God Still Don't Like Ugly Read Online Free PDF

when the manager put his hands on his hips and watched us until we went out the door.
    “I guess some things never change.” I sighed as Lillimae and I approached her car parked on the street directly in front of the vegetable stand. “I’ll never forget the way some white folks used to treat Muh’Dear and me when we lived down here.” I snorted so hard I had to rub my nose. I was surprised to see specks of blood on my fingers.
    Lillimae didn’t respond until she had tossed the bag with her vegetables onto the backseat.
    “I would have gone to another stand if I had known that woman worked here,” Lillimae hissed, gripping the sides of the steering wheel. The weather had cooled off considerably by now, but beads of sweat covered most of Lillimae’s face. She was red with rage. “I work my fingers to the bone at that damn post office so me and Daddy can eat good. This is one of the best stands in town and one of the closest.
    But them motherfuckers’ll never get another one of my hard-earned dollars. I don’t have to put up with that shit.”
    “I would not have been as nice to that old peckerwood witch as you were,” I snarled, looking back toward the vegetable stand.
    The same cashier who had behaved so rudely was now standing outside on the sidewalk in front of the vegetable stand under a streetlight, looking at us. For a moment, her eyes locked with mine. I blinked because I couldn’t believe the unbearably sad look on the woman’s face now. I gasped when she offered a faint smile before we drove off. I let out a deep sigh and turned back around.
    24
    Mar y Monroe
    I saw no reason to share what I had just seen with Lillimae. As far as I was concerned, the woman was nobody. But what Lillimae said next made my eyes burn with tears.
    “Her name is Edith,” Lillimae told me, her voice cracking.
    “Who?” I asked, my eyes staring at the side of Lillimae’s head.
    “That old peckerwood witch that just waited on us.”
    I gasped. “You know her?”
    Lillimae nodded. “She’s my mama.”
    CHAPTER 7
    The first few hours of the first day of my visit with Daddy and Lillimae had already been difficult enough. Seeing Lillimae’s mother at that vegetable stand had made it even more difficult.
    Lillimae had prepared her absent sons’ small bedroom next to the kitchen for me to sleep in. I took a long bath in a huge, claw-foot bathtub, noticing that the Florida sun had already started drying out my skin. By the time I crawled out of the bathtub, slathered Vaseline Intensive Care lotion over most of my body, and returned to the living room, Lillimae and Daddy had disappeared to their bedrooms. I waited until I was sure they were asleep. Then I padded into the kitchen to use the telephone on the wall next to the refrigerator to call up Muh’Dear, my mother.
    Before I could dial Muh’Dear’s number, that greedy cat from next door started clawing and thumping on the kitchen door. He was me-owing so loud, I let him in before he could disturb Lillimae. Since she seemed so fond of him, I knew she would come out to feed him again.
    Once the cat rolled across the floor, straight to the refrigerator, I took out a slice of raw bacon and tossed it to him. He dragged it to a corner and started gnawing. He was already halfway done with it by the time I finished dialing Muh’Dear’s number so I knew I had to talk fast.
    26
    Mar y Monroe
    Muh’Dear must have had the telephone in the bed with her, because she answered before the first ring ended.
    “What your daddy got to say for hisself after all these years? I bet he done already told you enough lies to fill a hog trough,” Muh’Dear said hotly.
    Before Daddy’s desertion, Muh’Dear had talked about him like he was the king of some proud African tribe. She even used to call him Mr. Goode . Now when she referred to him it was always by his first name only, Frank. And she now talked about him like a dog. I felt tremendously sad knowing that Muh’Dear’s bitterness