Backseat Saints Read Online Free PDF Page B

grunted and said, “Watch your mouth.” He didn’t have much of a sense of humor when it came to his daddy.
    Tuesday morning, I ended my run at Mrs. Fancy’s house and rang her doorbell, panting like an animal, my hair scraped back
     in a sweat-slick tail. She was packed up and ready to go, with three enormous suitcases waiting by her front door. I dragged
     one in each hand out to the car while Mrs. Fancy followed, carrying the third bag. As I stuffed my two in her Honda’s trunk,
     she set the last bag flat in the driveway and popped it open to show me.
    That suitcase paused me. I stared down into a swamp of rabbit-covered receiving blankets and stuffed animals and those weird
     onesie T-shirts with the snaps in the crotch and a whole stack of blue and yellow baby gowns, the kind that look like pastel
     lunch bags with drawstrings at the feet.
    My gut went soft as taffy. Mrs. Fancy was a widow lady on a fixed income, and she’d bought a whole suitcase full of presents
     for this grandbaby, even though it was her ninth. She would have to lay out plenty more to take the extra bag on the plane.
     She could probably have sent the presents FedEx for cheaper, but I could see how it was. She wanted to be there when her daughter
     opened up that bag. I bent my head and picked up a floppy giraffe doll so she wouldn’t see my eyes had glistened up. As soon
     as I could blink myself back right, I helped her tuck all the gifts back in and loaded that last case.
    Digging through those presents cost me time I didn’t have to spare. I wove us in and out of traffic in a way that irked the
     hell out of me when other people did it. Mrs. Fancy sat in the passengerseat, too excited to notice her sweet friend was driving like the very devil. She smiled at me as I got on the highway, and
     I glimpsed a streak of hot pink lipstick on her teeth.
    “Janine only just got married last year,” she said, turning to face forward again. She wasn’t watching the road, though. Her
     eyes focused on the horizon like she was already airborne. “She’s forty-two. The babiest of all my babies, in her forties.
     Can you imagine?” I nodded and slipped in between two enormous trucks like one of those crazy little remora fish that lives
     its whole life darting from shark to shark. “I never thought she’d have children.”
    Mrs. Fancy had raised her voice to talk over the enraged blast of honking from the trucker I’d cut off, but there was something
     in her tone that made my ears prick up. She sounded sly, and sly wasn’t like her. “A long time ago, she got herself married
     to a very bad man. Never even finished high school. When she finally got shut of him, she was done with men and all drove
     to get careered. Never thought this day would come.” Mrs. Fancy started rooting in her bag, trying to look anything but crafty,
     but I could smell crafty coming off her in waves.
    “Don’t,” I said, but she ignored me, or maybe she thought I was talking to the guy in a red Nissan who was trying to slip
     into my lane.
    “She traded that bad husband in for a spine and started her own business. Spring Cleaners, it’s called, and she had to hire
     her own ladies to scrub out her toilet. She got so busy getting other people’s houses clean that hers was about to get carried
     off by the bugs. Seemed to me like she hardly noticed she was getting older, but I kept thinking about this
Newsweek
article I read, something about how a woman her age was more likely to get shot by a terrorist than get a husband.
    “Then last year, every time she got on the phone, the name Charles would find itself in my ear. Charles this and Charles that
     and Charles says. I kept casual because I liked the sound of this Charles. I didn’t want to spook her. He seemed like a dooropener, you know? The kind who helps you on with your jacket. Sure enough, now my Janine’s married, living regular and peaceful,
     with a sweet little baby. That’s all I ever wanted for