Like Sweet Potato Pie Read Online Free PDF Page A

corner of Stella’s white siding.
    “Look!” Stella clapped her hand over her mouth and shushed us, even snuffing out her Marlboro. “Here he comes! Oh will ya look at that!”
    We hid ourselves in the shadows as Earl Sprouse crossed the yard, toolbox in hand. He’d put on a nice dress shirt, obviously ironed, and we even caught a whiff of cologne on the crisp breeze.
    He lived in the house right behind Stella and me, just a stone’s throw away. All the better for our prying eyes.
    “My word,” breathed Stella, shuffling her hefty weight and trying not to creak the porch swing. She lowered her big hair out of sight. “I ain’t seen him cleaned up like that since I don’t know when. How old’s he now? Fi’ty-five? Oh what I wouldn’t give ta see that nice man in love again with somebody special! He’s spent a lotta lonely years since he lost his wife, God bless her.”
    Trinity, fellow waitress and resident romantic at The Green Tree restaurant, crouched in front of me, her fragrant black curls still holding faint whiffs of fry oil. “Look at him! He’s adorable!”
    “This was your idea!” I poked her.
    “Ow.” She looked grumpy, rubbing her arm under her jacket.
    “What? Did you hurt yourself?”
    “I’m fine. Forget it.” She sounded crabby. “Anyway, I just came up with the dinner part. The rest was yours.”
    I stopped gawking through the bushes and turned to her. “Hey, you okay?” I hugged a knee, noticing for the first time the dark circles under her eyes.
    “Me?” Trinity jumped, the cheerful, sarcastic mask I knew so well slipping back into place. “I’m fine, Shiloh! I had to stay an hour after my shift while Jerry fixed that stupid sanitizer hose that keeps breaking, and now I’m sitting in the bushes in a redneck subdivision, shivering my tail off. Why wouldn’t I be fine?”
    “Good point.”
    “Hush, y’all!” hissed Becky, dragging Trinity to a better viewing spot behind Stella’s browning hydrangea shrubs, careful not to crackle the twigs. “Jest watch!”
    We stuck our heads through the leaves as Earl paused, noticing Faye’s little Escort. Then he straightened his shirt, smoothed his hair, and rang the doorbell.
    A yellow light cut blue evening, and Faye’s silhouette appeared, classy and cool. I saw the outline of her long skirt and flats, her stylishly cut blouse and bracelet. She’d just had her hair done, looking more soft sandy-brown and less gray, and she looked great.
    “What’s he doing? What’s he doing?” Stella whispered, heaving her way around Trinity’s curly head. “I can’t see!”
    “He’s pettin’ the dog!” Becky informed her with a NASCAR-like play-by-play. “They’re laughin’. There he goes! He’s goin’ in!”
    We slipped over to my yard, creeping along the ground, and took up positions behind my bushes and the shrubby things Adam had planted behind the marigolds. Stella peeked in through the living-room sheers, crouching in her housedress and flip-flops.
    “Don’t know what that was all about,” came Earl’s voice through the screen door. “Weren’t a thing wrong with the faucet. Just the washer come loose.”
    “Really? That’s weird. Maybe it just don’t tighten very well,” offered Faye diplomatically. “I had a faucet like that once. Always dripped.”
    “Is that right.” Earl scratched his head again after an awkward silence, the other hand still clutching his toolbox. “Well, if ya need any plumbin’, jest … uh … lemme know.”
    Speak, Faye! Speak! Say something!
My knees dug into the cold Virginia soil, and a prickly pyracantha shrub poked me in the thigh.
    Earl just stood there, jingling the keys in his pocket. “What’s all that fancy dinner about?”
    We strained to watch as Earl turned to Faye, fiddling with the handle on the toolbox while she explained. They gestured back and forth, scratching their heads, checking watches, and pointing to the plates. Then finally shrugged. And sat down at the