Free Billie Standish Was Here by Nancy Crocker Page B

second ring.
    â€œThank you.” It was Miss Lydia. It took me a minute to remember the note I had slipped in with her mail.
    â€œSure. I meant it.”
    â€œI know you did, Billie Marie, and I thank you. Now, is your mama there?”
    I nearly choked. “Oh, no—well, I mean yeah, but—” Talk about a disaster just waiting to happen.
    Miss Lydia chuckled and said, “Oh, lands, child, don’t worry. I got some business with her that’s got nothin’ to do with you.”
    â€œMama?” I had to say it three times before she pulled her eyes away from the screen and frowned at me. “It’s for you.”
    â€œWho is it?”
    â€œMiss Lydia,” I said and, when that news registered, she looked downright scared. I had to move for her to get to the phone, and I took the opportunity of being on my feet to get out of Dodge.
    I took my plate to the kitchen and washed it. Then I washed it again. I was very, very thorough.
    Mama leaned against the kitchen doorjamb a couple of minutes later. “I never would’ve dreamed,” she said to Daddy.
    â€œHmmm?” He was still glued to the paper.
    â€œIt was Lydia Jenkins.” That got his attention. “She doesn’t have anybody to take her to town now that Curtis is . . . gone, and she asked if I would.”
    â€œWhen?” Daddy frowned.
    â€œFrom now on, I guess.” The two of them stared at one other like they’d just dug up a body in the backyard and were each trying to decide if the other had put it there.

Chapter Nine

    T   he next day I waited for Miss Lydia to tell me about her conversation with Mama, but we passed the midday meal chitchatting about nothing in particular. We were washing dishes before she got serious, and then the subject wasn’t what I’d expected.
    â€œBillie Marie?” she said. “We’ve agreed we can talk about anything needs to be talked about, haven’t we?”
    Of course we had. “Uh-huh, sure.”
    â€œThen I have to ask. Have you started getting your monthlies yet?” She was staring out the window at her garden.
    My first thought was magazine subscriptions. Why would she ask about that? I hadn’t subscribed to anything since Highlights when I was a little goober. Then, ohhh. Of course. I shook my head. “No, not yet. Why?”
    â€œYour mother has told you where babies come from, hasn’t she?” Her voice shook a little.
    â€œWell, yeah,” I said, remembering that awful morning with Mama all red-faced and stammering, getting mad at me because she had to talk about it at all. “Sort of.”
    Miss Lydia took me by the shoulders. “No ‘sort of’ about it, child. Either she did or she didn’t.”
    I could feel a pulse in my ears, pounding out a warning. “Well, she told me about the egg and how if it’s not fertilized, the stuff gets passed once a month and what to do . . .”
    â€œBillie Marie.” I’d never seen Miss Lydia so sober. “Did she tell you how the egg gets fertilized?”
    â€œWell, no, but—” But all of a sudden I did know. And then there was a freight train inside my head and I saw a big dark spot like I’d stared too long at the sun and, as my knees buckled, I was thinking oh-my-god-oh-my-god-oh-my-god-the-joke-that-man-that-comment-that-look-this-is-what-they-meant-but-Mama-and-Daddy-and-Miss-Lydia-and-Mister-Jenkins-and-oh-my-God-oh-my-God-everybody-who-has-ever-had-a-baby-that-awful-that-awful-it-wasn’t-just-it-wasn’t-just-Miss-Lydia’s-father-and-then-Curtis-inherited-this-terrible-idea.
    Miss Lydia’s face was only a couple of inches from mine when I opened my eyes and I could see myself reflected in her glasses, scared and small, same as I felt. When I realized I was on the floor, I raised up so fast we banged heads and bounced apart like a couple of stooges, but neither of