Secrets of a Soap Opera Diva Read Online Free PDF Page A

fortune.
    “Now stop running up your phone bill and go to work and make that money. Lord knows that remodel must be costin’ you a pretty penny. Sure wish I could see it.”
    Grandma Jones had never been on a plane in her life. Furthermore, she was certain California was going to slide into the Pacific Ocean when the next earthquake struck. I didn’t spend too much time thinking about her prediction, but Grandma Jones was spot-on about my kitchen remodel. Like everyone else in Hell-A, I was dealing with a pirating gangster, also known as a general contractor. I nicknamed him Jack the %#&*ing Rip-Off. The project was already six months overdue.
    “Okay, Grandma, I better get to work.”
    “And tell my grandbaby I said she needs to write to me more.”
    “I’ll tell her tonight,” I promised. “She’s in New York for two weeks with Dwayne, visiting his family. And Grandma, I almost forgot, are you taking your high blood pressure medicine?”
    “No, it makes me feel funny. I went back to boilin’ the bush with a little parsley and my stewed prunes. I feel just fine now.”
    “Grandma, you know what the doctor said—”
    “Yeah, I know what he said, but that don’t make him right. Doctors these days have a pill for everything, and I’ll be doggone if I’m gonna make somebody rich off my itty bitty Social Security. Listen, Beulah, you know I love you to bits and sure wish you’d go back to church. I’ll keep prayin’ for that end.”
    “I love you, Grandma.”
    We hung up.
    Grandma Jones was my rock. I’d never known my mother, Maddie Mae. She’d died giving birth to me, a mere child herself at sixteen. Aside from Ivy, Grandma Jones was the only real family I had.
    In that moment, I desperately wished I could go back home for no other reason but to rest my head on Grandma’s talcum-powdered chest
.

CHAPTER 3

Cotton Capital of the World
    FLASHBACK—CIRCA 1990
    B efore excommunicating myself from the tambourine-shaking Church of the Solid Rock childhood I grew up in, I needed to take care of some unfinished family business.
    In the short summer months, Grandma Jones shared her secret escape, her tired old soap opera,
Yesterday, Today and Maybe Tomorrow,
while massaging comfort into my dusty scalp. As she lounged in overalls that could walk themselves, I scanned our front room from between her knees. It was a cluttered hodgepodge of personal treasures and furniture that she would never let go of, a collage of religious items and funeral fans, plastic fruit and silk flowers. Oval-framed photographs, including one of her deceased husband, Orville, hung in the center of long-deadrelatives against dulled wallpaper, their gloomy expressions peeking out from behind bubbled glasses.
    I’d better not make a sound or else. Anyone who knew Grandma Jones knew to strictly adhere to her rules when her “stories” were on: “
Don’t
call,
don’t
talk and definitely
don’t
visit!”
    Witnessing yet another soap-a-licious sex scene, I drifted, remembering one warm afternoon under a wide blooming dogwood, raining dainty white petals on my face.
    “Thanks for bringing me a cola, Keithie.”
    “It ain’t for drinkin’,” he dryly replied, clumsily unbuttoning my dress.
    Naϊvely I asked, “W-w-ell, if it ain’t for drinkin’, what’s it for?”
    “Just in case.”
    I didn’t know diddly-squat about contraception, but I did learn soft drinks could be used for more than quenching ordinary thirst.
    There were two things Grandma never missed, church and her “stories.” She had a unique way of breathing requiring her whole body to conspire to do so: inflating her Mahalia Jackson–size bosom like a big helium balloon, holding her breath for several seconds before exhaling. The rhythm suddenly stopped and so did her braiding. Alarmed, I scrambled to my feet and leaned in. Relieved, I felt the shallowest exhale of baking soda breath, informing me that Grandma Jones was still alive.
    I tiptoed across the