Larceny and Old Lace by Tamar Myers Page A

for a minute.
    â€œOkay. I’m sorry. Now, who is this Jimmy?”
    She was studying my face to see if I was really sorry. I thought about Aunt Eulonia’s death and the pain it was causing Charlie. It must have worked.
    â€œMama, Jimmy Grady is the sweetest, kindest man alive. I’m in love with him, Mama. And I know he loves me!”
    I kicked my left leg with my pointed right shoe. “How old is he?” I asked calmly.
    She was able to look me in the eyes, I’ll grant her that. “Thirty-eight.”
    â€œWhere did you meet him?”
    Her gaze wavered slightly. “He’s a custodian at school. I mean, he was a custodian there. Last year. It isn’t his fault that his wife sued him for child support and he ended up getting fired.”
    â€œHis wife?”
    She nodded. “But he’s going to get a divorce. He never even loved her, you know that? He said he knows he couldn’t have loved her, because it didn’t feel at all like it feels for me. He says he’s waited around his whole life for someone like me.”
    â€œI bet he has,” I muttered. “How many children does your Jimmy have?”
    â€œFive, Mama, but none of them were his fault. His wife kept tricking him into getting her pregnant. She’s extremely manipulative.”
    â€œSounds like Jimmy needs to keep his pecker in his pants.”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œUh, what I—what did happen to the furniture?” It was a useful tactic, learned from Susan herself. When trapped, change the subject.
    â€œOh that. Jimmy said it would be a good idea to sell it andput the money into a better car. I need a good car if I’m going to drive to work every day, not a sofa.”
    â€œI see. But what happened to the car your Daddy gave you?”
    â€œOh that? Well, you see, Jimmy and his friends were driving around one day, obeying the speed limit and everything, and this old geezer runs a stop sign and totals it.”
    That certainly accounted for Jimmy. Thank God Susan wasn’t along.
    â€œWhat about insurance? Didn’t you tell your daddy?”
    She put her hands on her hips, a gesture learned from me no doubt. “Well, you know how Daddy’s always yapping about high rates and all. I didn’t want him to get upset, so I didn’t collect.”
    â€œBut Susan, dear, you don’t have insurance on this better car, do you?”
    She sighed patiently. “I will, Mama. Just give me time. It’s my life, you know, and my car. Daddy didn’t have a thing to do with this one.”
    She meant her car. I wish I could say the same thing for her life. I don’t know what possessed me to marry Buford Timberlake right out of college. Possessed—maybe that was it. I was possessed by something. After all, there was this Haitian girl, into voodoo, who lived right down the hall.
    Mama saw straight through to Buford’s core. Knowing her, she probably smelled how rotten it was. I was so in love I couldn’t smell or see. Of course, comparing Buford with Jimmy was like comparing girdles with peanuts. There wasn’t any relationship there at all.
    Buford had a college education and a place guaranteed him in law school. Buford had plans. Buford even had some money. Not much, but enough so that I didn’t have to work when Susan was born.
    What did Jimmy have? He didn’t even have a whole pair of jogging pants. I would have to come back to Susan’s apartment building in the daytime, with a high-powered flashlight—maybe connected to a high-powered rifle, and do some sleuthing. It was beginning to look like that Haitian girl, the one into voodoo, might be living under Susan’s roof.
    I kicked myself into consciousness.
    â€œSusan, are you—I mean, is this something more than a platonic relationship?” I am willing, no eager, to talk myself into believing anything that will make life easier for the ones I love. And for me.
    Her