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“He wasn’t drinking. And that, my boy, is the least of your problems,” she replies.
“Okay.” I scrub a hand down my face.
“The two of you got all snuggly in the backseat and you thought it might be fun if you two got matching tattoos. So you did. Junior and Barbara-Claire tried to talk you out of it, but you wouldn’t listen. I always did love that boy. Originally, you two wanted to find a chapel so you could tie the knot, but you need a license to get married in this state, so you decided to do something else permanent. You got matching tattoos.” She points toward my junk. “Yours is real nice.” Then she reaches back and peels the edge of Evelyn’s sweats down her belly.
Evelyn’s eyes grow big as saucers when she sees her tattoo. I cover my mouth and try to hold back my snort. But it’s damn near impossible. Because written right there on Evelyn Allen’s hip are the words, “I belong to Grady Parker.”
“Yours is just as bad,” Ms. Markie says. I stand up and pull the apron down a little. And, sure enough, written right there on my hip are the words, “I belong to Evelyn Allen.”
“Whoa,” I breath.
I look up at Evelyn. She stares at me. Then she says, “Aww hell naw,” and she walks in the other direction as fast as her bare feet will carry her.
“So, how did I end up in the bushes?” I ask as I wash my hands at Ms. Markie’s sink.
“I think that was an attack of conscience.”
Rightly so.
She waves a hand toward the apron. “Do you think you could put on some clothes now? I’ve seen your bare bottom a few hundred thousand times, but I’ve about had my fill of it today.”
“Yes, ma’am,” I say. “Can I have a biscuit, first?” She picks up the plate and holds it out to me. I take one off the top, and then another, since I have two hands and there’s a whole plate of biscuits. Not to even mention that Ms. Markie makes the best biscuits in Macon Hills. I snatch one more and then I ask, “Do you know where my clothes are?”
I’m careful not to let crumbs spew out of my mouth, because it would be a travesty to waste even a small piece of Ms. Markie’s biscuits.
She jerks a thumb toward where Evelyn went. I walk in that direction. I take my time, because I suddenly feel like I’m walking toward my execution.
If there’s one thing I know to be true, it’s that Evelyn Allen hates my guts.
She always has, and I’m pretty sure that whatever happened last night hasn’t changed her opinion of me.
I stand outside Evelyn’s bedroom door, trying to collect myself enough that I can knock and call out to her without forgetting my own name. Evelyn always has had a way of making me forget who I am.
I knock on the door and she opens it up so fast that I nearly fall into the room. I brace myself on the doorjamb with my palms and stare at her. “What do you want?” she asks. Then she points her finger in my face, almost bumping my nose with it, and says, “If you call me Clifford, even one time, I’m going to kick you right square in the nuts. You’ll never father a child in your entire life, Grady Parker, if I have anything to do with it.”
I cover my package with my palm and take a step back. I had almost forgotten to use my favorite name for her. I’ve called her Clifford since forever, since we were young. She had gotten a big red stuffed dog for her birthday, mainly because she loved the books, and she carried that Clifford dog around with her everywhere she went.
“You don’t have to be quite so vicious,” I remark.
“You don’t have to be quite so obnoxious,” she replies. She covers her nose with her hand. “And you stink. You smell like moonshine and…” She leans toward me and sniffs, her nose scrunching up. “Is that cow shit?” she asks.
I sniff hard, pointing my nose down toward my chest. “I do not smell like cow shit,” I say. But I can’t quite tell what that is either. Whatever it is, is vile. I’m offending myself, I smell so bad. I lean toward her. “Whatever it is, you smell like it too,” I inform her.
She jerks like I just slapped her. “You take that back, Grady Parker.”
“Make me, Clifford,” I reply.
She sucks in a quick breath, and she lifts her foot to make good on her promise. I block her foot with my hand. “I hate you so much,” she says. She says it like “the flowers smell nice” or “the yard needs mowing.” She says it like something she has said so many times that it no longer comes out as an insult. It’s just there.
“The feeling is mutual,” I assure her.
“Why are you even here?” she asks.
“Ms. Markie said you might have my clothes.” I look around her room, but I don’t see them.
“I have no idea where your clothes are.”
Suddenly, a fireman’s style knock from the front door jerks us both out of our glaring at one another.
