The Improper Life of Bezillia Grove Read Online Free PDF Page A

palm of his rough, thick hand so both he and Maizelle could better examine my face. He saw the blood trickling from the corner of my lips, where my mother’s diamond ring must have ripped my skin. My mouth tasted as if I had been sucking on a piece of metal pipe. Nathaniel handed me a glass of ice water and told me to drink it all.
    “What happened?” Maizelle persisted, looking at Nathaniel with bold, determined eyes, afraid that she already knew the answer to her question.
    “Miss Bezellia fell down the front steps, lost her footing.”
    Maizelle understood what Nathaniel was not saying, and she pulled me tighter against her chest. “Get me a cold rag and the baby aspirin there in that drawer.” She held the cool, wet rag to my cheek while Nathaniel fumbled with the bottle of aspirin. The only other sound was the kitchen clock that hung over the back door, gently humming as one second poured into the next.
    We’d all heard my mother say some pretty ugly things to me, and she had certainly swatted my hand more times than I could count. But she had never hit me. Not like that. Not on the face. For the first time in my life I really, truly believed I hated her. But I didn’t hate her because she had hit me or because she’d just stood there and watched me fall. I hated her because she had said such mean things about Tommy.
    “He’s not worthless,” I finally muttered and burst into tears.
    “Oh, Lord, child, that boy, that’s what this is about?” Maizelle looked at Nathaniel for confirmation.
    “You listen to me, honey. It’s natural for that heart of yours to feel things. You ain’t done nothing wrong. Ya’ hear me, Miss Bezellia? Not nothing wrong.”
    Nothing wrong? I couldn’t kiss Tommy anymore. I couldn’t stand next to him behind the coatrack anymore. Everything about this felt wrong, very wrong.
    Mother didn’t come to the dinner table that night. She told Maizelle she wasn’t hungry. I sat there and wondered if she might starve to death, even pictured her in my head crawling to the kitchen, begging for food. But Nathaniel carried a small plate of scrambled eggs and a gin and tonic to her bedroom before leaving for the evening. Mrs. Grove had what she needed, he said, and then winked good night at me and Adelaide and walked out the back door. I wanted to go with him so bad I almost cried, even if his house did have dirt floors like Mother said it did. I would rather have been anywhere than here.
    But Adelaide and I just sat frozen at the table, staring at each other, eating our dinner alone. Father had phoned, as he usually did, a few minutes before Maizelle was ready to serve our plates to let us know that he needed to care for another dying patient. Fine with me. In fact, I was almost grateful that some poor sick soul had captured my father’s attention once again. I was in no mood to endure another meal under my mother’s watchful eye or my father’s mournful stare. Adelaide sat still and quiet, a chicken leg in one hand and Baby Stella dangling in the other.
    By the time I went to bed, the corner of my mouth was swollen and a rich shade of blue. I would tell my friends that Adelaide and I had been playing freeze tag in the house and I ran into the edge of a door. And I would tell Tommy Blanton that I could not meet him behind the coatrack, that I could never again feel his lips against mine. I would try to explain that ours was a forbidden love, like Romeo and Juliet’s, at least that’s what Cornelia called it. Tears rolled down my face, stinging my mouth where my skin was raw, washing his kisses away forever.
    As I slipped into that space between sleep and wakefulness, I heard someone walk into my room. Without even opening my eyes, I knew it was my father. I had felt him by my side so many nights before, leaning over my bed, studying me as if he was memorizing some beautiful painting. He stroked my head and then turned and walked out of the room. I wondered if my father knew what had