Free Summer of My German Soldier by Bette Greene Page B

“Hey, Mother,” I said. “Did you hear about the saboteurs the FBI caught?”
    She stopped her work to see if I looked decent enough. “Did you and Sharon have lunch?”
    I must have passed inspection. “Yes, ma’am.”
    She went back to unboxing the shoes. “What did y’all eat?”
    “Oh, we had some—some—Oh, I know. Leftover meat loaf, and corn on the cob, and some of those store-bought cookies you bought for dessert.”
    “What’re Sharon and Ruth doing?”
    “Well, Sharon went to Sue Ellen’s, and Ruth is taking all the dishes out of the cabinet. Are we gonna get busy today?”
    “No. Why don’t you run along—go play with Edna Louise instead of hanging around the store.”
    Without her even trying, she could get me mad. “Because, like I’ve told you before, Edna Louise and Juanita Henkins and just about everybody I know have gone off to Baptist Training Camp. And I wasn’t planning to hang around; I was planning to wait on customers.” I thought of a few other things to tell her too. Things like if she doesn’t really want me then I’ll go along. She’d be sorry to lose such a good clerk on a busy Saturday. But I didn’t say it because I don’t think she’d care one bit if I left. Actually, I believe she’d prefer it.
    I’ll tell her what a good saleslady I am. “Hey, Mother, you want to know something? Last Saturday I sold twenty-five dollars’ worth of clothes and stuff to just one customer! Did you know that?” Liar. My best sale was barely eighteen bucks. Damn it, Conscience, go away.
    Mother stopped her work to look again at me. Probably she had no idea that I was capable of making such a big sale. “I wonder,” she said, more to herself than to me,“if Miz Reeves has time for you today.”
    Miz Reeves? Miz Reeves from the beauty parlor! “Oh, no! My hair looks fine just the way it is, and I washed it myself only two days ago.”
    She started walking towards the telephone as though she hadn’t heard a word I said. “Let’s see if she can take you now.”
    I ran slightly ahead of her. “Mother, would you please for once in your life listen to me? My hair is the best thing about me. People are always telling me how lucky I am having such naturally wavy hair. And you know Mrs. Reeves can’t set hair. All she ever does is to make those tight, little-old-lady curlicues.”
    She picked up the receiver and gave it a crank.
    I pressed it down again. “Listen to me! Everybody makes jokes about Mrs. Reeves. They say she only thinks she can set hair because she fixes up the lady customers at the Spencer Funeral Parlor and none of them ever made a complaint. And that’s the truth!”
    She looked at me, not liking what she saw. “Well,” she said, “I’m very sorry you don’t think Miz Reeves is good enough for you. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. A girl your age going around looking like you do.”
    I guess what she really was trying to tell me was that it shouldn’t have happened to her. A beautiful woman—everybody says she’s beautiful—has an ugly baby girl. Me. A wave of shame flooded over me followed by another wave of full-grown anger. Shame and anger, anger and shame mingled together, taking on something beyond the power of both.
    “You listen to me!” My voice was pitched high. “I absolutely will not go and you can’t make me. And another thing,if Mrs. Reeves is so good then why do you have to drive all the way to Wynne City to have your hair done? Can you answer me that? And one more thing,” I said, looking her straight in the eye, “I don’t even like you!”
    She pushed my hand away, releasing the hook, and within moments she was smiling her saleslady smile into the mouth of the phone. “Hello, Miz Reeves, how you getting along on such a hot day? ... Well, you drink yourself a cold glass of iced tea and that’ll perk you right up. Miz Reeves, you know who this is, don’t you? ... Yes, that’s right. I was just wondering if you could possibly