Leaving Cold Sassy (9780547527291) by Olive Ann Burns Page B

such.”
    â€œNo, it don’t.”
    â€œAnyhow, Queenie said Loma splashed water on herself awhile and then buttoned up that shirtwaist and commenced to stretch. This-a-way and that-a-way, up, down, and sideways. Queenie told Miz Predmore she got skeered Miss Loma’d had a stroke, she went to breathin’ so hard! Time she got done she was downright raspin’—like a peach seed had got stuck in her th’oat!” Sitting inside by the open window, I nearly laughed out loud. Mama hadn’t told me all this.
    â€œLoma told Queenie how in New York City she stands in front of a open window to splash herself—even when hit’s a-snowin’. Said you sho do feel good when you git th’ew.”
    â€œIt don’t take a genius to know why you’d feel good to git th’ew,” said Mrs. Jones, “but it’d take a fool to think it up in the first place. All I got to say, folks sure do turn strange when they go live in New York City.”
    â€œI reckon you know Loma’s done got herself engaged to one a-them Yankees. Shoo, now. Git away!” she yelled all of a sudden. “I think God invented yellow jackets just to drive folks off of their porches. Specially in hot muggy weather like we been havin’. Shoo, shoo! Git! Shoo! What Loma ought to do, she ought to come on back to P.C. where she belongs.”
    â€œI don’t know as she belongs down here anymore,” Mrs. Jones put in. “A woman who’d smoke and wear pants? And make her livin’ on a vaudeville stage?”
    Almost in hugging distance of the conversation, I wanted in the worst way to go join in. But I knew if I went out there, they’d just go to talking about the weather.
    â€œOf course she don’t admit she works in vaudeville,” Miss Alice Ann was saying. “Loma calls it a the-ater. But lately she’s been doin’ mannequin work, too!”
    â€œNo!”
    â€œYes’m! She told somebody that’s how she met this man that she’s a-go’n marry. Her and some other ladies was modelin’ Gossard corsets one mornin’, s’posed to be just lady buyers in the auditorium, but halfway th’ew, somebody spied a man hidin’ under a seat off to the side, and hit was him! Loma told it herself. She thinks it’s funny.”
    I sure thought it was funny. But not one hee-hee or ha-ha came from the preacher’s wife. “I bet he got hustled out in a hurry,” she said with disgust.
    â€œI speck he did. But Loma said he come backstage later and ast her to go eat with him, and Lord if she didn’t have any better sense’n to do it! He took her to one a-them fancy rest’rants. I reckon with him bein’ so old, and hit daylight and a nice place, Loma figured he couldn’t do her no harm.”
    So that’s how Aunt Loma got her diamond.
    â€œToo bad she didn’t stay here and marry Herbert Sloan back when he ast her to. Li’l Herbert, I mean. Not his daddy. But they say Loma said Li’l Herbert was pussy-footy—and besides, she couldn’t stand the name Herbert, and anyhow she wouldn’t marry anybody short as him if his name was Valentino.”
    Mrs. Jones snorted. “I bet if Loma had of known Li’l Herbert would inherit that pile of money, he’d of looked two feet taller. All I got to say is anybody mean enough to say a thing like that about such a sweet little man deserves to marry a Yankee. I never could understand how she’s had so many men chasin’ after her. I got to admit it, though, she’s helt on to her looks.”
    â€œMaybe so. But not her brains,” said Miss Alice Ann.
    â€œYou know what she’s come home for? To git Campbell Junior and—”
    The big clock in the hall struck. Mrs. Jones said, “I wonder what’s helt Miss Love up. I got to git on home.”
    Miss Alice Ann said she needed to get on, too. I heard the chairs