What Looks Like Crazy Read Online Free PDF Page A

would do exactly what they wanted. Before long I’d have more cookware than most restaurants. I grabbed three diet sodas from the refrigerator and carried them to the table. “Thanks for getting the chicken,” I said once we’d sat down and filled our plates.
    Aunt Trixie patted my hand and winked. Unlike my mother, who worried and nagged me about every little thing, Aunt Trixie was the peacemaker, the one who wanted to make everything okay.
    â€œI wish you’d been a teacher like your grandfather,” my mother said. “It can’t be good for you, working around all those crazy people.”
    I looked at her. This, coming from a woman who’d once delivered my forgotten sack lunch to school wearing oversized Bugs Bunny bedroom slippers and pink foam hair curlers. She had almost caused me to drop out in second grade. “They’re not crazy, Mom,” I said. “They have problems, just like anybody else.”
    â€œWell, I don’t think it’s healthy, listening to people’s troubles all day. I would get depressed. In fact, you do look a little depressed. What do you think, Trixie?”
    My aunt put her hand to my forehead as though checking to see whether I had a fever.
    â€œWould you two cut it out?” I said. “I’m not depressed, okay?” I decided it was time to change the subject. “How is the move coming along?”
    My mother smiled proudly. “Great. You should see the new showroom. The wood floors are beautiful. Tell her, Trixie.”
    â€œThey’re beautiful.”
    â€œI can’t wait to see it,” I said. My mother and aunt had become celebrity junk dealers after a reporter from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution interviewed them. That had led to an article in Southern Living and a segment on Home & Garden Television. Suddenly people were coming from all over to buy their junk.
    They’d learned to weld, and that had resulted in a bunch of whatchamacallits and thingamajigs finding homes in wall art and sculptures. High-priced decorators began calling for accent pieces, and the Junk Sisters, as my mother and aunt were referred to, designed tags and renamed the items “Junque.”
    They were forced to hire employees in order to meet demand, but they quickly ran out of garage space. Finally they purchased a building in an area known as Little Five Points, a bohemian-style neighborhood likened to New York’s Greenwich Village and New Orleans’ French Quarter, and they’d been hauling Junque over there for weeks in preparation for their grand opening.
    â€œHave many people responded to the invitations?” I asked. Mona and I had spent a full day helping them write out hundreds of invitations to the event.
    â€œWe’re going to have quite a crowd, even for a Sunday night,” my mother said.
    â€œGreat.” The grand opening was to be held on Sunday night to accommodate my cousin’s band, who’d offered to play at a cut rate since they seldom had gigs that night. They called themselves the Dead Musicians, a group of five men with shaved heads, tattoos, and nose rings.
    After a few minutes, I noticed a silence in the room: my mother and aunt had stopped talking. While that normally would have brought me much relief, I had the feeling something was wrong. “What is it?” I asked.
    My mother took a deep breath. “It’s about the invitations.”
    â€œFirst, you have to promise not to get mad,” Aunt Trixie said.
    I knew the news wasn’t good. “What?”
    My mother looked at Trixie. “You tell her.”
    â€œNo, you tell her.”
    â€œWe invited Jay,” my mother said.
    I looked from one to the other to see whether they were kidding. The pucker between my mother’s brows assured me it was no joke. “Why would you do that?”
    â€œIt wasn’t intentional,” my mother said. “Tell her, Trixie.”
    â€œIt wasn’t