are bootleggers? They still need to eat and pay bills. Besides, they are our neighbors, and two of our closest friends.”

“Milton already borrows money from me often enough—”

She cut me off. “I told them they wouldn’t have to pay us back. Now if you want to be stingy, you go ahead. I’ll take it out of my money. And to save face when I give it to them, I won’t let them know you didn’t contribute anything . . .”

It was a good thing I was sitting down because I got so flustered, I had to take a bunch of deep breaths to compose myself. “Joyce, I’m sorry. I ain’t never let you down and I ain’t about to start now. I’ll give you the whole hundred dollars when I get paid.”

“Good. I’m sure that’ll make them very happy.” Joyce smiled and gazed at me like I was something somebody had served up to her on a silver platter. “We have more money than we need. And when Mama and Daddy pass on, I’ll inherit the store, all the money they leave behind, and their house—which is completely paid for. We’ll be the richest colored couple in Branson.” Joyce’s words was really rattling me. Her stroking my arm didn’t help none. “And—” She abruptly stopped talking.

“And what?”

“Well, I’ll probably sell the store once it becomes mine.”

I gulped and almost choked on my words. “Sell the store?” There was such a confused expression on Joyce’s face, you would have thought I was speaking a foreign language. “How do you know the new owner would let me keep managing?”

“It won’t matter. I’m going to sell the house, too. With the money we already have, and whatever we’d get from the sale of those two properties, we won’t have to work anymore. Or at least for a very long time. How many colored folks our age can retire while the country is still in an economic slump? We’d have enough to live the good life—and not in a one-horse town like Branson.”

“You . . . you want to move, too?”

“Why not?”

“To a big city like Birmingham or Mobile?”