The Sisterhood of the Queen Mamas Read Online Free PDF Page A

assuage her guilt over never volunteering in it—needed the self-esteem boost of having everyone tell her that her contributions sell out every time. And overworked, underappreciated Bernadette needs the comfort of chocolate and the kindness of someone who isn’t trying to make a contest of wills out of every simple gesture.
    So when I checked my watch, I knew Jan Bishop Belmont would be back any minute—because she always expects her goodies to by gone by noon—to collect her plastic containers. Well, I just had to stuff some money into the donation jar and nab the last batch of brownies languishing there. This way, everyone benefits.
    Maxine got it, of course.
    “And don’t start with us with all that nonsense about losing weight, now,” Maxine warned as she pushed the delicious-smelling dark chocolate squares toward Bernadette. “You have a darling figure,”
    Darling might be a bit generous a word for Bernadette’s figure.
    “My mother says I’m chunky.”
    “Chunky?” Maxine shook her head, her expression sour. “That word doesn’t describe you at all.”
    “Chunky?” I repeated, with my nose crinkled up. “Sounds weighed down. Cumbersome. Like a block broken off from the whole.”
    “Not a thing like our Bernadette.”
    “Zaftig!” I love that word, and it fits when you’re talking about someone still young enough that none of her curveshave gone completely ’round the bend. “Now, there’s a word for our girl.”
    “Curvaceous.” Maxine waved her hands in the air, as gracefully as she could with a plastic bag over one wrist and those bracelets clacking on the other.
    “Zaftig and curvaceous,” I said, as if it was a queenly decree. “ Chunky, that’s a word best saved for women like me and Maxine.”
    “You got that right. If we are what we eat, then Odessa and I are fast, cheap and—”
    “Dangerous to the hearts of middle-aged men everywhere,” I hastened to add. I may not be much to see in that bathroom mirror, but I do have my pride, after all.
    “Shh. You shouldn’t talk that way in front of our little health-food friend over there.” Bernadette nodded toward the young girl dressed—on purpose—in things I’d have been ashamed to give to the church clothes closet for the needy. “If she hears you touting the goodness of food that’s bad for you, she might try to force you to take a sample of that wheat grass smoothie she’s peddling today.”
    “What’s she promising the stuff does for you? Give you a thick, healthy mane?” Maxine sucked in her cheeks. “I sure wouldn’t feed anything she gave me to a dog.”
    “Meow,” Bernadette teased.
    “She’s just doing her job, y’all,” I said, trying not to stare at the girl’s hair, which was dyed a color I’d never seen on anything but a pair of ugly shoes. To make matters worse it was matted in the back as if she’d slept on it for weeks, and yet was meticulously gelled into place in front and clamped down with the sweetest sparkly barrettes in front.
    I felt sorry for her, too. I mean, usually she was snarly anddownright ugly to people, as if she wanted us all to think she hated everything and everyone. But those sparkly barrettes told a different story.
    Or maybe I’m just such a sucker for anything that glitters that I imagined a different story.
    “Where is that child’s mother?” Maxine tsked.
    “Something about her just breaks my heart, Maxine.” I shook my head. “I think we should talk to her, give her the benefit of our years of experience.”
    Despite the fact that she couldn’t tell a red flag from a purple haze for her own self, Bernadette was very good at detecting warning signs on behalf of others. When you live to please people, that’s a given. So, obviously determined to save me and Maxine from our own good intentions, the poor misguided girl slapped her hands together and said, “So, what have you two found so far? Show me today’s treasures of the Tiara Madres.”
    “Tiara