The Improper Life of Bezillia Grove by Susan Gregg Gilmore

she don’t make sandwiches like this. Is this bread homemade?” he asked her, and then winked, as if to reassure her he wasn’t telling lies about her cooking.
    “Lord, son, you got your daddy’s smile, something dangerous for sure. I bet you got yourself at least a girlfriend or two, hmm, don’t ya?”
    Samuel only smiled. He seemed to know that was all he needed to do. Then he glanced up toward the house, and I suddenly felt like his teasing was as much for my entertainment as it was for Maizelle’s. I dropped my head against the back of the chaise lounge. I didn’t think it was really right for a colored boy to be flirting with me, even if I did kind of like it.
    Maizelle swatted Samuel on the arm again and then pointed to the barn. “You better get your daddy’s lunch delivered before that man passes out from hunger,” she told him. She laughed to herself as she walked back to the house, every now and then stopping to pull a weed thriving among my mother’s flowers. I snuggled farther down on the chaise lounge and closed my eyes again and listened to the hammer, and the saw, and Samuel’s laugh, and Nathaniel’s singing, all woven together and drifting through the air like a redbird coming to offer me some lonesome morning trill. If Mother’d been here, she’d have told Nathaniel to quit singing that Negro music.
    “You’re not a slave, old man,” she’d snap. “You’re not working on some cotton-picking plantation.” And Nathaniel would look at my mother and tip his cap and say the same thing he always said. “No, Mrs. Grove, you’re right. This ain’t no cotton-picking plantation.”
    For the next two days, I woke to that same soothing sound. And by the time I’d made my way downstairs and taken my place at the kitchen table, Maizelle would already be carrying a tray loaded with sandwiches and fresh chips to the barn. She said when you’ve been working since daybreak, lunch comes early, and it might do me some good to remember that. “The early bird is the one that ends up getting the worm every time.”
    Maybe. But I didn’t care too much about that worm. All I knew was that when I wasn’t tending to Adelaide or Baby Stella, I found myself right back on that porch, drawn to it like a moth to the light. Samuel and I would exchange glances every now and then, never more than that. But it was all the encouragement I needed to keep coming back.
    “Bezellia, whatchya doin’, child?” Maizelle asked late one afternoon as she stood in front of me, swaying from one foot to the other. Mother’s body was stiff and rigid, but Maizelle’s body was never still. Even when she was standing in place, her body was always moving. And even when she was trying to be stern, she could never completely hide the smile in her voice.
    “Nothing,” I answered, keeping my eyes closed and my nose buried behind my book.
    “Uh-huh, I can see that,” Maizelle said. “When I was your age I had been taking in ironing for more than a year. Never had the time to do nothing. Now take this lemonade out to Nathaniel and Samuel. And then take your little sister down to the creek for me.” I had left Adelaide sitting on the grass feeding her babies some crackers and ice water. Now the garden hose was pulled to her side and water was trickling onto a patch of dry, dusty earth. Stacked between her legs sat a pile of newly made mud pies.
    “While your nose done been buried in that book, your little sister’s been out playing in the mud again.” Hearing herself spoken of, Adelaide looked up and grinned. Her arms and legs were covered in a fresh, wet coat of mud. “I don’t want her inside getting anywhere near your mama’s furniture. She’ll take a switch to all three of us if one tiny speck of mud finds its way into this house,” Maizelle told me sternly.
    She nodded her head as if to punctuate her point and then handed me an old wooden tray. A large plastic pitcher full of lemonade and two Mason jars left it