Free For Lovers Only by Alex Hairston Page A

parties.”
    Erin nodded and smiled. “Every summer, I remember.”
    â€œAnd you gotta remember Daddy Milton’s Snowballs.”
    Erin playfully tapped him on his arm. “Oh yeah. I had one of those things almost every day during the summer when I was a kid. Oh my God, they were so good! Wish I had one now.”
    â€œRemember the marshmallow topping?”
    â€œThe marshmallow topping made the snowballs even more delicious and was worth the extra money.”
    â€œYeah, Daddy Milton had everybody walking around looking silly with white stuff around their mouths.”
    Erin laughed, then caught her breath and said, “One day, me and my sisters were wearing our little matching pink-and-white short sets and new tennis shoes. Boys were trying to talk to us. I thought I looked real cute walking around until I looked in the mirror and saw dried up marshmallows all around my mouth and on the tip of my nose. My sisters let me walk around like that and didn’t say a word.”
    â€œThat’s funny. I wish I could have seen you.” Joel paused for a few seconds because he was having a flashback. “Hold up, I remember you now. You have two younger sisters and all of y’all used to look just alike.”
    â€œYeah!”
    â€œYou lived right across the street from my old church. I used to see you and your sisters all the time when I was in the church’s front yard.”
    â€œDon’t tell me you were one of those little bad-ass church boys who used to yell and throw rocks at us.”
    â€œNo. At least I don’t think so.” Joel made a strange facial expression. “On second thought, I probably was one of those little boys. I’m sorry. I was like eight years old back then. I didn’t know any better. Little boys are dumb. I’m sure that was just our way of telling you and your sisters that we liked y’all.”
    â€œUh-huh. Tell me anything.” Erin gave Joel a playful but stinging slap on his arm.
    â€œAw! You’re really gonna hit me when I tell you this. I just remembered something else.”
    Erin put on a silly frown. “What?”
    â€œDidn’t you and your sisters sing, ‘We Are Family’ back when we were kids at one of Mary E. Rodman’s talent shows?”
    Erin laughed. “Oh, no! You’re not supposed to remember stuff like that.” Erin hid her face. “Yeah, we did sing, ‘We Are Family.’ That was so embarrassing. Our mother thought we were going to be the next successful girl group on the scene, but all we did was make fools of ourselves.”
    Joel laughed and said, “Y’all looked real cute. I swear, I loved your performance.”
    â€œThanks, but I know you’re lying. You probably thought I was ugly back then and that’s why you never tried to get to know me.”
    â€œNo, it wasn’t like that at all. It’s hard to get to know everybody in a huge neighborhood. And you weren’t ugly at all. If anything I was intimidated by your beauty, but now I can’t get enough of you.”
    Erin smiled. “All right, you redeemed yourself nicely.” She sighed. “It was so much fun back then. I miss the old neighborhood. I remember how we used to have stores on almost every corner. Back then the corner stores were black owned.”
    â€œThat was way back when they had real penny candy. Then all of a sudden the black store owners sold their businesses to the Koreans. I have to admit that some of the Korean store owners kept their shelves stocked a lot better than some of the black store owners.”
    â€œThat’s true. I hated when they ran out of any of my favorites.” Erin looked like she was really into their conversation. “I used to love eating pumpkin seeds, Jolly Ranchers and Now & Later candy.”
    â€œYeah. How about eating a bag of Utz Bar-B-Q flavored potato chips with a pack of butterscotch Tastykake Krimpets and