so let’s see if he’s man enough to eat his words.” She then holds out the paper. “Eat it, bud, and swallow it.”
“You crazy or something, Gladys?” he mutters like a scared cat as he tries again to get up. “I’ll report you.”
She shoves him back to the ledge with a single thrust and says louder, “You do that, you jerk. You go report us to anybody you like, and while you’re at it, tell ’em how many students saw that filthy drawing and heard what you and your buddies were calling my sister. Now, eat the paper or I’ll cram it down your goddamn throat.” Like I say, Gladys could be tough as nails when her dander was up.
I could still hear Prissy and Marge snickering as they sneaked puffs on their cigarette and watched as Leo took pieces of paper out of Gladys’s fat hand, and stuck them in his mouth, and tried to chew while she repeated, “Swallow it, jerk.” For a minute, I thought the guy was actually gonna start crying from the humiliation and felt sorta sorry for him, but all Gladys uttered when she finally stood back with her hands on her hips and watched him slink away was “Baaaaa!”
Okay, I guess that was pretty cruel of Gladys, but experiences like that did teach me I didn’t have to put up with all the crap and that actually size could be to my advantage when having to deal with blowbags like Leo Schwartz and Bobby Wainwright. What’s kinda funny is how, as time passed, Gladys seemed to tame down some while I became the one who could take the bull by the horns if anybody—including Mama—insulted me or her and tried to make us feel stupid or something. This didn’t happen very often, but if it did, Gladys knew for damn sure I’d step up to the plate for her the way she did for me.
The truth is, Gladys was always more social than I ever was and, for some reason, had lots more friends and dates. Oh, I suppose any other sister would have been jealous, but how could I be jealous when my grades were so much better than Gladys’s, and I won prizes for my sax playing in the band, and nobody but nobody could beat me at ping-pong tournaments or arm wrestling?
Of course everything changed for good when Gladys married Rufus and they started breeding like chickens. Now she no longer had the time or energy to go swimming out at Suttles Park, or play ladies pool on the team every Friday at Bigalo’s Parlor, or drive over to LaMarque to watch drag racing, or do lots of the things we used to do together when she wasn’t working a shift at Roy Rogers and me at Otto Glass and Aluminum. Then I met Lyman one night at Lucky Strike, and the problem there was that Lyman and Rufus couldn’t have been more different and just didn’t get on very good. Well, needless to say, with four kids to support and a mortgage to pay and Rufus on minimum wage at the lumberyard, it’s about all the two can now do to make ends meet. No social life to speak of, no special church activities, no celebrations in restaurants, not even many ball games—I mean, sometimes I think the only things Gladys and Rufus do is fool around with those rotten kids and stuff themselves with chicken McNuggets and deli takeout and frozen pizzas round the clock.
Not that I’m one to talk, but I can boil an egg and do know the difference between real country sausage and a pig-on-the-stick. And unlike Gladys, I finally did take a big step to pull myself out of the gutter and improve my image and health.
“Oh, Miss Goody-Goody now thinks she deserves a goddamn medal,” Gladys lambasted me during one of her foul moods not long ago in the car when I told her how much weight I’d lost.
“Honey, I don’t think anything of the sort, and you’re just being a bitch,” I shot back at her.
“At least I still got a husband who gives a shit about me, not to mention a fine boy and three precious girls.”
“Yeah, till he drops dead like Daddy from a massive heart attack, and you gotta have the other knee replaced, and…boy, sister, you can still be as hard-headed as you ever were.”
“Let, why don’t you worry ’bout yourself and stop sticking your nose in my business?”
“’Cause, honey, whether you believe it or not, I do worry ’bout you just the way I worry ’bout Mama.”
“Whatta we gonna do about Mama?”
And with that sudden question, our little fight was over with—almost like the pointless arguments we had as young girls and then forgot about. I know Gladys is probably never gonna change her ways, but after all, she is still my sister and it’s only natural for me to care about what happens to her. No matter that sometimes I could choke her to death.
5
CHEAP DATE
I gotta admit I hate working out at Body Tech almost as much as I miss eating something like a big wedge of grasshopper pie I made not long ago for the church charity bazaar. Yep, that’s right: fixin’ something like grasshopper pie while you’re trying to knock off over a hundred pounds. Talk about self-punishment. Go figure. Don’t know what I’d do without the Nips I carry everywhere to suck on and curb my appetite.
But it’s all paying off in more ways than one. Eyes no longer puffy and really look hazel now. High cheekbones I never knew I had. My dark hair long and shiny since Roberta started styling it at Salon Magic and showed me how to wear it up sometimes with these designer clips. Much tighter skin on my arms, more tone and definition to my boobs and abs and thighs, and no more white splotches on my stomach. Yeah, incredible cosmetic changes, and don’t think for a second all this wadn’t connected to what happened with Vernon.
Just sauntered in the shelter one day looking for a dog, and the second I saw him and heard him talk, I whispered to Sally while he was flipping through our dog photos, “Boy, that’s one who could put his shoes under my bed.” I must have been about 185 at the time, but I remember I was wearing my shirt tucked in my jeans with a big turquoise belt buckle—something I’d never have dreamed of doing the year before. And I can tell you something else I never would have dreamed of: that this young, really well-built guy with gelled wavy brown hair and the whitest teeth I’d ever seen would give me the once-over that made me tingle all over and feel like the most glamorous woman on earth. I mean, by the time I’d finished asking him a few questions and helping him fill out the application we require of all adopters, it couldn’t have been more obvious that the man was flirting with me—downright flirting. Have to admit I really didn’t know how to handle myself.
Turns out the reason Vernon wanted a dog was because his young wife had been tragically struck dead by lightning at the nursery where she worked in east Houston. They hadn’t been married but a couple of years, and didn’t have chick nor child, and, plain and simple, he needed companionship while he was getting his life back together. At least that’s what he told me, though I couldn’t imagine a guy as nice and handsome and smart as Vernon having to look too long for a little human companionship. Wanna know just how smart Vernon is? He’s with a company called Freedom Computers that installs and services computers—and I don’t mean just in homes but in big corporations like Shell. Not bad, I say, for a kicker from Waco who’s determined to make something of his life.
So after he looked at the pictures, I took him around the cages out back, and the second he spots this adorable young Lab mix somebody found abandoned over in River Oaks, he’s like a kid; the dog licks his face and the two begin tussling right there on the concrete floor. We’re always real careful about releasing our animals to the right owners, but since the bitch had had all her shots and I could tell right off that Vernon was a safe bet, I suggested he take her home for a couple of days to make absolutely sure the two were compatible.
Well, the very next day he calls to ask me a million questions about feeding and house training and bathing and what have you. Then he wants to know the name of a good vet. And the third time, he actually drops by the shelter to say he definitely wants the dog, and has already named her Daisy, and hands us a donation of fifty dollars. And get this: He also asks point-blank if he can express his thanks by inviting me to have lunch at 20 Carats over on Montrose. I almost faint but try to put on a good front.
“Loretta Crawford, I hope to hell you told him yes,” Sally almost screamed, “and that you don’t screw it up.”
“Honey, I told him I