Every time I saw Sweet Sue, I wondered why men paid her to go to bed with them. Not only was she the thinnest woman I’d ever seen, she didn’t have enough hair on her head to even need a comb. According to Buddy’s and Sadie’s gossip, she made more money turning tricks than any of the other prostitutes, so she was Aunt Mattie’s favorite. Sweet Sue was nice enough to me, but I didn’t like being around her that much. I had a hard time understanding how she—or any woman—could have sex with men for money and have the nerve to consider it a job. She gave me a quick one-armed hug. To my disgust, she hugged Odell with both arms long enough to make him squirm. I didn’t like that one bit. My husband wasn’t even attracted to pretty women, so I wasn’t worried about him looking sideways at a plain Jane like Sweet Sue. “Find a seat and get off your feet,” she told us. “Yvonne and Milton went to the backyard to help Willie Frank skin a possum to go in the stew Yvonne is cooking this evening.”

We seated ourselves on the couch, and Sweet Sue skittered into the kitchen to get us some drinks. “I’m going to go in there and make sure she gives us clean glasses,” I whispered to Odell. “The last time she gave me a drink there was a gnat floating in it.” When I got to the kitchen, Milton was standing next to Sweet Sue, watching as she filled our glasses all the way up to the brim.

“Hey, Joyce. Good to see you again. Everybody missed y’all these past couple of nights,” he said in a sugar-sweet tone. In a split second his tone turned gruff. “I just need to make sure Sweet Sue don’t overfill the glasses like she been doing.”

Sweet Sue made a hissing noise with her mouth, rolled her eyes, and cocked her smooth head to the side. “Then you need to get your black ass in here and fill them yourself,” she growled.

Milton gently mauled the side of her head with his fist and gave her a threatening look. “Look-a-here, Rapunzel; you can talk to Willie Frank like that, but you can’t talk to me that way in my own house.”

“No, you look-a-here, Milton. You don’t want to mess with me,” Sweet Sue responded, with a neck roll so exaggerated it looked like she was made of rubber. “And you know why . . .” I didn’t want to hear any more of this conversation, so I was glad Willie Frank and Yvonne came through the back door before Sweet Sue finished her sentence. Milton looked so relieved. He rushed over to the sink next to Willie Frank, and they started washing possum blood off their hands.