purse. I held up one finger and looked at the display, expecting to see Mama’s number. It wasn’t a number I knew, but I could tell by the area code that the call was coming from Between.
“Could you excuse me for a moment?” I said.
She shrugged, annoyed, then took a step backwards and turned to the side, showing me her ski-slope nose. She was still standing close enough to block me in. I shook my head and then answered my phone.
“Nonny?” It was Bernese, but her voice was so hard and desperate I almost didn’t recognize it.
“Bernese? Are you okay?” I said. “Is Mama okay?”
“Stacia is going to be fine,” said Bernese. “It’s Genny, and may those Crabtrees rot in hell. It’s Genny. It’s our Genny.”
“The Crabtrees?” I said, confused. “What do the Crabtrees—
Bernese, what happened?”
“The Bitch got out,” Bernese said. “That Crabtree Bitch got out, and she ate your Genny up.”
CHAPTER 4
IT WAS NEVER a question of if one of the Crabtrees’ Dobermans would get loose and go after Genny. It was when.
Those animals were just this side of wild and mean straight through. They had been trained as guard dogs by Ona’s oldest boy, Lobe. He’d employed some half-assed Crabtree methodol-ogy, probably a booklet found among the impulse items they kept by the register at the Loganville Piggly Wiggly: 30 Days to Deadly Dogs. Add in general Crabtree carelessness, and apply these factors to a swinging gate held closed by a long chain that had to be wrapped three times around the posts before it was pad-locked. It was the algebraic formula for doom.
Genny was deathly afraid of any animal that came up higher than her knee. She was especially afraid of big dogs. Of course, she was also afraid of hospitals. And loosely wrapped Halloween candy. And crosswalks and Jehovah’s Witnesses and self-serve gasoline pumps and anything with more than six legs, particularly squid. But the acrid smell of her fear was probably the thing that sent the dogs into apoplexy whenever they caught a whiff.
And it was only Genny they didn’t like. The dogs didn’t mind even Mama, and she was Genny’s twin. Fraternal, but they had become more and more similar as they aged. Genny had always been prettier, but the differences had faded over the years, especially after Mama became completely blind and Genny started choosing her clothes. After their sixty-plus years of living together, a stranger would have a hard time telling Eugenia and Eustacia apart. They were short, plump ladies with strong Native American features that looked somewhat incongruous in their small, pale faces. Every day Genny put their black-and-white-striped hair up into identical tidy buns, powdered their noses, and pinked their cheeks with liquid rouge.
It boggled my mind to consider how tiny the delineation in their genes must be, and yet my bold mama, who had the soul of a pirate, came into the world stone deaf and with eyes that would fail her soon after she turned forty. Genny, on the other hand, was physically healthy but so timid and racked by nerves that I doubt she would have left the womb at all if Stacia had not gone first. But externally? They looked practically interchangeable.
The dogs, however, had no trouble differentiating, especially the alpha dog. The female. The one Aunt Bernese had christened “the Bitch.”
Bernese had called her the Bitch for so long that the whole family had picked it up, in spite of the fact that the Fretts usually only cussed if it was biblical. That is to say, they’d use “hell” to mean the literal place and “ass” to mean donkey. They’d all say “whore,” especially if it was followed by “monger” or “of Baby-lon.” None of them would dream of calling a person a bitch, or even use the word as a verb, but they’d refer to the Crabtrees’ alpha dog as the Bitch while standing in the vestibule of The First Baptist Church of Between.
The whole town was so inured to it that
“Could you excuse me for a moment?” I said.
She shrugged, annoyed, then took a step backwards and turned to the side, showing me her ski-slope nose. She was still standing close enough to block me in. I shook my head and then answered my phone.
“Nonny?” It was Bernese, but her voice was so hard and desperate I almost didn’t recognize it.
“Bernese? Are you okay?” I said. “Is Mama okay?”
“Stacia is going to be fine,” said Bernese. “It’s Genny, and may those Crabtrees rot in hell. It’s Genny. It’s our Genny.”
“The Crabtrees?” I said, confused. “What do the Crabtrees—
Bernese, what happened?”
“The Bitch got out,” Bernese said. “That Crabtree Bitch got out, and she ate your Genny up.”
CHAPTER 4
IT WAS NEVER a question of if one of the Crabtrees’ Dobermans would get loose and go after Genny. It was when.
Those animals were just this side of wild and mean straight through. They had been trained as guard dogs by Ona’s oldest boy, Lobe. He’d employed some half-assed Crabtree methodol-ogy, probably a booklet found among the impulse items they kept by the register at the Loganville Piggly Wiggly: 30 Days to Deadly Dogs. Add in general Crabtree carelessness, and apply these factors to a swinging gate held closed by a long chain that had to be wrapped three times around the posts before it was pad-locked. It was the algebraic formula for doom.
Genny was deathly afraid of any animal that came up higher than her knee. She was especially afraid of big dogs. Of course, she was also afraid of hospitals. And loosely wrapped Halloween candy. And crosswalks and Jehovah’s Witnesses and self-serve gasoline pumps and anything with more than six legs, particularly squid. But the acrid smell of her fear was probably the thing that sent the dogs into apoplexy whenever they caught a whiff.
And it was only Genny they didn’t like. The dogs didn’t mind even Mama, and she was Genny’s twin. Fraternal, but they had become more and more similar as they aged. Genny had always been prettier, but the differences had faded over the years, especially after Mama became completely blind and Genny started choosing her clothes. After their sixty-plus years of living together, a stranger would have a hard time telling Eugenia and Eustacia apart. They were short, plump ladies with strong Native American features that looked somewhat incongruous in their small, pale faces. Every day Genny put their black-and-white-striped hair up into identical tidy buns, powdered their noses, and pinked their cheeks with liquid rouge.
It boggled my mind to consider how tiny the delineation in their genes must be, and yet my bold mama, who had the soul of a pirate, came into the world stone deaf and with eyes that would fail her soon after she turned forty. Genny, on the other hand, was physically healthy but so timid and racked by nerves that I doubt she would have left the womb at all if Stacia had not gone first. But externally? They looked practically interchangeable.
The dogs, however, had no trouble differentiating, especially the alpha dog. The female. The one Aunt Bernese had christened “the Bitch.”
Bernese had called her the Bitch for so long that the whole family had picked it up, in spite of the fact that the Fretts usually only cussed if it was biblical. That is to say, they’d use “hell” to mean the literal place and “ass” to mean donkey. They’d all say “whore,” especially if it was followed by “monger” or “of Baby-lon.” None of them would dream of calling a person a bitch, or even use the word as a verb, but they’d refer to the Crabtrees’ alpha dog as the Bitch while standing in the vestibule of The First Baptist Church of Between.
The whole town was so inured to it that
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