“I don’t think he’s supposed to talk about it.”

Which probably meant he didn’t have a clue.

Sister downed another cookie, chugalugged the rest of the Coke, and announced that she was on her way to the Big, Bold, and Beautiful Shoppe for some loungewear, that Virgil was coming over for supper, and she figured something in velour would be nice. What did I think? And did I want to go with her? Bonnie Blue would pee her pants when she heard about the rattlesnake.

I doubted that, but Bonnie Blue Butler is one of the shrewdest women I’ve ever known. I thought it would be interesting to run the whole story by her. And I hadn’t seen her since before we went to Warsaw. She hadn’t heard about our trip.

“Don’t worry about the way you look,” Sister said. “If anybody notices, they’ll just think you’ve been in a bad fire and haven’t had skin grafts yet.”

“Do, Jesus,” Bonnie Blue exclaimed when she looked up from the package she was wrapping and saw me. “Did the Concorde fall down?”

“Mary Alice hit a mailbox yesterday.”

When I saw the expression on Bonnie Blue’s face, I decided right then and there that the pain was going to be worth it.

“No,” she said to Sister. “You hit a mailbox and skinned this girl up like this?”

“Only because a rattlesnake was hanging on to me.” Sister held out her hand, which was still swollen and discolored.

Bonnie Blue frowned.

“If I’m lying, I’m dying,” Sister assured her.

“Well, I’ve got to hear about this.” Bonnie Blue reached into a bin, pulled out a pink bow, and stuck it on the package. She held it up for our inspection and we nodded that it was fine.

We followed her to the comfortable seating arrangement in the front corner of the store. Since Bonnie Blue has been the manager of the Big, Bold, and Beautiful Shoppe, she has made her mark on the store, the “getting your thoughts together area” as she calls it being one of them. Sister and I sat on the flowered chintz loveseat and Bonnie Blue offered us coffee, which we both declined before she sat in the matching chair and said, “Now, what’s this about a rattlesnake?”

Bonnie Blue looked wonderful, I realized. She is as large as Sister with skin the color of dark milk chocolate. The two of them walking down the street together is a formidable sight. But today Bonnie Blue was dressed in a soft pink suit and her hair was pulled back from her forehead and held with a pink hairband.

“You look like you had a great Christmas,” I said.

She cut her eyes around at me and grinned. “Girlfriend, you wouldn’t believe. But y’all tell me your stuff first.”