Girls Like Us Read Online Free PDF Page B

they neck — that’s what I feel like doing.
    That’s what I’ll do. I got up and put me on some shorts and working shirt and went downstairs to the little garden. I worked me up a sweat yanking weeds.
    After I work some of the mad off, I look up and see Lizabeth standing on her porch.
    “Quincy, I’ve made iced tea. You look like you could use a drink.”
    I didn’t want to sit and drink tea with Biddy’s best friend. “I want to get the rest of the garden clear of these weeds. Sun’s ’bout to go down.” I kept yanking. Little harder maybe.
    “The young man that cuts the grass and does the flower beds weeds the garden for me. You don’t need to do that.”
    Lizabeth put the tea down on a little table on the back porch. She go inside and come back out with another glass of tea. She sit down in a curly metal chair by the table and took a drink of her tea.
    “I know you like to do things your own way,” she say. “But you’re taking a job that someone else needs to support his father right now. Please come join me.”
    I sigh. I hate that ole lady for being smart. I should have just gone back inside as soon as I seen her. I wipe my hands on the back of my shorts and go up to her porch. I sat down and sip the tea. It was cool and sweet.
    “Who is Stephen? He the one that weeds and cut the grass?” I asked.
    “Yes, he comes by about every other day to attend to something or another around here. His father was my gardener before, but he’s ill and his son has taken his place. He’s not much older than you and Biddy, I think.”
    “You gonna have a problem.”
    “What? I don’t understand.”
    “Biddy gots problems with boys; let’s just leave it at that.”
    Lizabeth’s face got all in a bunch, then it went all kind of wide when her eyes open out big. “Oh, I never considered . . .” She took a sip of her tea. “Stephen is a lovely young man. Biddy will understand when she meets him that he . . .” She look at me and pushed at her hair and her voice change.
    “I remember being young and strong like you,” Lizabeth say. “My balance problems have made me old before my time. And I hate it.”
    I didn’t know what that meant for nothing. It must have showed, because Lizabeth said, “You think I’m very old, don’t you? I’m only sixty-two.”
    Sixty-two, that’s old as dirt. Some grandmas ain’t much past forty.
    Lizabeth must have seen the look on my face real good then. ’Cause she laugh. At first I thought she was laughing at me. But I couldn’t get mad ’cause her laugh was all — I don’t know a word, but her laugh rolled around like puppies. Some kind of way it made me laugh, just a little.
    Lizabeth shook her head and kind of hummed to herself. Sip her tea. “Quincy, I won’t see it in the mirror, but you just told me. I’m an old woman.” She sip her tea again and sigh. “Now, when did that happen?” She didn’t say that to me.
    I kept on saying nothing. I might be drinking iced tea with a crazy woman.
    I just been out of school a few days, and I got the Buffalo-Butt Princess hiding in her room and the Laughing-at-Nothing Ole Lady here on the porch.
    Living on my own is nothing like I thought.

I look out my little window and I see Quincy and Miss Lizzy drinking ice tea and laughing.
    I get a sad feeling. I wonder if they’re talking about me. Laughing about dumb, fat Biddy.
    Does Quincy call Miss Lizzy girlfriend?

I was wondering, should I tell Biddy ’bout this Stephen this morning before we go down to breakfast or let Lizabeth do it? I didn’t have to think about it too long ’cause just then I hear a lawn mower.
    I go and tap Biddy’s door. “Biddy, I gots to come in and talk to you.”
    Biddy open her door. “What’s that ruckus? Is that a lawn mower? Who’s mowing the lawn?” Biddy start toward the window.
    I catch holt of her wrist and swing her back around. “That’s what I got to tell you. Lizabeth gots a boy, or a man — well, he ’bout our age