Free The Interruption of Everything by Terry McMillan Page A

survive on your own if you had to, making the kind of chump change I know you make doing this kind of frilly shit?”
    “I enjoy doing ‘frilly’ shit and if I downsized and increased my hours, yes, I could make ends meet, but what’s this got to do with you?”
    “You just a bored housewife, Marilyn, admit it.”
    “I’m not bored and I’m not a housewife anymore.” I’m trying not to sound defensive because I’m lying through my teeth. Everything she’s saying is true but I’ll be damned if I let her know it. The surprising thing is that she’s got more insight than I’ve given her credit for.
    “If you ain’t bored, then something is wrong with you. You got a college degree in some off-the-wall mess that you couldn’t or didn’t do shit with and for the next twenty years you act like a black Martha Stewart and then your kids grow up and make a mad dash for college and you act like they still at home. But ain’t no more carpooling so what do you do with nobody to take care of except your mother-in-law? Run out and get some ridiculous little job to kill time that ain’t got nothing to do with why you went to college.”
    “I didn’t know you majored in psychology in the two and a half years you spent in high school, Joy, but you’re missing the point here.”
    “I don’t think so. You still just as wishy-washy as you always been.”
    “And what in the hell is that supposed to mean?”
    “It means you always do what looks good on paper. And when you do shit and your heart ain’t in it—like Stevie Wonder always said: ‘you suffer’—but you did it anyway. Still doing it.”
    “Oh, really. Like what, for example?”
    “Hell, how much time you got?”
    “Very funny.”
    “Okay. If my memory serves me right you got accepted to that Fit School in New York, but Lovey wanted you to stay in California and go to a good college, and that’s what you did. But where’d you end up?”
    “It was F.I.T., and Cal turned out to be a good choice.”
    “Yeah, right. I thought you was supposed to find out what you liked in college.”
    “You do.”
    “What did you find out you like? Men? Kids?”
    “You go to hell, Joy.”
    “No, you go first, Marilyn. You already knew before you got there what you liked to do. Anytime you can take an empty pork-’n’-bean can or a cheap-ass trash can or a rusty step ladder and turn it into something pretty, I don’t think you was doing it for no grade. And who took our old dingy sheets and pillowcases, and some of our towels and clothes and dyed ’em a whole different color so they looked like new?”
    “It was easy and it made sense, considering Lovey didn’t have any money.”
    “You loved doing that kinda shit. You in denial like a motherfucker, Marilyn, and you know it.”
    “What do you know about denial?”
    “I watch Dr. Phil. Damn near everybody’s in it. Even Tiecey knows what it means.”
    I want to laugh. “I’m happy you’re in tune with the lingo of our time.”
    “The what?”
    “Never mind, Joy. To be honest, I’m working on making some changes in my life. But guess what? You still need a job.”
    “I’ve got a job.”
    “Since when?”
    “Since I’ve been running this household and taking care of kids and our mother. I ain’t jiving about Lovey either. She’s acting loopy and I don’t know if it’s safe to leave my kids in here with her all by theyself.”
    “First of all, Joy, Lovey is sixty-seven years old and does not need to be babysitting for your bad-ass kids anyway.”
    “My kids ain’t bad. They just high-strung.”
    “Don’t even get me started.”
    LaTiece, who they call Tiecey, is seven. She is darker than bark and so pretty her face should be on a box of something. But she sucks her fingers. And she rocks. When she’s sitting. Back and forth and back and forth. She doesn’t even seem to realize she’s doing it. And Little Lloyd, a.k.a. “LL,” is five and has already experienced firsthand what violence